Her screeching snarls deafened his ears as she thrashed and tore at the fur wrap around his torso. The sharp stench of her fear thickened until it drove her to her last resort.
Teeth—fangs—sank sharply through Chap’s fur and skin at the back of his neck.
Pain turned the world to a blur before his eyes. In barely two breaths after his lunge, he was falling. A jarring impact flattened him against the woman, and her teeth were gone from his neck. She shuddered in spasms beneath him, and, still only half-aware, he broke away from her. One of the other two vampires was near—and charging.
Chap stumbled as he saw the thing rushing at him.
Leesil flashed by, ramming straight into Chap’s attacker. Both rolled and flopped across the snow-crusted ice.
Chap had to turn away as the third undead rushed from behind the sled’s back and spotted him. The undead’s gaze quickly shifted as he looked to the woman. Chap already knew what the male saw.
Spidering lines would already be spreading over her skin, splitting and rupturing into cracks that bled black fluids. Her eyes and ears would begin to leak the same to stain the snow like oily ink. Chap heard her last scream, and the sound of thrashing upon the snow ceased.
No undead so far could survive feeding upon a Fay born into the flesh. He was more life than they could consume—but it cost him. In his weakness, the cold was eating into his body.
The third undead turned his eyes on Chap—and then shuddered and stiffened. He was not looking at Chap ... but beyond him. That one’s eyes widened, along with his blood-crusted mouth, and he retreated one step.
Chap risked one look back as he charged at Leesil’s opponent.
Magiere and Qahhar were barely beyond the pieces of the dogs. She’d dropped her falchion somewhere along the way, and they went at each other with bare hands, screaming and clawing.
Chap didn’t know whether Magiere could stand against something as ancient and powerful as Qahhar. They were both a mess, he covered in smears of black and she in bloodred.
Chap grew frantic as his thoughts raced.
There were still two more Wastelander undead, Leesil was wounded, and Chap felt his strength waning. They were all going to die out here, and that would leave not one but two of the Ancient Enemy’s devices in the hands of these minions.
Qahhar was more dangerous than Li’kän, for he wasn’t mad, or at least had retained his reason, unlike her. But Chap could not turn to help Magiere.
He charged past the one staring at her and went straight at the one atop Leesil.
Leesil had managed to pull out a winged blade with his good hand. But the undead attacking him had that hand pinned down and had wrapped his other hand around Leesil’s throat.
Chap landed on the attacker’s back, and they both collapsed on Leesil. Chap sank his teeth into the back of the creature’s neck. The undead arched with a howl, and something, perhaps an elbow, rammed back into Chap’s side.
He felt something crack.
Breath shot out of him in a whimper between his clenched teeth. He held on to the male’s neck as the undead thrashed, rolled away, and pinned him against the cold, crusted plain. The thing screamed and stiffened atop him for an instant before it tore free of his jaws and scrambled away.
Its quick escape tumbled Chap over, and the first thing he saw through pain-blurred eyes was a trail of black spatters in the snow. Then he saw the undead scrambling off, out onto the plain, as the falling snow began slanting in the rising wind.
Chap struggled onto his belly and tried to rise as he looked about. He saw no sign of the third undead who had been behind the sled. Instead there was only a still body lying awkwardly in a broad red stain upon the snow. Chap looked away from Ti’kwäg’s remains and struggled around to find Leesil on his side, looking at him.
Leesil’s eyes were barely open as his quick, shallow breaths puffed out vapor quickly torn apart by the wind. Next to his outstretched arm with that one winged blade was a pale-skinned severed hand upon the snow. Its owner had run off, but where was that third undead?
And why was everything so silent now, but for Leesil’s weak breaths and the rising, biting wind?
Chap squirmed around a little farther but could not get to his feet.
Out beyond the blurred stain of dog corpses, something moved through the curtain of slanting snowfall, coming closer, only one figure, not two. Its shape was still indistinct as it stepped through the dark stretch where the dogs had been torn apart.
Chap looked all about in fright, at a loss for why the two male undead had run off, and fearful that one of them now returned. And what of Qahhar?
Amid the snowfall, Magiere took shape in Chap’s blurred sight. And relief was short-lived as, looking for Qahhar, he tried to see beyond her. Something was wrong with Magiere’s face ... something more than her change in facing the ancient undead. She clutched something round in one hand.
The bottom half of her face was smeared in wet black liquid, dripping from her chin, though the rest of her features appeared marred here and there with her own blood. Her pure black eyes shone with madness above her stained mouth ... lips ... parted.
More black fluid flowed down her chin, turning into a stream that dribbled down her coat and spattered the icy ground in the wind.
Chap was too weak to turn away and he looked again to the thing in her hand.
Magiere’s fingers were curled like claws in the snarled hair of Qahhar’s head. His eyes were open and slack like his gaping mouth. The stump of his neck was raggedly torn off, flesh clinging to dangling vertebrae as it still dripped ... like Magiere’s mouth.
What had she done?
Chap panicked, cowering from the answer, and struggled up to all fours. When he hobbled toward Magiere, she just stood there, staring at him. He snapped his jaws in a sharp bark, and pain filled his whole chest and took his breath, but she flinched.
Magiere’s irises began to recede a little.
With that, she started shuddering in the freezing wind as she looked about in confusion at the bodies of the dogs, at what was left of Ti’kwäg, and then back to Chap. Horrified fear spread over her face when she realized what she gripped in her hand.
She half dropped, half threw the head aside and nearly stumbled back over the sled. Heaving in one strong breath, she started gagging and choking, and then collapsed on her knees.
Chap sickened inside as Magiere dropped forward on all fours, arched her back, and vomited black fluid. In spite of this horror—what it might mean—Chap tried to fill her head with memories of Leesil. Chap barked and snapped, spasming in pain each time.
Magiere flopped back on her knees against the sled, and Chap kept barking as he wheeled to stumble toward Leesil. She finally scrambled after him without even rising to her feet.
They found Leesil with his eyes closed.
Magiere grabbed hold of his coat’s left shoulder as Chap took the other in his jaws, and they dragged him to the sled. By the time Magiere finished ripping open the shelter hide and canvas strapped over their gear, Chap was shaking from the bitter cold. She hauled Leesil onto the sled into the space she had made, and then turned to heave the orb’s chest back up onto the sled’s front end.
Chap watched without interfering as she did all these things. He had no idea what else they could do. Even the passages within the ice crags might not be safe, as they did not know where Qahhar’s remaining followers had gone.
Weary and spent, half of her face still covered in black, Magiere leaned on the chest.
The only thing Chap could do was try to climb up. Magiere grabbed his haunches to help, and he burrowed in next to Leesil to share body heat ... what little they had.