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CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

The sun had set. Guards watched for the enemy from the top of the bank. Around the fires clustered near the eastern side of the enclosure, men recounted their brave deeds to one another, cursed their moments of evil luck, and remembered their comrades who had fallen.

Marty watched as Gunther tried to heal yet another person, and even though his face was turning red with the effort, he was spent. At least for the moment. Gunther and the wounded warrior both settled for bandages and a poultice.

Marty draped an arm over his friend’s shoulder. “You’ve figured out how your healing powers work?”

Gunther nodded. “At first, I could only really do it once in a day. And that was pushing it. But I guess over the last couple weeks, as I . . . gained new levels, I guess . . . I seemed to be able to do more at any given time. Nowadays I can heal up to three times before I hit a wall and need some rest. Using that . . . talent . . . really drains my batteries.”

“Guess we better hope the enemy stays away until morning.” Marty handed Gunther a flagon of wine.

“Or just runs,” Gunther said. “We administered a beating today.”

Marty nodded slowly. “They won’t know for sure that we’re running out of explosives. On the other hand, they might guess. And I’m pretty sure they know how few of us there are. And they have reinforcements arriving in the night.”

“If we get surrounded, we’ll be in trouble.”

“Surjan and Kareem and Lowanna are out there now, trying to make certain that doesn’t happen. Or at least, keep us apprised.”

Gunther took a long pull at the flagon and sighed. “That’s actually pretty good.”

“Personally, I was never a big wine person, but . . . I could be swayed.”

The German took another drink and handed it back to Marty. “If I have any more of that I’ll definitely be swaying.” He looked over at Marty, reached forward and patted his knee. “You look haggard. What was the final tally?”

“We had six people who died. Many more wounded, but by some miracle, between you and Lowanna, I think almost everyone is combat-ready. They should sleep in shifts.”

“We were lucky,” Gunther suggested.

Marty nodded. He was a bit numb to the deaths and that really bothered him. Six people had died under his leadership. But he wasn’t sure he’d have done anything differently. All things considered, today’s fight had been a victory for the Kingdom of Connecticut.

“I’m going to get some rest and see if afterward I can heal a few more people.” Gunther stood and patted Marty on the shoulder. “You get some rest, too. We need an overwatch that’s awake.”

Marty watched Gunther stagger off to a sleeping mat and collapse.

Then he climbed the earthen bank and scanned the perimeter of their camp. There were plenty of people awake and perched on the bank, keeping watch.

The ache creeping up the base of his spine was a sure sign Marty needed rest.

Tomorrow would bring another battle.

He prayed wordlessly to whoever might listen.


Kareem looked up into the darkness and smiled. The clouds were blocking the stars and moon tonight, leaving the world cloaked in darkness.

His night vision was a blessing from the Almighty. Dr. Cohen and the others talked about levels and abilities, but what power could cause a man to rise in level other than the power of the Merciful? Despite the lack of light, the world for him shimmered with an almost satin-like texture. The ground and everything around him were varying shades of some kind of fuzzy reddish tone.

Except for those things that walked in the night. Those stood out like torches.

Off in the distance, Kareem saw a palm tree jutting up from the scrub, but hidden in the palm fronds was an orange hue that took on the shape of a rat. Several of them.

When he was just a boy, he’d snuck into a Cairo theater and watched a rerun of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called Predator. The way the alien in the movie saw the world was how Kareem, too, now saw it.

Kareem was the Predator.

He had climbed through the ditch, where warriors of Ahuskay and Jehed worked together to drag out the bodies of the enemy dead, and continued walking toward the enemy’s camp.

The enemy camp had no fires burning.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Something . . . there was something wrong in the night, something that his senses had detected, even if his mind had not noticed. He crouched, scanning the empty terrain for whatever lurked there.

If only he had Surjan’s sense of smell, he would be a truly lethal predator.

He held his sharpened ankh in one hand and the Sethian dagger in the other, prepared to strike with either. The knife was a more comfortable weapon in his grip, but the ankh had proven itself against these vile monsters, the demons of the ancient tomb paintings come to life.

Kareem heard the sound of sand crunching, once, and he held his breath. Was it the sound of a footfall? Would the sound repeat?

Crunch.

Swiveling his gaze toward the sound, he saw something that put a smile to his face. It was one of those cat-demons, emerging from behind a boulder.

Kareem watched as the cat stared into the darkness and slunk eastward toward Kareem’s encampment. It believed it was being stealthy, no doubt. It believed it was unseen.

To Kareem, it burned reddish-white like a bonfire.

Kareem picked up several pebbles. He watched as the creature slowly scanned left to right, peering into the night and sniffing.

He tossed the pebble to the left of the cat-person and it immediately spun to face that way. The creature’s tail swished back and forth.

Kareem advanced slowly. The wind blew at his face, bringing the cat-demon’s scent to him, and hiding Kareem’s own odor. He tossed a pebble straight past where the cat creature was already staring.

It crouched low. Kareem brought up both of his weapons as he crept forward.

The tail swished and the creature hissed just as Kareem sank both of his weapons into its back. The dagger barely penetrated the skin, but the ankh sank in without resistance.

The demon yowled and lurched forward. Kareem kept his grip on his weapons and moved with the monster.

He slashed between the vertebra with the ankh, severing the spine, and the half-beast fell face forward, its body convulsing and its voice silenced.

It took only seconds for the foul rotting odor to seep from the wounds and a blindingly bright ball of light to leak up from the cat-creature’s body.

Kareem reached for it. The moment his fingers touched the light it became an electric shock racing up his arm, across his chest, and to the rest of his extremities.

A warmth bloomed within Kareem’s chest and he felt goose bumps rising all over him. There were more shades to the darkness, subtler red from every source of heat. Almost as if he could see the different temperatures flowing through the wind.

Praise be to the Merciful and Compassionate, who had shown mercy to Kareem.

He was now level three.

Kareem smiled as he turned back and continued toward the enemy’s camp. He was within one hundred yards, which once would have felt very risky to him. With his ability to see heat, he knew that he was seeing the enemy and they weren’t seeing him, and that made him feel invulnerable. He watched the ordinary movements of the camp, men eating and sharpening weapons and bickering and playing games and mostly sleeping.

Then he saw the Sethian.

The creature’s body temperature was slightly different from humans’, and it was noticeably larger.

It astonished him to see a Sethian mingling peaceably with the humans. Prior to today, he wouldn’t have believed that possible; now, scanning the enemy army, he saw several of the Ametsu.

But something else about this particular Sethian caught his eye.

This creature was at the edge of the enemy camp. It was bent over and in obvious distress, shuddering and scratching the earth.

Kareem slowly approached, making sure to be conscious of the wind’s direction. As he got closer, he heard a wheezing sound coming from the monster.

Kareem stared.

He’d never seen a Sethian in pain. They seemed to be either fully alive and trying to kill you or suddenly dead and decomposing.

This one was neither.

As it bent over and struggled for breath, the Sethian kept touching its nose.

Kept touching the ring on its nose.

Which was cracked.

Broken during the day’s combat?

Kareem had assumed it was ornamental. And it probably was.

But maybe it wasn’t.

He turned and headed back to his camp.

Dr. Cohen needed to know about this.


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