Page 25 of The Book that Broke the World

Amazingly, although they flinched like prey, they didn’t flee before him. “Run!” He clapped his hands.

“What’s this?” Clovis asked in disgust. She had let Kerrol slide to the ground and had come to join Evar, sword drawn. The horde of skeer who had probably reached the base of the plateau by now were the biggest threat, but Clovis would leave the humans just as dead if they gave her any excuse.

“Leave them be,” Evar said. “We need to keep going. Maybe they’ll slow the skeer down, or fill their bellies, or something...”

Clovis shook her mane. “We wouldn’t get far even without Kerrol. And with him...” She shrugged and advanced on the humans. Some of them retreated but not far. They arrayed themselves behind the tallest of their number, a skinny male who barely reached Clovis’s shoulder.

Livira might be dead, or she might be a million miles and a million years away, but either way Evar felt in that moment that she was standing before him, staring up at him with eyes that neither implored nor judged but very much wanted him to do better. “Don’t kill them, Clo.”

“I’m not leaving until I understand why they’re still here and why they set that light.” She leaned in towards the leader and sniffed. “Besides, I know this one.”

“You do not!”

“Yes, I do. I never forget an enemy. This one’s the friend of your sabber. Probably her old mate.”

“He’s not!” But as Evar came closer he could see that she was right. The human had hair on its face now, a dark bush of it around the mouth and chin, but it was the same male that had tended the wound Clovis had given Livira. “Arpix,” Evar gasped, amazed. “The lost friend!”

“I hate to break up the reunion.” Kerrol limped up beside Clovis, clutching his wounded shoulder. There was a lot of blood. “But we have more company.”

Evar spun back towards the mountains and sure enough a dozen skeer had climbed into view, with many more clambering up behind them. These ones were somewhere between the fliers and the warriors in build. Long-legged, not as heavy as the warriors, not as fragile as the winged ones. He glanced back at Arpix. “Why aren’t you running?”

“Would there be any point?” Kerrol asked. “By the looks of them I could probably outdistance the lot of them even now.”

Clovis readied her sword, glancing between the humans and the skeer. “They’re more scared of me than of the bugs. That doesn’t make sense.”

The skeer, perhaps numbering forty or fifty now, came forward with more caution than three canith and ten humans warranted. Moreover, their advance slowed. Still almost a hundred yards off, they stopped and spread out in a straightish line, prowling, long limbs trembling, probing the ground with their white spikes.

“They can’t, or won’t, advance,” Kerrol said. “Something’s stopping them. I don’t think they’re happy about it. As far as skeer can be happy or sad about anything. Their emotions are said to manifest at a more collective level. I read once—”

“I don’t care.” Clovis pushed past him, scowling at the insectoids. “They can’t come in. There’s an invisible wall. That’s why this Arpix and his pack are still here.”

Clovis shot out a hand and took Arpix by the neck, lifting him to his toes. “What’s going on here? I want whatever’s doing this!”

“Clovis! Stop! It’s why they lit their fire,” Evar shouted. He rounded on her, reaching for the human. “They brought us here to save us.”

Clovis swung Arpix out of Evar’s reach, setting her back to her brother. “Whatever it is they’ve got, it’s a weapon and I want it.”

“Madam,” Arpix choked out past her grip. “Unhand me!”

And Clovis, probably shocked at being addressed in a passable version of her own language, released him.

“You can understand us?” Evar hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t thought many humans knew their tongue, but Arpix seemed to speak it better than Livira had.

Clovis shook off her own surprise. “Good. Now I know that, I also know I can torture you until you tell me where the weapon is.”

“Ah.” Arpix released a long sigh. “The dubious benefits of educating oneself.”

Often it is more important that someone leads than that they are a good leader or possess even a basic sense of direction.

The Immoral Compass, by Marquee D. Sad

CHAPTER 13

Livira

You left without me!” Livira aimed her accusation at Malar’s back. The soldier stood with one hand on the trunk of the nearest tree and the other on his sword hilt, staring down the row of portals.

“I did.” Malar didn’t look her way. “I was sick of being a ghost. At least now I can touch something.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it was time to act. Too much talking just tangles everything up.”

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