The Earth Dwellers

’Cause maybe that means I’ll see my mother again someday, too.

And when I get up, Circ doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to stop me. I plonk down next to Skye and I know she wants to be alone, but I ain’t letting her, rage or no rage. I put my arm ’round her and her body is so hard, all clenched muscles and protruding bones and I can feel her stiffen even more beneath my touch. But she doesn’t try to stop me, just lets me hold her, even if she doesn’t have it in her to hold back.

We stay there like that, just being sisters, for long after everyone’s gone to bed and the fire has dwindled down to a hot pile of ash.

Just being sisters.

~~~

The morning is full of heaviness, as if we’re weighed down by the thick yellow clouds hanging low in the sky. Clouds’re s’posed to be light, ain’t they? After all, they float, don’t they? Well, these ones look like they’re full of boulders, doing everything they can not to fall from the sky, crushing everything beneath ’em.

It don’t take any of us long to eat a few bites of breakfast and pack up to go. The pile of ash is still there, but there’s less of it, the night winds scattering the Icers, carrying what’s left of ’em off into the desert to become a part of the dunes.

And Skye’s still frowning, shredding holes in everyone with her eyes. I know she ain’t angry at us, but I still duck and shimmy to try to stay outta the way of that stare of hers. You can never be too careful these days.

“Day three,” I say to Circ as he shoulders his pack.

“About time,” he says, like he’s been wishing it here from the begi

“You can’t protect me the whole time during the battle,” I say.

“I can try,” he says, warming the pieces of my broken heart.

“Side by side?” I say.

“Where we belong.”

We leave, heading further east, Circ and me walking hand in hand, knowing that today we’ll either die in defeat or live in victory, and for some reason, the details don’t matter nearly as much as they used to.

We don’t get far ’fore we hear it.

“What is that?” I say, and I hear similar questions being asked along the column.

“Oh, blaze,” Circ says.

My first thought is: the Glassies are coming; they saw the fire and smoke and they’ve been riding through the night to ambush us in the morning.

But it’s not the growl of a fire chariot or the boom from a fire stick that we’re hearing. It’s high-pitched and coming from a dozen mouths, one after another.

Everyone’s stopped now, looking to the south, past the mountains of dunes that block our vision more’n a half mile or so.

Yips. That’s the only way to describe the noises we’re hearing. And that means only one thing: Cotees.

As I pull my bow off my back and fit it with a pointer, I’m almost excited. No one’s go

Those ’round me are drawing their weapons, too, swords and knives and bows. Circ’s blade screeches out of its scabbard.

I aim at the top of a large dune, waiting impatiently.

The yips grow louder, a chorus of voices, loud and sharp and desperate. They are desperate, I remember. The tug hurds are gone, finished off by the Glassies, so they’ve got nothing to eat, least nothing sustaining. They’ve been driven from their homes, in search of food.

Wait. The noise gets louder still and something ’bout it doesn’t sound quite right…

They’re making more noise’n I’ve ever heard a single pack of Cotees make. And maybe it ain’t the cry of a dozen mouths, or even two dozen, maybe it’s a hundred, some kind of a super-pack.

I hold my breath—wait.

The animals appear over the dunes, not stopping even when they see how many of us there are. Instead, they pour down the hill, yipping even more, almost like the sight of potential food gives ’em energy. And there ain’t hundreds of ’em…

…there’s thousands.

I loose a pointer and I can’t see where it lands in the army of Cotees, so close t’gether it’s near impossible to tell where one animal ends and the next begins.

A bunch of people are screaming now and I can see some of ’em turning to run, but most stay, I think. I don’t look though, as I’m trying to block everything out ’cept nocking another pointer and aiming and—

My bow sings and a Cotee at the front drops, cutting a line through the animals as they stumble and crash over it.

They’re getting closer, the air filled with pointers. Surely some of ’em must be dying, but it’s impossible to tell ’cause there’s so searin’ many of ’em. Even as I shoot again, I see Circ’s hand tighten on the handle of his sword beside me.

Will we really die now? Having come this far, having endured so much?

I load, aim, shoot, right into the snapping jaws of a big one, with gaunt cheeks, saliva crusted on its maw. Desperate and starving and now dead.

Drawn by…….what?

It hits me. Perhaps the funeral fire last night wasn’t bright enough or high enough to draw the attention of the Glassies, but with the wind blowing hard south like it was, surely the scent woulda carried a long way, reaching the noses of this army of Cotees, whipping ’em into a frenzy of hunger.

Making ’em run all night till they reached us. And now they want to eat us.

My next pointer rips into a Cotee’s eye, jerking him back and leaving him twitching on the durt.

They’re too close now and I frantically swing my bow ’round my neck, withdraw a pair of short knives, even as Circ is pulling his sword back, preparing to…

He swings and so do I, snapping my knives forward in quick succession, jamming ’em into the neck of a leaping beast, feeling warm blood spatter on my face as it lands on me, its fur swallowing me up like a blanket.

“Siena!” Circ shouts, but I can’t answer him ’cause I’m eating matted, smelly fur and tasting coppery blood from the dual wounds I inflicted.

People are screaming to the left, to the right, behind and in front; some are cries of war, of violence, of attack, and others, well, they’re the screams that nightmares are made of.

I gotta get up, but I’m drowning under the carcass of my victim. “Argh!” I cry out when I feel something grab my ankle, its teeth sinking in deep, cutting into me. I kick at it, shake my leg, try to dislodge it, and the pressure releases. The dead Cotee falls off of me.

Circ grabs my wrist, my hands still clutching the knives. He doesn’t have time to say anything ’cause there’s a shadow jumping at him—

—and he turns

—and slashes

—and the dismembered head of the attacking Cotees goes flying past me, spraying crimson life in a surreal arc.

My ankle’s on fire, but it ain’t go

A third one leaps over its dead comrades and is coming right at me and I’m struggling to nock another pointer and Circ is too far away, slicing at three or four Cotees that are surrounding him…

Acting on instinct without really knowing what I’m doing, I drop my bow—the Cotee’s leaping at me now—and fall backward. As the Cotee is flying over me, I shove the pointer in my hand up as hard as I can, feeling my wrist bend backwards when the momentum of the beast carries it past me.

I leap to my feet, stumbling slightly as my two left feet both decide to turn the same way, but maintaining my balance enough to see the Cotee slump over and die, the feathers of my pointer sticking out of its flesh, right above where its heart should be.

My bow’s at my feet, and I grab it, fit another pointer, whirl ’round to locate another Cotee, and see—