Horde (Razorland #3)(111)

I need Fade.

But my throat was parched and tired from the hours of fighting. Calling out was a waste of breath. Freaks surged as far as the eye could see, and they were exultant despite their weakness because they sensed how this fight ended. With a burst of renewed energy, I struggled on, powered by the memory of all the people I would never see again if I gave up. My shoulders burned, my arms twin columns of fire.

Another wave of the monsters rushed me, and I was engulfed, unable to see, just the snarling mass of claws and fangs lashing at me. With sheer determination, I brought up my knives, but willpower wasn’t enough. My body had limits, and I’d reached them. More of their strikes got through; it was just a matter of time until one of them got lucky and struck the killing blow. Heart, throat, thigh. One of those places, and I’m gone.

A Freak sank its teeth into my forearm, another scored my shoulder. With a move Stalker had taught me, I cut the first one’s throat, and spun low, slicing at their legs. If they can’t stand, they can’t fight as well. It also made me a smaller target. I sliced the veins in their legs and nearly puked at the rush of blood that caught me in the face.


How many more? Too many.

Three of them died at my feet, and I stared, unable to grasp what I was seeing. But Tegan had broken one of their skulls, Thornton accounted for the other, and the third, well, Gavin of Winterville stood with our banner in his hands, the flag flapping in the wind; he’d impaled the Freak with the pointy end. Before I could thank them, Thornton’s head snapped to the side and his neck gushed red. The veteran fell before I could react, and then there were eight more monsters on Tegan, the brat, and me. He jerked the banner from his victim and used it like a polearm, but the kid didn’t have the strength to do that for long. Tegan and I covered him as best we could, but I was so tired, and from her movements, her leg was paining her. A doctor shouldn’t fight on the battlefield, but there was no time for her to treat the wounded. One of our men screamed for mercy, and anguish flickered across her face because she couldn’t break from the battle and do her job.

I’m sorry, I tried to say, but I had no breath. The stitch in my side came from a complex blend of exertion and pain, both emotional and physical. I’d never fought in a conflict that had no end, but this felt as if there were nowhere to go and no conclusion except the grave. Tegan stumbled and I grabbed her; somehow we held on as Freaks shoved toward us. Gavin was so gallant, flapping the pennant as if its power alone could drive the monsters away.

Tegan knocked down a Freak and I stabbed it while Gavin impaled another. He was actually pretty good with that blasted banner. But there were too many.

“I’m not dying!” Gavin shouted. “I promised my mum!”

His defiance gave me the strength to kill one, then another. Tegan appeared to take heart as well, and we pushed past the pain, until we had a pile of bodies so tall before us that I could stand on them. And I did. I climbed the corpses and stumbled down the other side, through the smoky air. There was more fighting farther along the river.

I spotted knots of Uroch battling their brethren and the Gulgur slinging stones with leather straps from the fringes of the battle. When a Freak turned to give chase, the small folk darted away and were gone, and in that time, the monsters took more damage from behind. Exhausted, I paused to catch my breath while my two comrades did the same.

“Are we winning?” Tegan asked.

I shook my head. “Don’t know.”

Then hope appeared, incredibly, unbelievably. From the south and east, men came marching. I recognized Morgan at the head of one column, so I identified them as Soldier’s Pond men. I saw people I had met in Gaspard, Otterburn, and Lorraine; they had tired faces but they all wore identical expressions of determination. Most were poorly outfitted and equipped. They had no uniforms and some were armed with hoes and shovels, whatever they could grab quickly. Marlon Bean lifted a hand in greeting, as did Vince Howe.

John Kelley rode at the front of the lines and when he saw me, he called, “You started without us, Huntress. Do you mind if we take some of these Muties off your hands?”

“Don’t attack the Uroch or the Gulgur,” I yelled back. “They’re with us.”

Quickly Tegan called out the description of our allies, and Kelley looked astonished, but he acknowledged with a nod, relaying the instructions to their men. Nobody argued. There was too much movement for me to get any idea how many had come to join the fight or how many Freaks were left, but hope flickered deep within me.

Catching my second wind, I ran at the remaining Freaks with renewed fury. As I fought, I searched for Fade. Sometimes I thought I heard his voice calling out orders, but I couldn’t break off to search for him. I did see Spence, out of bullets and using his shooting iron to club the monsters in the head to stun them before he stabbed. He smiled at me, teeth white in his filthy face, and it heartened me to see that he’d made it this far. His men surrounded him, the twenty that were left … out of the fifty he had before, and their deaths hurt, but I couldn’t stop.

Not when we were so close.

In the melee I lost track of Tegan and Gavin. Then I saw the boy raise his banner high and jam it into a Freak Tegan had flattened for him. “That’s for Stalker.”

I didn’t know how he could be so sure, but I sliced my way toward them. When I looked at the dead thing on the ground, I recognized the scar cutting through its left eye. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, as it didn’t bring my friend back, but I nodded at the brat.