Page 185 of Bloodguard

Squaring my shoulders, I position myself in front of the mangled door. “Get to the last crate!” I yell.

I don’t know where the others are or if they can even hear me amidst the chaos. More and more crates are up in flames and splintering into shards. Chunks of burning wood litter the sand, shrinking the open space inside the circle.

Last one, I tell myself. This last crate and then that damned colt.

“Leith, she’s coming,” Pega calls out, coughing from all the smoke. “She knows where you are.Run.”

chapter 68

Leith

I runandleap, ignoring the agony of my mounting injuries. I break open the first lock on the splintering crate. The force I must use to break the next causes me to lose my balance, and I land flat on my face. I spit out sand, looking up as three sets of long claws drag down the mostly broken door. They hover over my ass just as the colt rounds the curve.

Really?

The saws shoot up in front of my face. The only thing that saves me is that they don’t immediately rotate. Without meaning to, the engineer’s design affords me time to roll out of range before they engage. The colt races away, as freaked out by those things as I am.

I scramble upward, taking aim at the bottom lock.

My remaining strength only enables me to bend the lock. I assume a better position, but before I can act, I’m thrown out of the way when a giant lizard with three sets of legs slams its heavy body against the door.

I’m tossed toward the fire wall, because why not? I throw out a hand, catching the corner of the lizard’s crate and slowing just enough to prevent my impending death by fire. As I struggle to rise, the lizard drags herself out, tasting the air with a black forked tongue, watching the spinning saws appear and roll past.

What the hell? Am I the only thing left these discs of death want to shred?Random, my ass.

I push up on the axe and take in the scene. Talk about the Erth in flames. Fire surrounds the ring, and smoke billows upward, discoloring the clouds. Blades—sharpblades—appear from nowhere and come at me from all directions. And bonus, two deadly monsters are eyeing me as their next meal.

The colt races toward me but stops when she notices the lizard. I don’t know if she’s trying to be cute, but she scratches lightly at the sand with her hoof. And then she charges, laughing maniacally. There’s that monstrous, unhinged child I know.

The lizard tilts her head from side to side with curiosity. I’m certain she’s done for until, at the very last moment, she shoots forward and takes a chunk out of the colt’s side.

Yes!

The shrill whinny makes my ears ring. She whips her head left and right, barely grazing the lizard, whose only concern is taking another bite. And she does, throwing the colt into survival mode.

I leave them to it and search for the others.

“Gunther. Pega. Luther!” I call out. There’s one remaining crate. I can only hope they made it there.

My legs barely work, and my vision is blurry, eyes stinging from the terrible flames. Something pokes out of the sand between the first crate that exploded and the other still burning beside it. When it doesn’t come at me, I keep moving.

Until I reach the space between where the next pair of crates once stood and realize what it was.

I race back to it, unable to believe my luck.

Between the explosion and the gust of air created by the fires, there’s no more camouflaging this large device. I step carefully around the spears. It’s easy. They’re visible now. As are the springs used to launch them.

I call out again to the others.

No one answers. The only sounds that cut through the roaring fire and the next explosion are pained and hissing moans.

Fuck my life. I’ve never heard a lizard make any noise. I didn’t really think they could. But if I had to imagine what one would sound like dying, it would sound exactly like this.

I turn around. I don’t curse this time. To be honest, I think I’m all out. The colt trots toward me with half the lizard’s body dangling from one horn and the other half on the other.

That buzzing resumes just ahead.

Well, I’ve had enough.

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