Page 76 of Scorched Earth

“We need to get down.” Killian alone seemed unrattled by their near death, his eyes fixed upward. “More of them are getting ready to jump.”

No sooner did he say the words did deimos shrieks cut the air. Leather wings appeared overhead, black-clad corrupted riding on their backs.

“I’ll get us down,” Baird muttered. “You keep them off us.”

The bucket resumed its descent, Baird’s jaw clenched as he eased the group toward the ground, which was still two hundred feet away. The wind had increased in violence, the bucket now swinging side to side, and Malahi said, “Not to add to our problem, but is that a sandstorm?”

The storm to the south had intensified, now a wall of sand rising higher than the escarpment itself.

“Baird, can you do something about that?” Agrippa demanded, nocking an arrow in his bow.

“I need my hands,” the giant answered between his teeth. “Need to be able to concentrate.”

“It will blow the deimos off of us!” Killian shouted over the rising wind. “Give us a chance to escape into the dunes!”

“We aren’t equipped to survive a storm like this!” Agrippa loosed the arrow, and the deimos that had been diving toward them twisted away. “The sand will strip flesh from bone if we don’t find cover!”

Yet even if they made it to the bottom, there was no cover to be had. Only rocks and sand and dry brush. They didn’t even have a tent, having been forced to abandon most of their equipment when they left the horses.

The bucket slammed against the rock face, sending it spinning, and a deimos tucked its wings into a dive.

Agrippa tried to shoot it, but his arrow went wide even as the rider climbed on top the saddle, eyes like voids ringed with flame.

“She’s going to jump,” Agrippa warned, and then the corrupted was leaping toward them. She caught hold of the rope above, then dropped, hands reaching.

Only for Killian’s blade to slice one of the woman’s hands from her wrists.

“Get down!” Agrippa flung himself on top of Malahi, Killian’s blade whistling over his head as he battled the corrupted, blood spraying from her severed wrist.

Lydia dropped, trying to give him space, but it was a tangle of legs and limbs, Baird desperately trying to lower them while Killian fought to keep the woman’s other deadly hand away from them.

Agrippa pulled a knife and stabbed the woman in the kidney, but she only shrieked and yanked it free, using it to slash at Killian.

He blocked the blow, then dropped his sword, the bucket swaying wildly as he grabbed hold of the woman and tossed her over the edge.

The corrupted’s scream was lost to the howl of the wind, but Lydia didn’t have time to look to see if she’d survived, because another corrupted leapt into the bucket.

Killian punched the man in the face, but rather than trying to fight him, the corrupted turned and plunged his knife into Baird’s back.

The giant screamed, barely keeping his grip on the rope. Killian stabbed the corrupted repeatedly, and then Agrippa caught hold of the man’s legs and heaved him over the edge.

“Lydia, help Baird!” Malahi cried. “He needs you!”

It was all too easy to rise, pushing past Agrippa to place her hands on Baird’s arm. Except rather than life flowing from her to him, Lydia wanted to take everything that he had left. To consume the life of one of the god-marked and erase the weakness within herself. “She’s going to turn!” Agrippa shouted, but then Killian was in her face. “You can do it. You can save us all.”

A deimos slammed against the bucket, its teeth snapping, forcing Killian to turn to fight.

Baird was shaking, his eyes fixed on hers, and the fear in themmade Lydia sick. The wind was full of grit, stinging her eyes and making her skin burn, a mere suggestion of the violence that would soon descend upon them.

Except that wouldn’t matter if they splattered against the ground.

You can do this.

Reaching for the hilt of the knife, she yanked it out and then flooded the giant with all the life she had to give. The bucket spun round and round, Agrippa and Killian banging into her as they fought back deimos and corrupted. Lydia’s heart fluttered in her chest.

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. Could only feel herself falling… falling, then nothing at all.

29KILLIAN