“Bet you’re glad you told us about their weakspot now,” Buck said, lifting a leg to step over one of the beast’smammoth limbs. Two men followed him, their clothes dotted withblood. One had several strips of cloth wrapped around his arm tostem the flow of blood that even now was saturating the fabric todrip in a steady trickle down his arm to his hand.
“You’re alive,” Shea said stupidly.
It was hard to wrap her head around this turnof events. Moments ago she had been preparing for death. Now, thebeast was dead. It was taking her a moment to catch up.
“Yup.” Buck sheathed his sword and put hishands on his hips.
“And you’re unharmed as well,” Shea toldEamon.
He jumped to the ground in a lithe movementand joined Buck. “You ever going to come out of there?”
Shea started and looked around. The cliff wasat her back, and the creature had collapsed right in front of her.It had barely missed squishing her beneath its mass.
“How?” Shea asked as she climbed over one ofits legs.
The limb was twice the thickness of her body,and she had to step up onto it before stepping down. Buck reachedout to steady her as she joined them.
“Turns out the burrows are connected. Sincewe couldn’t get out the way we came because ole pincher here wastrying to dig in, we had to go further down the burrow. That’s whenwe found the others.” He pointed his chin at the men who examinedthe beast with bewildered expressions on their faces. “They’d beencaught in some kind of substance so we cut them out. Then we justkept following the tunnel.”
“We had to fight our way past somehatchlings, but their shells are a lot softer than the adults,”Buck interjected.
“How’d you get on top of the damn thingwithout it noticing?”
He turned and pointed at one of the burrowsthat was several feet off the ground. “I just waited for you todraw it near and then I jumped on top of it. After that, I attackedits weak spot like you said. Worked pretty well.”
“You killed it? With just one blow?”
Unbelievable.
Eamon looked at Buck and then back at her andlifted one shoulder. “Yup.”
Bastard.
Shea couldn’t believe it. One hit. It hadtaken her several. How many, she wasn’t exactly sure since she’dlost count in her terror.
Men had all the advantages. If she hadmuscles as big as his, she was sure it would have taken her onlyone hit too.
“Where are the rest?” she asked when she onlycounted three standing around.
Buck’s eyes went to the ground, and Eamon’smouth tightened as he shook his head once.
Oh.
She closed her eyes and pressed her lipstogether. Poor souls.
Of their eleven-man party only six hadsurvived. With no wounds, Eamon and Buck were in pretty good shape,but the three they’d rescued looked shell shocked and a littleworse for wear. All of them bore cuts and were covered in blood.Theirs or their companions.
“Well, where to next?” Shea asked.
“Vale didn’t make it, but I managed to getthe map off his body. Now if I’m reading this right,” Eamon pulleda folded piece of paper out of his waistband. He squinted down atit. “Hm.”
Shea rolled her eyes and snatched the thingout of his hands.
“Where are you trying to go?”
“What? You think you can read that, Daisy?”one of the rescued men asked.
Shea ignored him.
