1. Leah #3
No, what I want is the battle axe clutched in the demon’s clawed fingers.
I stare at the glinting edge of the blade and the fine detailing on the handle complete with sets of runes.
The thing reeks of power. Even the Pax residents with superstitions about demons might be willing to overlook their qualms to possess such magic.
I could probably get fifty, maybe even seventy strats for it. About three months’ wages, and nearly a quarter what it costs for one counterfeit guild license. Then maybe by the end of this year, Evie and I could leave home for good.
I glance behind me, but the nearest scavenger is still a way off—an older woman named Fia who I sometimes swap pleasantries with.
Not today. No one but me has seen the body yet.
I try to move quickly without attracting the rest of them like flies to shit, lowering myself into the crater and crawling over to the body.
I suppress a shudder as I reach out toward the demon’s rigid fingers.
Even after three years, I’m still not used to being this close to death.
But as I try to tug the axe loose, I find it’s still locked in her grip.
In the end, I have to peel the long, skeletal fingers back one by one, until I can lift the axe free.
The demon’s eyes fly open, and a screech of agony rakes across my eardrums.
I jump backward, falling on my ass, but manage to keep hold of the axe. The demon—the only mostly dead demon—arches her back up from the earth, her dark-red eyes turning to me as she screams words I can’t understand in the demon tongue.
Holy aether, she has a lot of teeth. I throw myself toward the edge of the crater, tossing the axe over it and seizing the lip to scramble up, but an iron grip catches my ankle, claws digging into my flesh as the demon pulls me back toward her.
I hear footsteps above us.
“Help!” I scream and look up to see Oxel staring down at me, eyes wide. I shout his name, at the same time frantically trying to kick myself free from the raving demon as I shove my hand into my satchel.
Oxel’s eyes fall on the axe I left on the lip of the crater.
“Don’t you dare!” I shout, already reading the decision on his ugly face.
“Sorry, Radley,” he says with a shrug. “But if you want to play the game, you have to pay the price. You know that.” He bends, snatching up the axe before turning away and disappearing from view.
That bastard. I hope a demon chews his face off.
Mind you, I seem to be in line for that fate right now.
I grunt as my hand closes around the knife I keep in my satchel, pulling it out before I’m dragged into biting distance of the demon’s fangs.
She’s terrifyingly strong, but the blood is actively dripping from her mouth now, slurring whatever Cyrax words she’s muttering.
She’s definitely dying; I’m just pretty sure she’s trying to take me with her.
I twist my arm over and stab out at the first thing I can reach, slashing at her forearm. For just a second, her grip loosens, her eyes going glassy with pain. I seize the opportunity, pulling my leg back and then kicking down hard. Her fingers release me as her shout turns into a gargling cough.
Heart in my mouth, I haul myself up and out of the crater. Only then do I throw a glance backward. She’s not following me. Instead, the demon is lying twitching at the base of the crater, chest heaving. She’s suffocating on her own blood.
I stare around me, quickly identifying the retreating figure of Oxel, the axe in his hand. Without pausing, I stow my knife back in my satchel and pull my bow from my back, nocking an arrow and setting my sights on the skinny scavenger.
I could shoot him now squarely in the back, or the base of his neck. He’d be dead in an instant.
Why not? He left me for dead, and I know he’d do it again. He’s a danger to every scavenger who crosses his path.
I tighten the string of my bow, drawing it back toward my cheek, but something makes me glance down at the demon again.
She’s still now, eyes open but lifeless.
I pause on the deep crimson of her irises, and a sound echoes in my ears, conjured up from a memory: a scream—my own, and a pool of rapidly spreading blood—someone else’s.
Bile rises in my throat. I fight to swallow it back down.
Then I look back up toward Oxel and release my arrow.
It strikes the scavenger in the shoulder, far away from any vital organs. Still, he stumbles, dropping the axe and falling to his knees. He’s groaning and clutching his shoulder when I sprint up behind him.
“Get a medicine woman to look at that when you get back to the city, and you’ll be fine,” I say as I snag the axe up off the ground. “After a few months, anyway.”
Oxel just releases a stream of ugly names that would make even Hodges blush.
“What’s the matter, Oxel?” I call back to him as I start jogging toward the riverbank, stowing the axe in my satchel. “Aren’t you enjoying the game anymore?”
My anger is still as taut as the string of my bow, but I try to swallow the rage down. It won’t do me any good. Besides, Oxel was right. Every prize, every piece of coin, has a price, whether it’s blood or sweat or fear.
And I’ll pay it all if it means buying my freedom.