Jesse pulled back to ride beside us, his boot tapping mine.
“You didn’t tell the barbarians I can sense the aphids?” I asked him.
“No translator. Makes conversation limited.”
“But you were able to contact them and tell them we were coming?”
He nodded, eyes on the sky. “I still have a network of contacts and a means to leave messages.” His gaze rested on me. “Don’t worry about it, Evie.”
“It’s not worry—”
Tremors pinched my insides. My muscles went taut and I knew Michio could feel the vibrations under his hand. He snapped open the buttons of my coat. I balanced the carbine on my lap and pulled my arms out of the sleeves. My sweatshirt went next. A shiver raced to my core.
Michio’s bare chest covered my back. He wrapped his arms and my coat around the front of my sports bra. “How many?”
Murmurs hissed through my bloodstream. The linked tentacles spread in all directions, pitching and swaying. “Too many to count.”
Jesse nocked an arrow and Roark’s horse moved closer. His hand slipped under my hair, curled around my neck. “Which way, love?”
I scanned the dark structures looming over us, but I saw with my gut. “They’re approaching from the side streets. Stay on this road. I’ll hold them.”
The horse jerked under our thighs, expelling heavy chuffs. The other horses side-stepped, tried to back up.
Ivar wrestled with his mount’s bucking head. “Aphid.”
The alleys lit up with the glow of green flames. I drew from the strength touching me and breathed, Stay.
The aphids quivered. Some tumbled onto the main road. Stay rolled off me in a steady drum.
There were grunts of surprise at seeing the mutated Icelanders glued to the road. Then the arrows flew. Rifles boomed, and axes swung. I held the aphids in an execution style line-up as our horses thundered past.
Green bodies splattered and dropped. Eventually, the volley and swoosh of weapons quieted, as did the hum inside me.
The corridor of buildings began to space further apart. Soon, there were no buildings at all.
Michio pulled our mount to a stop in the center of a snow-covered plain. We slipped back into our shirts and coats, my limbs moving through a fog. Michio’s hand pressed against my brow then rested on the pulse at my throat. I gripped the withers to balance against a bout of chills and dizziness.
“Her heart rate—” He dropped his hand and shouted, “Beckett.”
Jesse was there with a pouch in his hand. “What does she need?”
“Sugar.” Michio leaned my back on his chest.
Roark’s eyes burned through the icy dark, creased with worry. I intertwined my fingers with his. “Stop that. I’m getting better at this.”
His thumb made shaky whorls on my wrist.
Jesse shook a canteen and tipped it at my mouth. The sugary orange drink thickened in my throat, but within a few minutes, my senses came back on line.
He replaced the cap. “Is it always like this?”
I lifted a shoulder. “When there are too many bugs or not enough energy.”
“She had a seizure when we escaped Malta.” Michio’s hands clenched on my thighs.
The tightness in Jesse’s shoulders bled into his eyes. When his horse stomped a hoof, he snapped out of it. “We’ll camp against that bluff.” He gestured across the plain before us, his hand faltering as we digested the red and white vista.
As far as we could see, human, aphid, and unidentifiable beasts lay where they fell, bones exposed and gnawed by weather. A patchwork of pristine snow, shadowed mounds, and moonlit splashes of crimson.
I hugged the carbine as we wound our way through the frozen graveyard and set up camp on the other side.
Michio erected our tent, ushered me inside, and lit a candle. “You need to eat.”
I curled into a ball on the bedroll, chilled from the temperature and side-effects of aphid control.
The tic in his jaw triggered a smoldering war in his expression. He straddled my hips, hands on either side of my head, and lowered his head. “I want nothing more than to feed you, strip you and feast on every inch of your body.” Another tic. “But given the exertion you underwent, we’re sticking to food.”
I rolled to my back. “Don’t be dramatic. We can—”
The tent flap zipped open. Roark pushed through and froze, eyes locked on Michio.
Michio sat back on his heels. “If you brought food, your timing’s perfect.”
The waft of roasted meat followed him in and my stomach growled in greeting.
“Ye should be resting,” Roark said as he and Michio bandied glares.
“Knock it off. Both of you.”
Roark didn’t break the stare down, but his shoulders relaxed. “Doc, Beckett and I will take turns keeping watch.”
“What about the five woolly mammoths wielding axes of unusual size?” I asked.
“They’re quare.” Roark said, as if that was answer enough.
I propped up on an elbow. “Then I’ll take a shift.”
“No,” they said in chorus.