The word sent a pang through me. I’d just started feeling like I might belong in Salvation when Caroline Bigwater decided I was a plague sent from heaven, whatever that meant, and that the only way the town could be saved was by sacrificing me. For obvious reasons, I wasn’t on board with that plan, so I’d gone for help in accordance with her husband’s wishes. Now Salvation smoldered behind me, nothing but charred wood and piles of ash. I could trace this moment all the way back to the night the Freaks stole fire from the outpost; I’d known even then that the theft meant nothing good.
“I can’t wait.” Tully patted the giant knife strapped to her thigh, and from the shape of the sheath, it had a wicked curve, perfect for disemboweling Freaks. “Those Muties
“They were good neighbors,” Spence agreed.
I hesitated, then decided I wanted to get acquainted with the first female warrior I’d run into since coming Topside. “I’ve never seen that kind of weapon before.”
As greetings went, it was rough, but the woman’s face lit with enthusiasm. “It’s a crossbow. I’ve been shooting since I was younger than you. I make the quarrels myself.”
“She’s amazing,” Spence put in.
I’d come to that conclusion myself, but before I could ask about the quarrels, which I took to mean the projectiles in the container on her back, Thornton snapped, “Enough. Let’s move.”
As I fell into formation beside Fade, I refused to think about the hunting party—one hundred Freaks, Stalker had said—and though my math skills weren’t the best, even I could figure that those were bad odds. The horde was way bigger, a number so huge I lacked the skill to calculate it. If you added up all the souls in Salvation, plus those who lived in Soldier’s Pond, I didn’t think you’d end up with that many humans total, let alone ones who could fight.
The first Freak hunting party found us some distance from the Salvation ruins. I counted more than twenty in the split second I had to assess our foe before the carnage began. As they charged us from behind, Tully whirled and drew the strange weapon on her back. She was fast with it, releasing four projectiles, one right after the other. Three Freaks died. She was a good shot, particularly in uncertain light on moving targets. Then they were on us, a mass of snarling monsters. I slashed with grim determination, my knives a blur in my hands. Like the old days, Fade fought at my back and he was death itself, dispatching the Freaks with complete efficiency.
The others battled around us; as I’d thought, Thornton was a brawler. He lashed out with weighted fists, smashed his way through three Freaks before I realized he was crushing their skulls with brute force. That roused my admiration even as Spence waded in at Tully’s side. The redhead used shooting irons even close-up, a fighting style I’d never seen before. He was adept at knocking a Freak back with the butt, then he shot it in the chest at close range, and he used elbows and feet to boot. As for Morrow, he favored a slender blade, longer than any dagger I’d ever seen. He was elegant and willowy as he fought, his face a study in concentration. Dennis used shorter knives and he guarded Morrow’s flank; I could tell they had fought together for a while, which spoke to how good Dennis was despite his age.
Two Freaks rushed me. Fade took the one on the left with a vicious jab through the neck, and his blow contained enough ferocity that he nearly took off its head. I dodged low and wheeled around to cut the creature across the back of the knees. It went down and I finished it with cold steel straight through the heart. The clearing reeked of blood, the grass damp with dew and worse, slick underfoot. I slid toward another, as Thornton was surrounded, and I didn’t like his chances. No matter his strength, he still needed help.
Tully and Spence seemed to be all right. So were Morrow and Dennis. I stabbed a Freak in the spine, and was rewarded with an unearthly shriek of pain. The monster whirled, slashing with blood-tipped claws, but when I danced back, it couldn’t follow. I had paralyzed it with that cut and Thornton finished the beast with a heavy stomp of his boot. Two Freaks tried to run, which unnerved me. What did they intend? Survival or something more, like carrying a message? Tully shot one in the back, the sleek shaft of the missile lodged in its hide. Spence took the other in a clean kill, but the noise made me wonder how soon we’d see more of these.
There were bodies everywhere, so much death. The corpses lay in pairs and triads, bones protruding, thickening blood pooled around fatal wounds. I couldn’t forget that I’d seen these creatures going about their lives, much as human beings did—eating and chattering to each other. There had been no savagery in that Freak village, no monsters attacking one another. That lent another layer of menace to their enmity; they no longer killed indiscriminately out of endless hunger, which meant this was more than conflict over territory.
This was war.
“Everyone in one piece?” Thornton demanded.
I took stock in a glance. We were all lightly wounded, scrapes and bites here and there, but nothing serious or life-threatening. Dennis bound up a slash on his arm with calm competence. The rest of us could go without treatment until we hit Soldier’s Pond.
“Good enough,” Morrow said.
Thornton made a
Which made me think Thornton knew about the change in Freak behavior. Maybe the colonel had shared some of her theories and observations with him. Our leader didn’t look interested in entertaining questions, however, and that made me miss Longshot even more. This wasn’t the time to try to figure things out, though. Too much rode on our diversion—too many innocent lives—for me to get distracted.
Unlike the progress to Salvation, we were noisy. Since it was our goal to attract hostiles and keep them from stumbling on the injured refugees, I stomped my feet like an angry child. With a puckish grin, Morrow got out his pipes. Thornton sighed over that, but he nodded his approval, then a merry melody echoed across the field. If the lilting tune didn’t draw more Freaks down on us, then they simply weren’t roving the area.
It was an odd procession through the woods. By the music that accompanied us, one could be forgiven for thinking it was a party and not the most dire of circumstances. I kept my weapons handy, listening at each crack of branches, each rustle of tall grass, but if the monsters were following us, they wouldn’t be subtle about it, surely. They had the numerical advantage and didn’t need to practice stealth or woodcraft.
Fade and I had thought that was why they didn’t attack the outpost initially; they were waiting for us to lead them to more humans. The silence as we moved along the river unnerved me. Distant trees swayed in the light breeze, limbs shifting like skeletal fingers. Each step I took I expected the horde to descend on us, but it wasn’t fear I felt so much as anticipation. Here, I was in my element, protecting those who needed me. Down below, I never expected to live long. As long as I went down fighting, I could be content.
We marched into the morning; as the sunlight brightened, Morrow played on. Soon enough his pipes drew down the next wave of monsters. They heard it from across the river, shallow enough to ford, and came loping across wet stones with fangs bared and claws extended. Tully drew her crossbow and loosed a quarrel to nail the closest one in the chest. I couldn’t hear the impact over the rush of the water, but the creature went down and the current bore it away, the water frothing pink as it carried the body over the rocks.
When the rest drew closer, Spence unloaded, shooting first with one gun, then the other. He dropped two, then Tully killed her second and third. By my count, that left ten, a smaller band than we’d faced before.
Then there was no time for such thoughts. The monsters rushed up the riverbank and the battle was joined. I lashed out with my blades in crossing strikes that opened the Freak’s torso. Blood spattered from Spence’s next shot, and Morrow fought beside Dennis, his longer reach repelling the creatures from the younger man’s back. They were all fierce and solid fighters, worthy to be Hunters. Fade was savage in his determination, his movements so graceful they looked like dancing. As he wheeled, I waded in, and we traded blocks and parries, slices and slashes with a natural elegance that moved me to my core.
With anyone else, I would have feared a misplaced blade, but Fade always knew precisely where I was. I never flinched, even when his dagger cut through the air, narrowly missing my arm and embedded in the Freak lunging toward me. He twisted the blade to widen the wound, and the strange stink hung heavy in the air,
