Page 23 of Fifth
Chapter 7
THE GATESshrieked open again.
Iron rasped against iron, asound that went through bone as much as ear. The crowd roared in reply, stamping their feet, their voices swelling into a chant that shook the air above the preserve. Torches flared. Drones dipped low, lenses glittering like red insect eyes, hungry to drink in every drop offear.
Predators.
The word slid through Locus like a blade laid flat. Expected, prepared for, still unwelcome. The stench reached him first. Hot musk, copper, rot. And a sting of something that didn’t belong to Earth at all, asulfur note that burned the back of the throat.
Hannah stiffened at his side. She had her chin lifted, defiance like a crown on her small, trembling body. Pride couldn’t hide her pulse. Each beat echoed in the fine bones of her wrist where his hand closed to steady, not to claim. Her breath came sharp, then sharper, but didn’t break.
The headman’s voice boomed through the drones, too pleased with its own echo. “Trial Two. Beasts of fang and claw. The drones are showing you what the fighters cannot yet see. Place your bets, boys, and watch the alien bleed even more.”
The roar swelled. Men laughed. Coins clinked. Atablet bleated odds. Drones drifted in with a wasp hum for the close shot of a woman about to die and the creature who refused to let it happen.
A low chitter rolled out of thedark.
Yellow-green eyes winked into being, not one pair but many. The bodies that followed were rangy and wired with tendon under slick hides the color of wet stone. Spines ridged their backs. Each muzzle held a hinge of secondary teeth that clicked as they breathed.
Skarrin.
Pack hunters from the arid moons of Khor. Fast, tireless, clever. They harried a target to exhaustion, then closed with a hundred small cuts. Locus had seen Skarrin bury an armored scout in minutes when panic broke a line. He had also seen them turn and devour an injured alpha of their pack for the heat of its blood.
Good. He could usethat.
A distant clank answered the pack. The ground gave a small shrug beneath Locus’s bare feet. Chains dragged. Heavy breath steamed.
A Dravox stepped into the light.
It was massive, humped at the shoulders, bone plates pushing through scarred hide like broken knuckles. Aridge of keratin spines rose along its back. One small eye was milk white,the other a feral ember. Its foreclaws were sickle long, capped in matte black like volcanic glass. Rings of old iron hung from its forelegs, each ring scored by teeth from whatever had been fed to it to keep itmean.
The crowd adored the Dravox. Their joy tasted like spoiledmeat.
Hannah’s nails bit into his forearm. Atremor raced through her skin. He didn’t look at her. He looked at the field, the angles of fence and shadow, the crease of the ground where something had scorched it earlier, the thin film that glistened there like tar.Vexx. He knew what that meant.
The air changed once more. Sure enough, acry split the night so fine it carved at the nerves. Drones jerked. Men cursed and clapped hands toears.
Bonewing.
It came from above, vast and pallid. Skin like thin marble, veined in black, stretched between finger bones as long as spears. The head had no eyes, only a blunt wedge that flared when it shrieked. Hooked wing-edges gleamed like sickles. The sound mapped everything, then turned the map into a weapon.
Hannah staggered into him, her palms flying to her ears. Her cheek struck his chest. Heat hit him, shocking and bright. He caged her with one arm, awall against herback.
“Stand,” he said, voice flat. “Breathe.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Breathe.”
She fought for it and won. His mouth almost curved. Not pride. Recognition. Awoman who refused to break was a weapon in the right hands.
The last scent arrived with a hiss that burned the air itself.
Ashmaw.
It slunk from the shadows, an insectile horror on six crooked limbs, mottled exterior, joints oozing a viscous sheen that smoked where it touched dirt. Its jaws unhinged sideways, then sideways again, opening to show a wet black cavity lined with rows of teeth too small and too many. Aclot of resin gathered on its tongue. It hawked. The clot struck the ground and burned with corrugated flame before collapsing into powdery ash that still smoked.
“Four kinds,” Hannah whispered, horror thin as glass. “They’re not even from here.”
