Two #2
“Barbaric,” Kysa said flatly. “And pointless. Training an animal for battle is one thing. Exploiting their pain for wealth
is the mark of a coward, not a warrior.”
“Well, I never bet on those fights,” Halek said with a shrug. “I’m just saying I feel a bit like those weasels now. Hoping
there’ll be a dead chicken in the center of the maze. Or, in this case, a city.”
The Maze went on, winding canyons feeding into narrow, claustrophobic crevices. More than once, Raithe paused at an intersection,
looked back at the rock beetles, then took us in another direction. Namaia sank lower in the sky, and the shadows grew longer,
darkness falling over the lowest parts of the Maze.
As we were pushing our way through a corridor of waist-high weeds, Halek suddenly let out a yelp and pitched forward. He vanished into the long grass, making me gasp and rush over to where he’d been.
“Halek, are you all right?”
“Yep.” He popped up, grimacing and brushing at his clothes. His golden hair was full of grass and seeds. “I’m fine, I just . . .
tripped over something, I think. What is that?”
He nudged something in the grass with his foot, and it made a strange clinking sound as it turned over in the weeds. Frowning,
I bent down to peer at it more closely, and my stomach clenched.
A bleached skull grinned sightlessly up at me from the tangle of long grass, and I straightened quickly.
Halek peeked over my shoulder, and his brows shot up. “Oh, it’s a skeleton, how lovely. That’s something you want to see when
wandering a dangerous labyrinth with vicious beasts roaming around.”
By this time, Kysa and Raithe had turned back as well and gathered with us around the clump of weeds. Kysa shoved the end
of her spear into the skull’s eye socket and pulled it out of the grass, revealing half a rib cage with a single dangling
arm attached. Many of the ribs were cracked and broken, as if the chest had been caved in by some tremendous force. The lower
part of the skeleton was missing completely.
“I thought these routes were supposed to be relatively safe,” Kysa said, glancing at Raithe, who was observing the skeleton grimly. “This was not a clean death. Whoever this was, something mauled him.”
“They are usually safe,” Raithe said. “At least, the well-traveled routes are. But as I said, many creatures wander the Maze,
and it’s not impossible for them to find their way here. Let’s hope this is an isolated incident.”
“Who do you think this was?” Halek wondered, watching as Kysa almost reverently lowered the skeleton to the ground and let
it slide off her spear. “Another iylvahn?”
Raithe shook his head. “The bone structure around the jaw and cheekbones is wrong,” he said. “I would say this was a human.”
Something rustled in the long grass, and the hairs on my arms stood up. The grass parted, and a ripple of movement crept up
behind the iylvahn.
I drew in a horrified breath. “Raithe, behind you!”
The iylvahn spun away as something exploded from the grass and flew toward him. I caught a glimpse of a long, lean body, hooked
claws, and a gaping, tooth-filled maw, as the creature missed Raithe by a hair’s breadth and landed on a rock several feet
away.
My gut clenched. I’d first thought the creature was some sort of huge feline, like the great sand cats that prowled the dunes outside Kovass.
But the monster facing us had a hairless body with pale, almost human skin.
A series of chitinous barbs ran down its spine from its head to the tip of a long, whiplike tail.
Its face had no ears or eyes, just a gaping maw filled with thin, needlelike fangs.
But the most horrible thing about it was its front paws, which were shaped like bony human hands, the fingernails digging into the stone as it whirled around.
Halek let out a yelp. “What in the name of everything ugly is that?”
At the sound of Halek’s voice, the thing jerked its head and sprang forward. It moved more like an insect than a mammal, scuttling
from side to side, and it was terrifyingly quick, its body a pale blur over the ground. Halek threw himself aside, hitting
the ground and rolling to his feet, but the monster spun in the space of a blink and was already on him.
Suddenly it leaped back with a hiss, as Raithe’s sword cut through the space where it had been. Raithe pressed forward, slashing
viciously with his blade, but the monster dodged every blow before it spun and vanished into the tall grass.
I rushed to Halek, grabbing his wrist to pull him upright. He was breathing hard, and blood seeped down his arm from the monster’s
claws, but he didn’t seem seriously injured. “Weaver’s blessing, that thing was fast,” he panted, gazing around with wide
blue eyes. “I just blinked, and it was right on top of me.”
“Stay alert,” Raithe said, quickly returning to us. “It’s not over. These creatures don’t give up the hunt. It will come for
us again, so be ready.”
I drew my daggers as Rhyne lumbered over with Kysa on his back, her spear in hand. “What was that thing?” I asked, glancing
at the iylvahn.
He met my gaze briefly, then returned to scanning the long grass. “It’s called a Sathis hound,” he replied. “Originally, they were used by the kings in the War of the Kings. Don’t let your guard down. They’re ambush predators, and they usually hunt in—”
With a scream, the creature lunged out of the long grass. I tensed, but just as it got within pouncing range, it veered aside
and vanished into the weeds again. I had a split second to process this before spinning to face another monster in mid-lunge,
jaws gaping as it came at me.
Instinctively, I threw my arm up, feeling a blaze of agony as those jaws closed on it. It felt like hundreds of needles piercing
my skin. The force of the pounce drove us both to the ground, and at the same time, I plunged my dagger into the monster as
hard as I could, sinking the blade into the humanlike flesh.
The monster shrieked and leaped backward, springing out of reach. Blood streamed down its side, vividly red against its pale
skin. It snarled and whirled to dart back into the weeds, but a spear flashed through the air, striking the monster through
the ribs just as it reached the long grass. It collapsed with a strangled hiss, thrashed for a moment, and then was still.
Raithe was at my side in an instant, fingers closing over my uninjured arm, holding me still as I tried to get up. “Stay down,”
he whispered as I looked up at him. But his gaze wasn’t on me; it was distant and staring at nothing, as if he was concentrating
on hearing something rather than seeing it.
Then he whirled back, and I saw the monster in midair, teeth bared as it flew straight at him.
This time, Raithe’s sword flashed out and met the creature head on.
A hot spray of blood splashed my face as the kahjai’s blade beheaded the monster and sent its skull flying into the cliff wall.
The headless body continued through space until it collapsed to the ground, kicking and thrashing, and finally went still. I relaxed, breathing a sigh of relief.
And that’s when the third and fourth monsters attacked.
I caught the movement from the corner of my eye almost too late. Two of them, each darting in from one side. I tensed, and
saw the others turn to face the ambushers, raising their weapons as the monsters closed in.
Suddenly, the creatures stopped. Just . . . froze, a lunge away in the grass. Their eyeless heads rose, as if sensing something
on the wind. The rest of us went motionless as well.
In an eyeblink, both creatures spun and leaped back into the weeds. It happened so fast, I barely caught it; one moment the
creatures were there, the next, they had simply blinked from existence. A whisper of a breeze hissed through the stalks as
the pale bodies flashed out of sight, and then everything fell eerily silent.
A tremor went through the ground, and several rocks came loose from a cliff face, plinking down the stone walls. A new sound
began filtering through the canyons, faint clicking and scraping, like thousands of knives tapping against the stones.
“We need to move.” Kysa’s voice, low and tense, broke through the stillness. At her back, Rhyne and Ratuk were huffing and
shaking their heads. “Quickly.”
“Sparrow.” Raithe knelt beside me. His gaze flickered to my arm, alarm crossing his face. I didn’t want to look down, fearing
it would hurt even more if I did. “Can you walk? We’ll have to bind that later, but right now we need to go.”
My stomach turned over. Grabbing Raithe’s arm, I pulled myself upright, clenching my jaw around a gasp of pain.
“Call Ratuk,” the iylvahn said, holding me on my feet as a wave of dizziness made my head swim. “The rules will have to be
broken this once. We’re flying out of here.”
“Ratuk,” I panted, and the rock beetle lumbered toward me. I scrabbled gracelessly onto his back, gritting my teeth as my
arm screamed in agony with the motion. Raithe settled behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, as Kysa leaped into Rhyne’s
saddle and pulled Halek up behind her. The clicking, scraping sound was almost upon us now, making my skin crawl and sending
chills up my spine. With all the echoes, it was hard to tell where the noise was coming from, but it sounded like it was on
the other side of the canyon wall.
“Get us out of here, Sparrow,” Raithe whispered behind me, and the genuine fear in his voice chilled my blood.
“Up, Ratuk!” I called, and the beetle’s wings opened. With a buzz, we rose into the air and climbed toward the open sky.
As we reached the top of the canyon wall, an enormous, monstrous skull appeared from the other side and followed us into the
air. I jerked, causing Ratuk to veer sideways sharply, as something huge and horrific rose like a snake alongside us.