Page 72 of The Endless War

Keris lashed out wildly, the tip of his blade scoring the man’s arm, but he didn’t seem to feel it. The soldier collided with him, both of them falling on a carpet of bodies, Keris’s sword spinning out ofhis hand. “Kill the rat!” the man shrieked, swiping at him with a knife.

The tip slammed into the ground next to Keris’s ear, and he caught the man’s wrist, grappling with him.

They rolled over bodies and rocks, and then Keris’s hand found a knife.

He slammed the tip into the soldier’s face, the man’s scream deafening him, but then another body fell across Keris’s shoulders, pinning him as the man beneath him screamed, “My eye! My eye!”

Panic surged, blood soaking his clothes, getting in his mouth. So many screams, so much noise, and he had no idea where anyone was.

Had no idea where Zarrah was.

Keris heaved upward, rolling the corpse off his back and batting away the dying man’s hands. Someone dove at him, and he lifted his blade, the tip sinking into flesh and fresh screams rattling his skull.

A blade whistled down in front of his face, and he fell backward, landing on his ass.

Fight,he screamed at himself.Get up.

But all he could do was sit in the pile of blood and bodies of men that he’d killed, the battle a swirl of shapes and shadows around him.

Where is she?

“Keris!” Daria’s voice jerked him back into the moment, and then the rebel’s face was in front of him. “Are you hurt?”

Was he?His eyes skipped over the bodies of his victims. How many? How many lives had he snuffed out in the space of a few moments to save himself?

“Get up!”

He allowed Daria to drag him upward, following as she carved through anyone who stepped in her path, somehow knowing where to go in the darkness and chaos.

Out of the turmoil, Aren appeared. “Get across! We need to cut the ropes so they can’t pursue!”

Where is she?His lips felt numb, incapable of speaking, but he must have gotten the words out because Aren shook his head. “I don’t know, but there’s no more time. We’re going to lose this fight.”

He couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave her.

Ripping out of Daria’s grip, he screamed, “Zarrah! Zarrah!”

“She’s on the other side!” Hands grabbed his arms, and he fought against them. “Keris, it’s Daria! It’s Daria! Zarrah is across the bridge!”

His arms fell slack at his sides, and he turned in a circle, tasting blood. Spitting, he wiped his sleeve across his mouth, but it was soaked with more of the same. He was drenched in it.

“Go! Go!” Aren shouted.

Hands pulled on the front of his shirt, hauling him onto the bridge. The ropes burned his palms as he clung to them for balance, his toes catching on the boards, threatening to spill him into the water that rushed below.

“Cut the ropes!”

“Arrows! They’re shooting! Run!”

He was running, a female hand gripping his own tightly as they stumbled through the blackness. But instead of fleeing the screams, instead of leaving them behind, the piercing wails grew louder. Keris jerked his hand free, stopping to press his palms to his ears, only to cringe because they were sticky with blood.

Where is she?

He turned in a circle, searching the shadows, his head full of fog.

Then an arm slung around his shoulder, tugging him forward. “Night battles are ugly,” Aren said, tone as light as though they were abandoning a rowdy tavern for a better location. “But the darkness is going to give us the cover we need to get to the other side of it. Smart thinking getting Bermin to climb down, by the way. I’m convinced you could talk your way into a deal with the devil and then back out of it again.”

“He’s still alive.”

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