Page 2 of Tharn’s Hunt (Barbarians of the Dust #2)

IS IT TOO LATE TO CALL FOR BACKUP?

JACQUI

M y eyes snap open at a sound.

Justine?

No…no…not Justine.

A dry, clicking sound slices through the night. It’s not the wind. It’s not a rockslide. It's rhythmic. Chitinous.

I freeze, every muscle screaming in protest as I push myself up into a crouch. My heart hammers against my ribs as I clutch the jagged piece of metal Mikaela had ripped from the bus for me, her words echoing in my head: "This is a suicide mission, Jacqui."

For a few long moments, nothing happens.

No sound. No movement. Then, ahead, a flicker of movement in the pitch-black.

A shape detaches itself from the deeper shadows.

I squint, but there’s barely enough light to see my own hand.

Two greenish-yellow pinpricks of light blink open, like a cat’s eyes catching a flashlight beam. Then they’re gone.

I imagined it. My brain is fried. In all our time here, we’ve seen nothing. It's all just sand and rock.

But then the clicking sound returns, closer now. And not from one source. There are multiple. Like echoes on stone.

Oh.

Oh shit.

Run .

My legs move before my brain catches up, powered by sheer panic and whatever scraps of energy I have left.

My pack slams against my hip as I stumble forward, nearly tripping over my own feet.

The screech that follows freezes my blood.

It’s a dry, bone-deep sound that vibrates through my ribs, like metal scraping against raw nerve endings.

I don’t look back. Can’t. My lungs burn, my legs scream, but I push harder, ignoring the dizziness threatening to consume my vision.

Ahead looms a darker mass against the night sky—a small rock formation. Higher ground. A chance.

I scramble toward it, tripping, falling, and scrambling to my feet again. Behind me, the clicking gets louder, closer. A hungry crescendo.

When my hands finally connect with solid stone, the impact almost sends me backward. I grip it like a lifeline, swallowing down nausea as I haul myself up.

“Come on. Come on!”

Pain explodes in my calf. Something sharp rakes across my leg, tearing into skin. I scream, nearly losing my grip.

No .

My leg is on fire, hot blood quickly soaking into my boot. But I can’t stop. If I stop, I’m dead.

I climb blindly, hands scrambling for purchase on the jagged stone. Below, the creatures circle like sharks, their glowing eyes and clicking sounds sending chills down my spine.

I press myself against the rock face, willing my heart to quiet, praying they can’t climb.

Universe: Bitch, do I look like I give out favors?

Claws scrape against stone as the first one begins its ascent.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I sob, scrambling higher.

The creature gains on me, its breathing a wet, hungry rasp. I scramble higher, blindly reaching out when my hand closes around a rock, loose in its position in the striated stone. Without thinking, I wrench it free and hurl it down.

A satisfying thunk followed by an outraged shriek tells me I’ve hit my mark. The creature tumbles back to the ground, buying me precious seconds.

That’s when my hand finally slaps against a wide, flat surface.

A ledge.I haul my screaming body onto it, pressing my back against the cliff face, chest heaving.

Pain sears up my leg as I kick out at another ascending creature, sending a shower of pebbles down.

It retreats, but I know it’s only temporary.

“Back off, you fuckers ,” I growl, searching along the ledge for another loose rock. “I’m 90% gristle, anyway.”

Fuck.

Dawn feels like a century away.

I spend the night in a hellish game of King of the Mountain, keeping the creatures at bay with some choice words and desperate kicks. By the time the first hint of light touches the horizon, my arms are leaden, my throat raw, and my leg a throbbing mess of pain.

But I’m alive. Somehow.

Then, something strange happens.

The sand below shifts. Not from the creatures, but a deeper vibration, a swell beneath the surface as if something massive is stirring. As one, the shadow creatures scatter, melting back into the darkness as if fleeing something far worse than them.

I don’t wait to find out what. When the sun is high enough to see, I look down. My leg is a bloody, throbbing disaster. And as I turn my head, my heart sinks. I'm completely disoriented. I have no idea which way Justine's arrow was pointing. I am utterly and completely lost.

The thought doesn’t feel dramatic anymore. It feels like a fact.

I’m going to die out here.

And Justine…Poor Justine…

I wipe my eyes, but the tears keep coming down. Numb, I push myself up and start walking. When I lift my water sachet to my lips and just a single drop falls on my tongue, despair almost consumes me whole.

The cave appears like a cruel joke at first. Just a dark smudge halfway up a crumbling rock face. I stare at it for a long moment. Can I even reach?

But hope is a hell of a drug.

I crawl toward it. Dragging my mangled leg, I haul myself up the rock face one agonizing inch at a time. When I finally pull myself inside, the cool, dark air feels like heaven.

“Jus?” I croak, knowing it’s useless. My voice echoes back. I sound…desperate. Lost.

I collapse into the cool shade, ready to let the darkness take me. And that’s when I hear it.

Not voices. Not footsteps. Not the sound of my sister calling my name.

Pitter…patter .

I freeze before slowly lifting my head.

That soft, echoing drip might as well be a symphony. My body moves, harsh gasps of air grating past my throat as I crawl deeper into the darkness, following the sound like a lifeline. When my fingers finally brush against the slick stone and the shallow pool gathered there, I nearly sob.

I drink like a dying woman. Because that’s exactly what I am.

The water is cool and clean, a stark contrast to the fire spreading through my veins from the gash in my leg. It doesn't quench the fever, but it gives me a moment of gut-wrenching clarity.

I'm not going to make it out of here. But Justine might. Someone else might follow.

I have to leave a sign. A sign that there’s water.

The thought is a lightning bolt in the fog of my pain. It’s not a plan; it’s a compulsion.

Ignoring every screaming nerve in my body, I turn and drag myself back toward the blinding light of the cave entrance. Getting down the rock face is a controlled fall. Fiery agony that makes black spots dance in my vision.

Then I walk.

Or stumble. I don’t know. My brain is on fire, and my only thought is to put distance between the cave and the sign, to leave a trail someone might cross.

Every step is a fresh wave of nausea. The landscape is a blurry, swimming mess of orange and purple.

I have no idea how far I’ve gone—maybe a hundred yards, maybe a mile.

Finally, my legs give out for the last time. I collapse onto my knees in the open sand, the impact jarring through my whole body. This is it. This is the spot.

With a shaking hand, I drag my finger through the sand, carving the symbols that have bound me and my sister together our whole lives.

J + J

4 EVER

Tears mix with the dust on my face. My movements are clumsy, my hand barely obeying. I add the last vital piece of information: a crude arrow pointing back in the vague direction I came from.

H2O →

It’s done. My last duty.

The journey back is a new kind of hell. It's a crawl. An inch-by-inch agony, my mind set on that dark smudge of the cave entrance, the only promise of shelter in this entire gods-forsaken world. I follow my own pathetic trail back, my body a dead weight I have to haul.

By the time I pull my broken body over the threshold and back into the cave's cool shade, there is nothing left. The last of my adrenaline vanishes, leaving only the deep, throbbing pain and the suffocating heat of the fever. I collapse near the water, unable to move another inch.

Back in the cave, I press a hand to my forehead. It’s damp, even though my throat is so dry it aches. My stomach churns, the edges of my vision blurring as the fever overtakes me. My limbs feel heavy, my breaths shallow, and the world tilts, slipping in and out of focus.

Time…slows.

When something shifts at the entrance of the cave, the sound is so faint I could have imagined it. My head rolls as I lift it, my heart pounding weakly in my chest.

There’s a shadow there.

“Jus?”

But the shadow is too tall. Too broad. Motionless as carved stone.

Maybe it's another fever dream. Maybe I'm already dead.

But one truth cuts through the delirium:

I am not alone here .

And perhaps, neither was my sister.