Ligish easily ripped the ‘fingers’ out of him, then leaped several paces backward. He looked over his shoulder. “I’m not dying for you people.”

He stepped further away from the creature.

“Ligish, you bastard!” Captain Ishki said, “You promised—”

He took a running leap off the bridge and landed on the opposite mountainside. A moment later, he was gone in the trees.

“Fucker,” Ishki said.

The Abhorrent’s feet made clicking sounds as she started stalking toward them. She must have lost ten legs, but she had plenty more. Arrows stuck out of her. She bled noxious blood from cuts and scrapes. Her side was mangled. But she was still coming.

Captain Ishki drew her bronze sword and stood forward. “Mages, get out of here!” she said.

Xerxes climbed to his feet and held his longsword out in front of him. “She’s right. We need—”

The Abhorrent’s flicking fingers knocked Ishki to the ground and sent her skidding to the side.

“Grk ba’ya melam,” the woman said through maroon lips.

Xerxes lunged forward and swung his sword. He hit nothing but air.

The pale fingers lashed out, and this time Bel was the victim. She choked, having been hit through the throat and arm.

“NO!” Gandash yelled. Grabbing Bel’s arm, which was already red with blood, he tried to tug her free of the creature’s grasp, but failed. Behind the monster, Tamharu and some of the few surviving soldiers hung back, clearly unsure of what to do.

Xerxes edged forward. “You’re not going anywhere, monster,” he said. “You can’t just jump off the bridge. Not even you.”

The woman said something incomprehensible, and before anyone could do anything further, she pulled Bel off her feet. Gandash tried to keep ahold of the healer, but the slickness of the blood made it impossible. Bel jerked out of his grasp and flew up to the woman, who drove razor-sharp teeth deep into her neck.

Bel couldn’t even scream. She just wheezed.

Tamharu had apparently switched weapons. He had a spear, and as Xerxes talked, he took a step forward and threw it like a javelin. The Abhorrent knocked it out of the air, but that was all the distraction Xerxes needed. He bounded forward with all the speed a Seer was capable of. Throwing his sword up, he lashed out toward the pale, rope-like fingers that held Bel. He got three of the five. Then his sword continued on into the body of the monstrous Abhorrent.

The blade bit deep, hitting in the mangled area he’d damaged earlier with Singular Lethality.

The Abhorrent woman removed her fangs from Bel and gurgled angrily as she scratched at Xerxes with the sharp tips of her legs. He ignored any pain and shoved the blade in deeper, then twisted it and wrenched it to the side.

The force of a Seer’s strength made the difference, and the blade erupted into the open, causing blackish-red entrails to flip and flop along with the spray of blood. At the same time, Tamharu came from the side, yet another spear in his hand. He stabbed her, shoving her so hard in the process that she slipped backward. Then her legs caught on the bridge parapet. Bel jerked in her grasp like a rag doll.

“Bel!” Gandash screamed and he jumped toward her. Xerxes dropped his sword and jumped after Gandash.

But it was too late.

Bel and the Abhorrent both toppled off the bridge.

Screaming, Gandash rushed to the parapet and looked over. Xerxes joined him.

What he saw at the bottom of the bridge, thirty or forty cubits down, among the jagged landscape of rocks, caused a deep queasiness to erupt in his stomach that swept through him so quickly he couldn’t control it. Jerking to the side, he dropped to his knees and vomited, spasming so hard tears leaked out of his eyes. Even after it was over, the tears kept flowing.

He vaguely heard his friend shouting something.

Then Sergeant Tamharu was there, his hands on Gandash’s shoulders.

“We have to go down!” Gandash yelled. “She’s down there!”

“She’s gone,” Tamharu said.

“NO! THERE ARE RESURRECTION SPELLS!”

Xerxes remained slumped on the stone of the bridge. Distant starisles had mages who could resurrect the dead. But not a tiny place like Mannemid.

Gandash was in hysterics, but Tamharu seemed to have control of him.

A moment later, Xerxes realized Captain Ishki was kneeling next to him. “Seer?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He wiped vomit from his lips with the back of one hand, then dried his cheeks with the other. “Captain.”

“It’s over. Are you hurt?”

He shook his head.

“Good. Why don’t you sit down against the parapet.”

She helped him to move over to the side of the bridge, where he leaned against the cool stone and looked up into the bitter, gray sky.

Things went into a blur after that. He didn’t register much of what the surviving soldiers did. Time passed. Maybe a few minutes or maybe an hour or two.

At some point he realized he was on his horse again, not really sure how he got there. They were traveling again.

Xerxes looked around and saw Gandash on horseback next to Sergeant Tamharu. Neither were talking. In fact, nobody in the convoy was talking.

He found himself counting. “One,” he murmured under his breath. “Two, three… eight, nine….”

Excluding the prisoners, as well as Gandash and himself, there were twelve soldiers, plus Captain Ishki. She had led thirty from the capital, and was returning with hardly more than a third of that number. And of the survivors, many were bandaged heavily. Without Bel present, that was obviously Aniskipel’s handiwork.

Of the officers, Tamharu and Aniskipel had survived. But Sergeant Nozar of Squad Three hadn’t.

Xerxes felt empty.

“Hey, Xerk,” he heard Bel say, and he jerked his head around. She wasn’t there. It was his mind playing tricks on him. Tears rolled down his cheeks again, but he wiped them away.

Then he looked over at Gandash again, and the empty feeling inside him grew, joined moments later by that roiling queasiness.