Nix kept his voice low. 'Afirion is due east and we're not headed due east. Why?'
Baras's expression twisted up as he tried to find a suitable lie.
'The truth, Baras.'
'The Lord Adjunct knows we're not headed due east. He wants to stay on the road.'
'Why? We could lose the wagons, divide the supplies between the men and horses, and head east overland.'
'I just follow orders, Nix.'
Nix looked to the carriage. 'He's looking for something in the Wastes, isn't he? What is it?'
If he had an answer, Baras didn't offer it.
'You're in deep water here, yeah?' Nix asked.
'I do what I'm told. You do the same.'
Nix rubbed his nose. 'That doesn't work well for me as a philosophical matter.'
'Make it work,' Baras said. 'Meals in a half-hour.'
With that, he walked away. As always, they started a meager fire, just large enough to heat coffee and warm bodies. Rakon repeated his warning to them to keep the flames low, but he needn't have. The bodies they'd seen on the road had taught all of them caution.
They ate as night came on. Afterward, Baras set double watches and the men sat near the fire and speculated about the bodies they'd seen. Egil went to his prayers early and Nix lingered near the flames, fearing sleep and dreams. He waited for the eunuch to remove Rusilla and Merelda to their tents, but he never did. The sisters remained in the carriage, as did Rakon. Nix recalled the small vial he'd seen in Rakon's hands when he'd broken into the carriage. At the time he'd assumed it was medicine, but now thought otherwise. He suspected it was a drug, designed to keep the sisters from practicing their witchcraft, or mindmagery, or whatever it was they did. Perhaps that explained why he hadn't had an ache behind his eyes or a head full of foreign thoughts. For that, he was thankful.
Expecting a peaceful sleep, he dozed off near the fire. The dreams came anyway.
Once more, Nix found himself standing in the long hall. Doors lined the hall, hiding horrors. The large, respiring door was directly before him. Again he wore a tattered dress with a torn bodice.
Grunts and screams filled his ears. The handle on the respiring door started to turn and he lunged for it, grabbed the handle. He was sweating and his hands slipped. The door unlatched, opened a crack. He screamed in terror, slammed his shoulder into it to close it, and took the latch in both hands. A terrible force tried to wrench it into a turn.
'No, no!' he said, his voice fearful and high-pitched.
An impact against the other side of the door nearly dislodged him, but he held on. The door pulsed against him, sickening and warm.
'Go away!' he screamed. 'Leave me alone.'
More screams from behind the other doors in the hallway, more grunting, a desperate wail. He could smell the coppery stink of fresh blood, imagined it flowing under the doors and into the hall. He was shaking, unnerved, surrounded by horror.
'Let me in!' said a voice from the other side, a woman's voice, intense, insistent. 'You must see!'
'I don't want to see!' he screamed. 'Leave me alone!'
Another powerful thud against the pulsing door. He leaned against it and held it closed.
'See it this way, then,' said the woman's voice, her tone as final as a dirge.
A piercing pain in his groin, as if he'd been stabbed, elicited a prolonged scream and doubled him over. He looked down to see blood pouring from between his legs, soaking his dress, pattering the floor in a flood of crimson.
He shrieked in sickened horror and the sound of his own fear startled him awake.
Wakefulness did not end the shrieking.
He opened his eyes to see a cloud of keening creatures descending toward the campsite like a thunderhead, blotting out moons and stars. It was the flock of creatures they'd seen the day before, dropping on the camp in a cloud of fangs, scales, and beating wings. He could not easily distinguish individual creatures among the multitude.
Men were shouting all around him, horses whinnying. Egil shouted his name. He had time enough only to curse, leap to his feet, and put hand to blade hilt before the creatures were upon him. Chaos followed, a mad churn of sound: men screaming, the creatures shrieking and growling, the beat of wings, the snap of fangs.
Nix ducked low, eschewed his falchion, and put a dagger in each hand. He slashed and stabbed at anything within reach. In rough form, the creatures were about the size and shape of a goose. Leathery skin covered their bodies, and four overlapping membranous wings sprouted from their backs. Their necks ended in sleek heads. Small, red eyes perched over mouths lined with tiny fangs. Their taloned claws looked like those of a raptor. They shrieked, growled, and hissed as they swarmed.
A creature tore at Nix's arm, a claw scratched his hand and cheek, and another creature landed on his back and sank its teeth into his scalp. He shouted with pain, reached back, grabbed it, and threw its fluttering form to the earth. He stomped it to death as he slashed another of the creatures hovering before him and snapping at his face. The fiends were everywhere, shrieking, biting, tearing exposed flesh.
One landed on his legs, talons sinking into flesh, biting at his thigh. Another one appeared, diving for his face, clawed feet and toothy mouth snapping at his eyes and nose. He reeled backward, ducking, stumbling through several more, slashing as he went, severed wings and legs and throats. But for every creature he killed, another took its place, another. Teeth sank into his ear; claws dug into his scalp. He roared and twirled, stabbing and slashing wildly.
Egil did the same five paces from him, the priest's shouts like the bellows of an angry bull. His hammers spun through the air so fast they hummed, pulping the creatures three and four at a swing. All around the campsite, the other guards were shrieking, bleeding. Blood dripped into Nix's eyes from his wounded scalp. Already his arms were tiring. Panic fogged the air along with the screams.
The horses, unyoked from the wagons for the night but tethered to outcroppings of rock, whinnied and stomped, trapped by their tethers. Dozens of the creatures landed on the poor animals and tore at their flesh. The horses bucked, bellowed, pulled at their reins, heads shaking, muscles straining.
'Save the horses!' Baras shouted, and several of his guards ran for the animals through the cloud of creatures. They chopped wildly with their blades as they ran.
One of the guards, separated from the others, went down. Nix ran for him, but more than a dozen of the creatures swarmed him. Teeth snapped before his eyes, sank into his hands, causing him to curse and drop a dagger. He drew another as he recoiled from the creatures, slashing and stabbing those he could reach.
'Help! Get them off!' the downed guard called.
The creatures squawked and swarmed the guard until he was covered in a blanket of their scaled bodies. He dropped his weapon, his arms flailing wildly, desperately, screaming in terror and pain.
Baras and Egil roared and charged toward the fallen man from opposite directions, but before they could get to him, the creatures had sunk their talons into his flesh and clothes and lifted him into the air. He hung limp in their collective grasp, perhaps already dead, arms and legs dangling like a doll's. Egil leaped for him but the man was already out of reach.
Baras cursed and, shielding his head and face, ran to help his men in protecting the horses. Egil fell in with him. The draft animals were panicked, kicking and whinnying, and Baras went down trying to dodge a kick from one of them. Egil grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away, and together with the other guards they beat back a furious attack from scores of the flying creatures.
'Everyone here!' Egil called. 'We need to fight together! Nix!'
Nix slashed a creature tearing at his arm, stomped another on the ground, cleared the air before him with a furious series of slashes. The creatures formed a cloud around him, an endless flutter of wings, snapping teeth, and slashing talons. Bleeding and fatigued, Nix made a run for the horses, slashing furiously as he ran. Blood ran into his eyes, blinded him, and he stumbled on rock, fell.
The moment he hit the ground dozens of the creatures landed on him, ripping his clothes and flesh, tearing at his leather jack. One bit the back of his neck, his scalp again, tearing loose a clump of hair. Another bit his ear. He tried to roll over and bring his blades to bear, but before he could he felt the sickening, terrifying feeling of his body
