Pathfinder's Way (20 page)

She made sure to keep her voice to a low
murmur. If you knew one thing about a beast, people always expected
you to know everything.

Granted, she usually did know more than she
knew about the shadow beetles.

Eamon grabbed Shea by the shoulders, his
larger frame dwarfing hers. “You know more about these things than
either of us. That means we’re going to be looking to you for
answers. It’s not fair, but that’s just the way it is. Now, you
know more than you think.”

Seeing the rebuttal on her face, he shook her
once.

“Neither of us would have known it had a soft
spot on the back of its neck just from seeing an eagle attack it
once. We would have simply assumed the eagle’s claws were sharper
than our weapons. We’re not expecting miracles from you. Just give
us what you know. Every piece of information is more than we had
before and could give us an advantage.”

Shea held his eyes, not sure if that had been
a motivational speech or just the truth.

People always expected miracles. They might
say they didn’t, but when the dead were lying on the ground, the
finger pointing began.

Always.

“We could leave them behind,” she suggested
watching him carefully, painfully aware of the large paws still on
her shoulders.

His chest expanded as he inhaled sharply, and
his hands clenched momentarily, before loosening to fall to his
sides.

Buck’s lip curled in derision as he looked
her over, but Eamon watched her as carefully as she did him. “I
can’t do that, and unless I miss my guess, neither can you.”

Shea stayed leaning against the cool rock at
her back even when he released her. She bent her head and gripped
her forearms.

Might as well tell them her theories and
observations. It was a little late to pretend ignorance.

He was right in that she didn’t really have
it in her to turn her back and leave them to their fate. She didn’t
have it in Edgecomb or outside of Goodwin of Ria, and she didn’t
have it now.

“I don’t know how long they stay flushed with
blood,” she told them. Before Eamon could get all disappointed, she
said, “Tell me everything you remember from when you encountered
the last shadow beetle.”

They took turns telling her about the attack.
Buck held himself stiffly as he recounted his friend being torn in
two. The man had been laughing at a joke and then suddenly he
wasn’t. Instead, he was in pieces on the ground, never to laugh
again.

Lorn had shouted to retreat, and the beetle
had taken him next. After that, Eamon had grabbed Buck and squeezed
them into a crevasse between two rocks, stabbing at it with their
swords when it tried to root them out.

Shea asked them to repeat certain parts and
expand on others. When they were done, she crouched behind the
boulder and peered into the canyon, checking for any movement. Her
mind churned through the information they had given her.

She ducked back and sat on her heels.

“What do you think?” Eamon asked crouching
beside her.

“I don’t think they hunt by sight or
smell.”

“Why?”

“Smell because it would have found us by now.
Sight, well I didn’t see any eyes on that thing, did you?”

Buck tilted his head back, trying to
remember. Shea hadn’t been in the state of mind to notice much of
anything when she was trying to hack its head off. Of the three,
he’d been the one to look it over afterwards. Shea had still been
trying to wrap her head around the fact that it was over, and Eamon
was busy attending to the dead.

“There were, but they were very small.”

“Right, that leaves sound. Buck said the
first person it attacked was the one making the most noise. Then it
attacked Lorn next despite Buck being closer. Also, if it was where
I think it was a little bit ago, it would have had a direct line of
sight on us. My guess is it’s attracted to vibrations.”

Buck started looking over his shoulders and
up above their heads. “If it’s attracted to sound, wouldn’t it be
able to tell we’re here already.”

“Possibly, but given how big that other thing
was I don’t think it’d be able to fit in this tiny space. Besides,
these cliffs act as amplifiers, which can make it difficult to tell
a sound’s direction. I don’t think it’ll be able to pin us down
until we’re in an enclosed space with it. It might know we’re
coming though.”

“So we’ll have to be as quiet as possible
going forward,” Eamon said.

“It’s not just speaking that we have to be
careful of. It’s the way we move too.”

Eamon stood and adjusted the sword at his
waist. Buck edged over to peer around their little rock shelter,
taking a closer look at both cliff sides.

“We’ll spread out so if it attacks, the rest
have a better chance of doing something,” Eamon said softly. “We
know its weak spot now. We have a chance.”

Shea’s expression said ‘what the fuck is that
going to do?’

“This is what a scout does, Daisy,” Buck said
with a jaunty grin. “We go where others fear to tread. It’s why
we’re the best of Hawkvale’s Army. Men fight for the privilege of
being a scout. Father’s train their boys from birth for the sole
purpose of joining our ranks. Who wants to be swinging a blade
while hemmed in on their left and right when they have a chance at
true glory? We slay beasts, and we’re not afraid of anything. Not
even death.”

Buck drew his blade, crouched before looking
to both sides and above, and then moved forward, walking as lightly
as possible.

Eamon’s large body was framed in the opening
as he looked back, giving her an inscrutable look before he too
moved into the ravine. Unlike Buck, he didn’t crouch or hunch as if
expecting a beast, but he did give everything a once over before
stepping quietly out of their hiding place.

Shea sighed and drew her blade. She couldn’t
let them go alone. They didn’t know it, but pathfinders had a
similar mentality and were considered just as elite among her
people. If she let them go alone, her dignity would never bear
it.

Here goes.

As she stepped out, her body tensed for a
blow that never came. She moved carefully, picking each foot up and
setting it down softly before shifting to move the other foot,
ensuring that she didn’t accidently kick any pebbles or step too
hard. All the while she was on the lookout for any odd shapes,
weird outcroppings or movement in her peripheral vision.

Buck had made his way to the cloth fluttering
from the cliff. After scrutinizing the rock around the fabric, he
pulled it down. He examined it before sticking it in his belt and
returning to the middle of the canyon.

A tunnel, about half the height of Eamon,
burrowed into the soft rock of the cliff. She edged around it,
leaving a wide space between it and her. The empty blackness
taunted her with what might be waiting to pop out. It was too small
for an adult beetle to fit through. It had to be one of the ones
the mother had dug to lay her eggs.

Shea crossed in front of it as quickly as she
dared. Buck, on the other hand, approached stealthily and stuck his
head in, trying to see into the black.

When he caught her eye, he gave a shrug that
said he was curious.

These guys were crazy.

She followed Eamon, keeping an eye out and
her weapon loose in her hand.

Still no sign of the others. Where did they
go? It wasn’t as if there were a lot of places to hide. The sheer
cliffs offered no shelter, and there were no boulders or trees to
conceal themselves behind. Just rocky dirt. And burrows.

She froze, twisting to find Buck sticking his
head down another one.

They couldn’t be that dumb, could they?

Eamon had stopped moving and was giving the
burrows an assessing glance. He looked over his shoulder and tilted
his head at the dark hole.

Yep, they could be that dumb. Shea mouthed a
curse.

That’s why Buck was so all fired curious
about the damn things. He thought their people might be in
them.

He backed out of the latest one and shook his
head at Eamon.

To those unfamiliar with the shadow beetle,
it would have made sense to seek shelter in one of the smaller
tunnels. The shadow beetle was too big to follow. It would seem
like the safest place if you didn’t know about the hundreds,
possibly thousands, of eggs filled with ravenous baby shadow
beetles, just waiting to hatch.

Buck straightened and pointed at the tunnel
he just checked, making the sign for tracks. It was no bigger than
waist high and only about two feet across. He’d found several
footprints in the dirt in front of it.

They shared looks of equal distaste.

None of them wanted to head down into the
dark. Eamon rolled his eyes up to the sky as if to say ‘why me?’
while Buck rested one arm against the stone and covered his
eyes.

Eamon crouched to the side and cupped his
hands around his mouth whispering as loud as he could into the
dark, “Vale? Anyone? Are you alive down there?”

Buck and Eamon tilted their heads, trying to
hear a response.

Shea turned partially away and raised her
weapon as she scanned the canyon. When no response came, Eamon duck
walked a few feet, trying hard not to bump his head on the ceiling.
He repeated the call.

A shout ripped through the blackness. It was
piercingly loud in the quiet.

A ripple moved along the canyon wall and
something scrapped against rock.

“Fuck, it heard that,” Shea hissed.

“Eamon, it’s coming,” Buck said urgently.
“You need to get out of there. Get out of there, Eamon.”

As if a veil had been lifted, there came a
pouring of screams from the dark.

The creature above them leapt.

Shea ducked, feeling the great immenseness of
it pass within inches of her. She landed hard on her stomach and
rolled, watching as the camouflaged bulk of the beast eclipsed Buck
and the tunnel Eamon had been investigating.

“Shit,” she said, popping to her feet.

Once there, she wasn’t quite sure what to
do.

She took a step in the beetle’s direction
before moving to the side then back again. She paced back and
forth. What should she do? Were the others dead?

The beetle clawed at the surrounding rock,
trying to dig its way into the hole. It reared back and then rammed
the rock again and again.

Shea felt a little relieved. Buck and Eamon
must have escaped down it.

As it crushed rock under its pinchers and
then flung it aside to widen the burrow, Shea became a little
worried.

They needed a distraction.

She backed away, banging sword against rock,
screaming and shouting to get its attention. She made as much noise
as she could, hoping to distract it for just a little bit.

It worked, too.

Its digging paused, and the beast scuttled
back to face her.

Shea gulped. She hadn’t really thought of
what to do after she got its attention.

She took another step back as it cocked its
head before rubbing its front legs together. She lunged away from
the rock she’d been banging against right as it pounced. She
crawled before leaping to her feet and running in the opposite
direction.

A high-pitched chittering came from the
beetle. She ducked and rolled again, barely evading a pincher. She
coughed as she got a mouthful of dirt and rolled again to avoid
being skewered by one of its legs, only to wedge herself against
the cliff. She had no room to move.

It rose above her, exposing its underside as
it prepared to deliver the killing blow. She tried to duck, but
there was nowhere to go. She curled into a little ball, protecting
her head with her arms.

This was it.

She was about to die.

Moments passed and pain didn’t come. Her
limbs remained attached. There was a thump; the ground shook.

She lowered one arm, peeking above it. The
creature lay on its stomach, looking like a particularly large
misshapen bolder. Blood oozed out of a gaping hole in its now oddly
shaped head.

Her eyes widened in disbelief. She used the
wall at her back to stabilize her as she climbed to her feet.

Eamon rose into view above the beast’s inert
body, his sword resting over his shoulder.

“How did you? Where did you?” Shea gaped at
the dead beast and then up at him.

“Is that what we looked like when you saved
us?” Eamon asked, the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkling.

Shea’s mouth snapped closed.

“Bet you’re glad you told us about their weak
spot now,” Buck said, lifting a leg to step over one of the beast’s
mammoth limbs. Two men followed him, their clothes dotted with
blood. One had several strips of cloth wrapped around his arm to
stem the flow of blood that even now was saturating the fabric to
drip 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 turn
of events. Moments ago she had been preparing for death. Now, the
beast was dead. It was taking her a moment to catch up.

“Yup.” Buck sheathed his sword and put his
hands on his hips.

“And you’re unharmed as well,” Shea told
Eamon.

He jumped to the ground in a lithe movement
and joined Buck. “You ever going to come out of there?”

Shea started and looked around. The cliff was
at 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 of
its legs.

The limb was twice the thickness of her body,
and she had to step up onto it before stepping down. Buck reached
out to steady her as she joined them.

“Turns out the burrows are connected. Since
we couldn’t get out the way we came because ole pincher here was
trying to dig in, we had to go further down the burrow. That’s when
we found the others.” He pointed his chin at the men who examined
the beast with bewildered expressions on their faces. “They’d been
caught in some kind of substance so we cut them out. Then we just
kept following the tunnel.”