Page 26 of Fifth
Locus moved, keeping the Ashmaw focused on him, drawing it into spitting at a run so it missed or wasted. Hannah broke the pools with bone and stone as fast as they formed. Short flares lit her face in angry orange, then died. She didn’t flinch after the second one. She learned the timing, hit the spread before it clung.
“Good,” he called, and this time she didn’t tell him not to sayit.
The Bonewing tried one last climb, one wing guttering, one hook dragging chain. It couldn’t get clean air. It fell in a hideous arc that ended with a wet slap and a final shudder. The torches threw its shadow across the fence in a wide black cross. Men booed or cheered according toloss.
The Ashmaw spat and found nothing to ignite. It spat again, thinner now, threads rather than clots. The threads cooled before they kissed dirt. It hissed, asound like steam trapped in stone.
“Done,” Locus said. He steppedin.
The Ashmaw lifted its head and fanned its mandibles to make itself large. He didn’t see large. He saw joints. He saw the hinge where the lower plates met, the soft seam behind the second row of teeth. He went low, slid under the mandibles, and drove a shard of Bonewing hook up into that seam. The shard punched through cartilage and into wet dark. The Ashmaw convulsed. Resin spilled and ran back over its own throat. It choked on its own weapon, body sawing in tight arcs until something inside tore free with a sound like a belt snapping.
It slumped. Resin pooled and cooled under its head. It smoked thinly.
Silence fell hard. Then the preserve exploded with sound. Men who had bet against them cursed until they ran out of curses. Others shouted his name like it tasted good to them. Drones floated close for the bloodshot view of a man and a woman still breathing.
Hannah stood with the bone shard in her hand and blood on her thigh, breathing hard, eyes blazing. He went to her and took her wrist and pressed his mouth to the inside of it once, hot and brief. Not a kiss, not a claim, avow laid on a pulse. She jerked in shock, then stared at him like he had torn out thesky.
“Do not die,” hesaid.
“I wasn’t planning on it.” Her voice failed brave and came back fierce. “You either.”
“Agreed.” He let her go before his body insisted onmore.
The headman’s voice rolled across the preserve, oily and triumphant. “Look at that, boys. Not even our best could chew them. But beasts are not men. Let us see if the alien bleeds the same when the teeth come on two legs.”
Hannah’s fingers found his again. They weren’t gentle. She looked up at him, pupils wide, mouth set, fear skating through her voice. “We’re going to have to face men next.”
He turned his head just enough for her to see his eyes. The torches painted the amethyst a hard light. “Then we will kill men.”
Chapter 8
SILENCE FOLLOWEDLocus like a shadow that refused to lift. The ground behind was a wrecked arena of twisted limbs and torn hide, the last heat of life bleeding into trampledsoil.
Ash clung to the air and the scent of acid still bit the back of his throat. Hannah kept pace beside him, shoulders stiff, mouth set in a line that told him she would rather break than show how close she had come toit.
He wouldn’t let her break. Not here. Not with everyone watching.
Above them, adrone whirred into position. The headman’s voice crackled through its speaker, harsh and mocking, carrying over the field of corpses. “You have earned a respite, alien. Fresh water flows at a nearby stream. For this night, no more predators will be loosed. You fought well enough to deserve both. Enjoy it while you can. Tomorrow, the game changes.” The drone hovered a moment longer, then veered away, its hum fading back into the preserve.
Hannah exhaled cautiously, watching the machine disappear. “Do we trust him?” she asked, doubt thick in hertone.
Locus shook his head once. “Not trust. Calculation. He would not poison the water. He earns nothing if we die outside the trial.”
She considered that, lips pressing together. “So he needs us alive long enough for the wagers. For the real show.”
“Affirmative,” Locus said. His gaze swept the tree line before returning to her. “Therefore, the water we find is safe tonight. His profit lies in seeing us bleed when the crowd can watch and place bets.”
Hannah’s laugh came short and humorless. “Wonderful. Our lives are worth more to him if he drags it out. That’s the only reason we’re breathing.”
“It is enough,” he answered. “Enough to drink. Enough to live one more night.”
Locus crouched by one of the Skarrin, the only beast whose flesh wouldn’t poison her. The bone knife he’d just finished fit his palm like a remembered oath. He cut with efficiency born of training and need. Hide parted. Steam lifted in tight curls. Muscle reluctantly gave beneath the blade. He separated clean strips and wrapped them in broad leaves, tying each with sinew he braided without thinking. He didn’t rush. He didn’t waste. He didn’t allow his hands to pause.
“You’re really doing that?” Hannah asked. Her voice was uneven from too little water and too much shouting during their battles.
“I am.” He lifted the next parcel and set it with the others. “You will eat.”
She tried for humor and hit tired instead. “Romantic.”
