The crater had become a storm.

  Dust, light, and screams churned together until there was no horizon, no up or down, just chaos.

  Gunfire stuttered through the haze, flashes swallowed instantly by the cloud. Bash’s HUD flickered

  from overload warnings to static. He could barely see ten meters ahead, yet he didn’t need to. Every

  scream in the comms told him enough. His team was being torn apart.

  The predator still hadn’t moved.

  It stood on the ridge above its den, eyes glowing white, silent and deliberate, controlling everything

  below with unseen precision. Around it, the world obeyed. Dead things crawled again. Fallen wings

  beat once more.

  Bash fired until the pistol clicked empty, ejected the magazine, slammed another in, and kept firing.

  Nothing stayed dead for long.

  Rixor waded through rodents waist-deep, each the size of a small child, their teeth flashing pale in the

  gloom. His hammer swung in wide arcs, each hit cracking bone and sending blood spraying. The

  ground shook from every impact, yet for every creature he crushed, three more replaced it, climbing his

  legs, clawing into the gaps of his armor.

  He roared, ripping one free, blood streaking down his forearm. “I can’t hold them...!”

  Liora’s voice cut across the comms. “Back, Rixor! Drop!”

  He barely heard her over the hiss of claws. She darted in from his flank, blades carving precise arcs

  through the swarm. Her movements were fast, but she was slowing, the glow of her mineral

  reinforcement was flickering, cracks spreading across her forearm guard. A rabbit lunged for her throat.

  She twisted, caught it mid-air, and stabbed both blades into its sides before kicking it away.

  Her shields broke with a brittle crack. One of the rodents seized her shoulder, dragging her sideways.

  Darik lunged in, slamming the half of his broken sword into the creature’s spine. It shrieked, went limp,

  but two more replaced it immediately. He turned to cover her, blood already running down his temple.

  His visor was cracked through the center; one eye squinted against the dust.

  “They just keep coming!” he yelled, parrying another set of claws. His sword shattered, leaving him

  with a jagged shard of metal. He used it anyway, stabbing wildly.

  Rixor swung again, hammer meeting ground, splattering two beasts but throwing himself off balance.

  Claws raked down his back, slicing deep enough to reach flesh. He slammed an elbow into another

  attacker, teeth bared.

  Liora spun behind him, carving an opening. “Up!”

  He straightened, chest heaving, eyes wild. “If we stop moving, we die,” she gasped.

  “Then we don’t stop,” he grunted. Blood streamed from his forearm, but he lifted the hammer again.

  They fought shoulder to shoulder, the swarm closing in.

  Above, the air was alive with wings.

  The shriek of the summoned birds blended with gunfire and the hiss of wind. Nyra’s rifle barked again

  and again, each burst sending streaks of blue energy into the sky. The recoil rattled her bones. She

  tracked targets through the blur, squeezing off precision shots that should have killed, but the moment

  one bird burst into feathers and ash, another formed from the same white light above it.

  Her barrel glowed orange. Steam rose from the vents on her weapon’s side. She swore, yanked the

  cooling cartridge, and slammed in a fresh one.

  “Can’t keep this up,” she muttered.

  A shadow dropped from above. Talons raked her shoulder, shredding the fabric and scoring the skin

  beneath. She spun, falling backward, firing point-blank into the creature’s chest. It disintegrated midair, but her shoulder burned where the claws had sunk through.

  “Nyra!” Calen’s voice echoed.

  She glanced right. Calen crouched behind a boulder, his bow moving in a constant rhythm, draw,

  release, draw again. Every shot was a blur, but half of them veered off course in the gusts kicked up by

  the beating wings. He swore, drew another, and fired. It pierced a bird through the throat. The creature

  dissolved, re-forming seconds later.

  “I’m burning through arrows,” he called.

  “Then pick them back up!”

  He laughed, breathless. “Kinda busy!”

  Another bird swooped. He rolled, caught the motion, stabbed the creature with his arrow as it passed.

  Its screech rattled the air.

  A gust slammed into both of them, throwing dust and feathers into their eyes. Calen hit the ground,

  coughing. Nyra’s rifle slipped from her hands, tumbling across the dirt. She dove after it, sliding on one

  knee, catching the weapon just as a bird slammed into her from the side.

  Her head snapped against the ground. Vision swam. She pressed the barrel to the bird’s chest and fired.

  It vanished in a flash of blue, leaving her gasping, one lens of her visor shattered.

  They were bleeding, exhausted, pinned. For every breath they took, another scream echoed from below.

  Taren’s world was flashes of white and red.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  She was running out of bullets and time. Her healing glow, once bright, pure, now sputtered like a

  dying flame beneath her skin. Every wound she sealed reopened twice as fast.

  The antlered beast lumbered toward her again, eyes glowing white, hide gleaming like living stone. She

  fired her pistols until they clicked dry, swapped mags, and fired again. The rounds sparked harmlessly

  against its mineral plating.

  “Come on,” she whispered, stepping backward.

  A rodent darted in, claws slicing her calf. She kicked it away, dropped to one knee, and pressed her

  palm against the wound. Light spilled from her fingers, knitting skin and sealing fabric, but the effort

  left her dizzy.

  A shadow passed overhead. She looked up just in time to see a bird diving straight for her. She

  sidestepped, grabbed it mid-flight, and smashed it against the antlered beast’s face. It staggered,

  roaring, shaking her loose.

  Her visor flickered, heart rate warning, stamina critical.

  Taren spat blood, reloaded again, and fired straight into the beast’s eye. The round punched through,

  finally dropping it. She exhaled shakily, but the relief lasted half a second before two more creatures

  burst from the dust.

  Her hands trembled as she raised her weapons again. “Bash,” she breathed, “What do we do?”

  Bash ducked as another wave of rodents swarmed past his boots. His sidearm rattled in his hands; every

  bullet seemed to do less than the one before it. The durability beast, the same one he’d killed twice, was

  charging again, white light bleeding from the hole in its chest.

  He sidestepped, fired point-blank into its throat, and kicked off the ground as it collapsed, only for two

  birds to dive at him simultaneously. One slammed into his shoulder, spinning him half around. The

  other clawed across his back, shredding what was left of his armor.

  He landed on his knees, rolled, and came up shooting. Both birds disintegrated. He breathed hard,

  scanning the haze.

  He grabbed a fallen knife from beside him, spun, and threw. It embedded in one beast’s skull. He

  yanked it free, stabbed another, moved on.

  Across the crater, through the fog and the chaos, he caught sight of the predator again. Still watching.

  Still perfectly calm.

  The comms were a wall of pain and static.

  “Rixor’s down!”

  “Taren, she’s hit bad!”

  “Liora’s bleeding out!”

  “Nyra… get back...!”

  The sounds all blurred together.

  He turned slowly, taking in the battlefield. Every one of them was losing ground.

  His heart hammered. The air tasted of dust and iron. He could barely hear over the pounding in his ears.

  Then came the screams.

  All of them.

  At once.

  The noise shattered him.

  The light, the dust, the heat, it all fell away.

  He was standing in the burning street outside his home. The sky above was filled with fire. His

  mother’s screams, his father’s hand shoving him backward...

  The explosion tearing everything apart.

  Smoke, the smell of ash.

  He remembered the stillness that followed, the cold clarity as he stared at the ruin, too shocked to cry.

  He felt that same stillness now.

  The same breath held between one heartbeat and the next.

  He blinked, and the battlefield returned.

  The dust cleared enough for him to see them, Rixor on his knees, hammer slipping from his grip; Taren

  crawling, reaching for a fallen pistol; Liora and Darik back-to-back, surrounded; Calen dragging Nyra

  behind a rock, her arm limp.

  Not again.

  He wouldn’t lose anyone else.

  Bash pushed himself upright, blood dripping down his arm. His vision tunneled; the world narrowed to

  a single point, the predator standing over its den, glowing eyes fixed on him.

  He reached down, fingers brushing the last knife on his belt. The steel felt warm, heavy, final.

  He looked at the battlefield one last time. “Hold on,” he whispered.

  He faced the predator, breath steadying. The durability beast roared, charging through the dirt, its

  massive frame shaking the ground.

  He didn’t move.

  He waited.

  Each thundering step pounded through the soil, thirty meters, twenty, ten. Dust blew past his face,

  stinging his eyes.

  He exhaled.

  At the last heartbeat before impact, Bash pivoted, a single, fluid step behind the charging beast. The

  rush of air grazed his cheek as it thundered past, close enough for him to feel the chill radiating from its

  hide. The creature’s bulk cut him from the predator’s view, blocking the glowing white eyes for the first

  time.

  He moved with the cover of its motion, silent and precise, arm snapping forward the instant the beast’s

  shadow passed.

  The knife left his hand like a whisper of steel, cutting through the dust toward the predator, unseen,

  untracked, hidden by the monster’s own body.

  He turned with the movement, arm snapping forward.

  The knife left his hand like a flash of light, spinning end over end, a silver line cutting through the

  haze.

  The durability beast plowed forward.