The first man’s torso had been separated from his lower body and the two pieces lay a few yards from each other. The second man’s body was missing an arm and half of its chest. The dirt beneath him had turned the color of rust from all the blood that watered it.
An enormous shadow beetle reared back onto its hind legs. Its razor sharp pinchers glistened with liquid. Blood, no doubt. It was easily twice the size of a horse. Its mottled grey shell was beginning to darken to obsidian as it entered a feeding frenzy.
The thick carapace shell protected its insides from blades and claws, making them nearly impossible to kill. When the shell was grey, it blended with the surrounding rocks easily, making it difficult to spot unless the creature moved. When it got the taste of blood, though, its shell darkened to black.
Though deadly, it was slow and couldn’t change direction easily. The narrow canyon was the perfect hunting grounds, as its prey couldn’t dodge out of the way. It turned the narrow space into a killing field, making escape impossible.
Run and it would use all its legs to propel itself after you. The thing was fast too. There would be no opportunity to dodge and trying to defend would be pointless.
A flash of color drew Shea’s attention. She waited until she saw movement again and inhaled. Eamon and another were alive. They were hunkered down in the rocks, using them to escape the pinchers. It was a smart play as the creature was too big to slide between the boulders, and its pinchers weren’t long enough to reach the men in the crevasses.
Shea stood and looked around. There. That tree would do.
She rushed to it and dropped the pack on the ground, pulling out her rope and tying it around the base of the tree. She slipped a glove onto her left hand then reached down and picked up her short sword with the right.
Now came the tricky part.
Reaching inside for her calm center, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
This was such a bad idea.
Breathe in.
She could do this.
Breathe out.
She stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The creature wasn’t exactly under her, but that was okay. She took five steps to the right, the rope following her.
She looked down.
This was such a bad idea.
She stepped off the ledge. The bottom shot up from her stomach and into her throat.
The rope slid through her fingers. It jerked, and she swung out and over the creature. She let go and was falling.
Falling.
Then landing with a thud, her hand clenched in a death grip around her sword. She rolled, almost falling off the creature’s back, before her shirt caught on one of the spiny spikes on its shell, and she halted, dangling with her shirt half over her head.
She had the presence of mind to wrap one hand around the spike, brace her feet against its shell and crawl walk up its back as the shadow beetle thrashed beneath her.
The shirt began to tear sending her sliding before she managed to lurch up and hook her hand into a groove on its shell. She held on as tightly as she could. If she fell now, she was dead.
The creature settled back onto the ground. Before it could rear again, Shea was up and crawl running across its back until she reached its neck.
Through it all she held onto her sword. It wasn’t easy and her left arm screamed from the strain of doing the work of two, but finally she was where its carapace met the round little head that had a horn that looked like a horseshoe sticking out of it.
Straddling its neck with her legs and aiming the pointy part of the sword at its neck, she raised her hands above her head and brought it down hard, the blade entered and the beast went mad under her, nearly unseating her. She held on as it careened into a wall.
She really thought that blow would have killed it.
She tried to yank the sword out. It was stuck.
Come on, damn it.
She heaved with all of her might. It slid out a couple of inches and then got stuck again.
You. Will. Come. Out.
She wiggled the sword, sliding it out a few more inches. The beast heaved under her.
Almost there.
She lost her grip and went flying for all of a second before she came to a sickening stop, her knee on fire.
Somehow. Miraculously. She hadn’t lost her seat, her leg having gotten stuck.
She grabbed the sword with both hands and heaved, leaning backwards and pushing away with her legs. It came free with a lurch, nearly toppling her backwards.
Free now, she hacked at the neck under her with frenzied slices, her hands slipping as black blood coated the sword, her hands, her clothes.
Still, she didn’t stop. Not even when the creature was lying still. She just kept hacking.
“Daisy. It’s dead. Kid, stop. It’s dead. How long do you intend to keep working at it?” Eamon inquired from somewhere below her.
Dazed, she looked up and then around, only now realizing she was still seated on the shadow beetle, and it wasn’t moving.
“Not that we don’t appreciate the save, mind you, but hacking away like that has to take energy that might be better spent elsewhere.”
She blinked at him and then blinked at the slivers of white and black flesh where the beetle’s head used to be. She lowered her sword and backed away, having a brief moment of panic when her leg wouldn’t come loose. Buck came forward and helped her twist it free.
She crawled off the beetle and dropped to the ground.
The good solid ground that wouldn’t flail beneath her or send her crashing into one of the cliffs.
She sat down abruptly, her legs not wanting to support her now that what she’d done registered. Her hands shook as she placed the sword on the ground before her. She could have died. Probably should have.
That stunt with the rope gave her chills now that she thought about it. If she’d let go even a second earlier or later, she would have plummeted a lot farther than she had and probably been trampled or torn in half by the beetle.
A pair of boots stopped before her. Shea looked up to see Eamon staring down at her with his hands on his hips, an intense look on his face.
Buck was behind him staring up at the beetle in amazement.
“How did you know to attack it there?” Eamon asked. “Swords didn’t work on it when we tried. They just bounced off. So did our arrows.”
“You ever encounter a golden eagle?” Shea asked, knowing the answer. Of course they had. Everybody had. It was the reason they had chosen to take the canyon riddled with beasts over the plains above them. The golden eagles were similar to their smaller brethren except in color and size. The ones Shea were talking about were roughly the size of houses and could carry a horse off if they were hungry enough.
Eamon arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, so?”
Shea wet her lips and nearly groaned in relief when Buck tossed her a water bag. Evidently killing beasts made you thirsty as hell.
She felt a moment of sorrow. She normally tried to avoid killing beasts; they were just doing what they were born to do. Hunt, eat, procreate. They couldn’t help their instincts and blaming them was like blaming a snowstorm for being cold.
Sometimes, though, it was unavoidable. When it came down to her or them, she’d choose herself.
She took a long swallow of the water, her throat working. A trickle streamed from her mouth in her haste, and she wiped at it with one wrist.
Ah. That hit the spot.
Looking up, she blinked when Eamon looked at her expectantly. “Few years back, I was doing some hunting and got pinned down by one of the Shadows. Thought I was done for when an eagle came plunging out of the sky and just killed it with one blow to the back of its neck before carrying it off.” Shea rubbed at the black stains on her hands. “You see, the shadow beetle’s shell is thick and impervious to most weapons, or beast claws for that matter, but there is one spot on its body that is entirely vulnerable.”