Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows, #1)(43)

Luna made a choking sound behind me.

Gunner patted the fat satchel at his side then. “And we intend to eat well for quite some time.”

A surge of bile rose up in my throat. From the size of the bulging satchel, I knew there had to be at least two heads in there. That must have been the odor Luna picked up. My nape prickled, panic scraping down my spine. If she could smell them, then the dwellers could, too. My gaze darted around, searching for a glimpse of them in the endless dark. They couldn’t be far.

“You’re not taking her head,” I growled.

Luna whimpered behind me, her fingers pressing deeper into my back.

“Now, boy. Don’t get in the way. I’m not a man that relishes killing, but Gunner here won’t hesitate to cut you down. We’ll do what we have to.”

I let my arrow fly just as Gunner went for his dagger, sliding it from his sheath and brandishing it in the air. He didn’t have time to launch it before the arrow stabbed him directly between the eyes with a thunk. He dropped like a stone.

Anselm launched himself at me before I was able to shoot again.

I fell with his weight atop me, all sharp angles and bones digging into me as he pulled back his arm and sent his knuckles crashing into my face.

Hot blood spurted from my nose and trickled into my mouth. Luna cried out and scrambled on the ground somewhere above my head.

I jabbed him in the eyes with my thumbs, grinding deep and pushing him off me. He fell back with a cry, groping for his knife at his side. I went for my own blade, pulling it free.

I dodged the swipe of his knife and rolled. He came at me again. I hopped up, knees bent. Great breaths lifted our chests. We scanned each other, our surroundings, realizing almost in the same moment that he stood closer to Luna.

She trembled, hands knotted into fists at her sides as she stared in our direction, her head cocking to the side, listening for our movements.

Anselm’s chest lifted, his breath hitching. He flipped his knife over in his grip, readjusting it to plunge overhead.

We dove for her simultaneously, but she sensed us coming and turned, sprinting into the orchard. I tackled him, slamming into his back. I lifted my blade and stabbed through his jacket into flesh and muscle.

He howled and turned, kicking me in the face. I fell back.

The eerie cry of a dweller ripped the air. Several more cries went up. They would be on us soon.

“They’re coming,” I gasped, facing him again.

Anselm’s wild, whiteless eyes fixed on my face. He smiled a crazy, mangled-toothed grin. “I always knew I’d die at the hands of a dweller.”

“It’s to be today then?”

He hesitated, his gaze turning in the direction Luna fled. He glanced quickly at the sky, and I could see he was calculating how long we had.

“Midlight is still a few hours away,” I taunted.

Another cry fractured the air, closer this time. I turned and spotted the shadowy shape of a creature coming down the moonlit path between trees. I could see the receptors at its face writhing like serpents. The dweller lumbered toward us, its head titling sideways to call out an alert to others. Another dark dweller materialized at the end of an opposite path.

“So what’s it to be?” I asked, my voice detached. Urgency pumped through me to go after Luna, but I couldn’t move until I knew he wasn’t going to pursue her.

He snorted, and rolled one shoulder, wincing from where I had stabbed him in the back. “She’s likely already dead out there.” He lowered his blade. “They won’t leave anything of her to take back. Should have given her to me. It would have been a far kinder death.” He stuck the knife in his sheath and squatted at his dead friend, his stare never straying from me as he lifted his satchel of heads and looped the strap around his shoulder. He made quick work of taking his weapons, too. Finished, he flung Gunner’s body back down and straightened.

Our gazes held. We didn’t look away. It was as though we were indifferent to the advancing dweller, now only twenty yards away.

“Better hope we don’t meet again.” With that threat, Anselm turned and jogged down an empty path with his bag of heads bumping at his side.

I took off in the direction Luna disappeared, scanning for a glimpse of her between every row of trees.

The cries of dwellers overlapped now, a cacophony of shrill, eerie calls. Blood was in the air and they were hungry for it. There weren’t any human screams amid the din, so I knew the only thing they had found to eat so far was Gunner. Yet they wouldn’t stop there. They knew we were close.

I wiped the blood trickling down from my nose and then stopped to rub my hands in the dirt, getting rid of the scent. Rising, I kept moving.

I scanned the ground and the trees, conflicted whether I should call out for her or not. She had impeccable hearing. She would hear me, but so would they.

She could still be running, panicked and terrified. Although the image of her panicked and terrified didn’t ring true. She was always coolheaded. She was probably hiding.

I rotated, my gaze sweeping the trees. The orchard was too big. She could be anywhere in here.

“Luna,” I called, straining for a sound. I moved swiftly, my bow at the ready.

“Fowler!”

I froze at the hushed call. I looked around, up, and spotted her in a tree, her pale face a smudge amid the dark tangle of branches. The air left me in a rush of relief.