A gruesome sight laid beneath.
The left half of Rosa’s face was a ruined mask of blood and tears. A trail of triangular bites ran up the length of her cheek. A chunk of her eyebrow was missing. Her left eye was sunken red pulp, thin red bites from the Sanguir’s many teeth surrounding it. And where her eye should have been convex, it was concave.
I flinched before I could stop myself, even as Rosa’s right eye swung toward me.
I stole a quick glance behind us to make sure no more Sanguirs were near us yet. They weren’t, but something worse was.
A house-sized miasma wave was rushing toward the line of Sanguirs behind us. Medic service wisdom from Papa took over.
Don’t panic. No matter how severe the injury.
Panic would kill you faster.
“Can you walk?” I asked, hooking my arm under her shoulders using the technique Izaiah had used when I’d sprained my ankle. I grunted under the added weight. We both struggled to stand.
She sobbed and whimpered, her voice gibbering as she tried to reply. She reached up her free hand as if she was going to touch her injured eye, but I grabbed it before she could.
“Breathe,” I ordered, waiting until she’d gulped in a few lungfuls of air. I pulled her hand away from her face. “Do you think you can walk?” She hiccupped, shuddering.
“Yeah,” her voice was a hoarse rasp from screaming. “I just…” she hiccupped again. “I can’t keep my balance,” she admitted.
“Let’s get you out of here.” I moved us toward the nearest door in the perimeter, veering as far from the incoming wave as I could.
The wave was crashing down now, sweeping over the Sanguir carcasses behind us. It crept closer, sand smoking beneath it as it did.
Rosa teetered dangerously as we walked, almost falling over several times, but we managed to make it through the sturdy wooden door.
The wave pulled back, three feet shy of the outer perimeter’s base.
Rosa wept, making soft keening noises as we walked.
I glanced over my shoulder at the hole in the perimeter. It was nearly completely sealed at this point, Talissa and Pasha were carrying stones toward it while four others I didn’t know lifted them up into place to fill in the gap.
A distant yell erupted from beyond the gap, in Zevrial’s voice. “Fall back! Fall back!”
I breathed a sigh of relief, turning Rosa’s body and mine toward the inner perimeter wall and walking forward. She was supporting her weight well, and her legs moved fine, but her balance was precarious. Every few steps, she’d totter to one side and I’d stabilize her.
The fight was over. We’d secured the outer perimeter. My family was safe.
Listening to Rosa cry as I shouldered her weight, it didn’t feel like a victory.
Chapter 26
Steam Under Pressure
It's funny how adrenaline can blind you to pain.
As soon as I made it to the gate of the outpost, the muscles in my legs screeched their protests. The fatigue from sprinting to the perimeter, fighting Sanguirs, and half-carrying Rosa to a Medic center in Jakarva swamped me all at once. I stumbled sideways, catching myself before I was dragged down by weariness. All of me was sore. I hadn’t even had lunch, and it was well past sunset now, meaning I likely wouldn’t be seeing dinner either.
Gritting my teeth, I concentrated on forward momentum as I hobbled toward the barracks.
It felt almost like I had returned to a different outpost’s courtyard. Exhaustion had narrowed my focus substantially, because it took me seconds to register that the courtyard was pandemonium.
Several people were shouting over one another, including Instructor Weavir and Instructor Garcien. I recognized severalof the trainees in the yard, including Mikalyn, Yeshar, Henrik, and those returning from the outer perimeter.
“—will have your rooms searched! We will find it!” Instructor Weavir’s voice was a booming shout.
“It would be better to confess now, while we can still treat this as just an impulsive mistake,” Instructor Garcien added, her tone clipped.
