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18

The last bend of the path to the Archan city kinked to avoid an outcrop of sheer, dense rock too hard for the roots of tree ferns and giant horsetails to seat themselves. Because there was no vegetation in the way, Sharina could see the ancient buildings as the spell's faint glow merged with the smooth pink stone.

A man shouted in hoarse fear from the undergrowth to the right of the path. Some of the Archai must have been in the forest, perhaps trying to hide from the disaster they knew was overtaking their island. Sailors looking for food found themselves prey for the sword-sharp limbs of monsters undreamed.

Sharina had thought—she'd hoped, she'd prayed—that the wizard's uncontrolled magic would reach its limits short of the city; that the walls when she and Nonnus gained them would be a barrier to their chitinous builders. Meder was a very powerful wizard, just as he'd claimed. The fool! 

"I should have brought my chest," Meder said in a breathless wail. "I can save us but I need my tools!"

"You fool!" Asera screamed. "You've killed us, killed us!"

Sharina's thigh muscles felt like molten lead. She'd been standing and working all day; climbing the hill twice, this second time at a run, would have been an effort even if she hadn't needed to help Nonnus.

The hermit had more strength in his upper body than most men twice his size, but those muscles had been formed while kneeling to paddle a flimsy boat through the waves of the Outer Sea. His legs were sturdy, but they weren't built for running. Sharina's hand on his upper arm had twice kept him from falling because of the slippery footing and had transfused him with her youthful stamina.

But it was hard for her too. So hard that she didn't dare think of failure.

At the dogleg Sharina glanced over her shoulder. She hadn't meant to look back, but an instinctive need to know the worst drew her eyes. The two nobles were twenty feet behind. Asera had thrown off her beige robe and ran in a shift of white silk that the sun now painted red. Meder held his athame in one hand and flailed his left arm sideways for balance as though he were trying to swim through the humid air.

Four of the Blood Eagles struggled up the slope behind the nobles, turning frequently to fight a desperate rearguard action. Wainer carried a spear that he must have taken from one of his fallen men; both the blade and the conical metal butt-cap were smeared with purple blood.

The Archai filled the pathway below in a straggling mass; a few filtered through the forest to head off the fleeing humans. A pair of six-limbed monsters came out of the trees with tiny, mincing strides to get between the soldiers and the nobles while Wainer and his men were focused on the Archai behind them.

Sharina screamed, "Wainer!" She missed her footing and slipped to one knee.

"Come!" Nonnus said in a voice like waves breaking. "Mind your own affairs!"

Men in and around the Archan city gaped at what they saw running toward them up the harbor path. Shouts echoing faintly from within the walls indicated that creatures there were already beginning to quiver back to life. Many of the sailors had wooden spears for hunting salamanders; all of them carried knives. They could clear at least one building for defense before the Archai within reached their full lethal vitality....

Sharina and Nonnus rounded the last corner. The gneiss path straightened for the last hundred feet of its course to the city's tall gateway.

Three Archai stepped out of the trees in front of them. Their saw-edged forelimbs were raised like those of a preying mantis about to pounce.

Sharina was half a step ahead of the hermit because she'd been on the inside when they turned the corner. She didn't need to think: she lengthened her stride and brought the hand axe down in an overhead chop as though she were splitting a billet of firewood.

The iron blade was dull, but the girl's strength and desperation buried it to the socket in the creature's triangular skull. Purple blood spurted. It had an acid odor.

Sharina's momentum slammed her into the creature she'd just killed. The segmented chest plates had some give to them, like boiled leather. The Archa's limbs spasmed; the fingerlike cilia brushed like butterfly wings while the saws raked Sharina's back. The Archa toppled to the side of the path, almost wrenching the deep-sunk axe from her hand.

Nonnus thrust an Archa just below where the narrow neck joined the torso. The chitin broke in a fine star pattern where the steel entered. He used the javelin's barbs to jerk the creature sideways like a gigged frog, blocking with its thrashing body the third Archa's attack.

The Pewle knife was in Nonnus' left hand. He brought it up in a stroke that slashed a hand's breadth deep through the third creature's chest. Tough chitin parted like gauze to either side of the blade.

Nonnus vaulted the tangled, twitching bodies, clearing his spearhead in the same graceful motion. He and Sharina ran on, her left hand touching his shoulder.

The cold trickle down her back was blood, not sweat.

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Framed