Fall of the Spectrum

Chapter Thirteen

Coarse sands battered the Gwir Gwaed's ground troops, but Peisma drove them relentlessly on, her incisors clicking audibly in spite of the wailing wind.

"Move your thoraxes!" she growled, turning her gaze on the very rear of the group. Though many of the ground troops were insectoid like her, there was still a motley blend of reptile, lupine, and less easily identified demons mixed in. It was some of the latter category—an assortment of amorphous demons, such as the Alps—that lagged behind, unable to keep shape in the powerful gale-force winds. Those bearing liquid forms were worse off, the harsh desert sun dehydrating them nearly to the brink of oblivion, if not for the water-laden supply wagon hitched to a pair of shaggy-coated Gehennan stallions leading the procession.

Peisma had never been one to tolerate weakness, but after the breakout, she'd been given little choice in who she kept for company. With more than half of the original Gwir Gwaed dead—no thanks to that miserable winged fool, Sitri, chasing them halfway around the globe after the loss of one of his garrisons—she had found herself picking up more and more strays along the way. All were remnants from one of two fallen renegade factions: the Ventétas clan and the Whispering Atentatori. And each one was as eager for vengeance as Peisma herself.

Even if they did lack the might to wield it.

There had been rumours of a third clan vanishing, but thus far, no evidence had been unearthed as to whether they had been captured or had simply gone underground, biding their time while the Regulations Force, Apophis's army, and the rest of the renegade factions duked it out. As long as they didn't get in her way, Peisma didn't care one way or the other.

Pulling the hood of her tattered cloak higher over her bulbous head, she squinted membranous eyelids against the savage sands blasting her in the face. Despite the sandstorm's density, she could still see the brilliant orange glow of the sun overhead—in octuplicate, thanks to her large compound eyes—though she knew it was only a matter of hours before it vanished below the horizon, and with it, the desert's unbearable heat. Of course, the frigid temperatures the Sahara was subject to at night weren't much better, making the vast majority of her company sluggish over the course of their travels; six days and nights, with only a couple of hours sleep to their names.

Not that the enemy forces had given them any choice. Between the vast numbers at Apophis's disposal and the Regulations Force constantly breathing down their necks, the Gwir Gwaed had just about reached the end of their rope—though Peisma was loath to admit it.

I didn't come all this way just to surrender now, she reminded herself, emitting a series of ill-tempered clicks at the sand shifting between her segmented plates. Of all the damn places to cross over, we had to come to this Mephistopheles' forsaken—

A sudden geyser of sand stopped her dead in her tracks, chasing all complaint from her mind. Beside her, the Gehennan stallions reared back, releasing a series of aggressive whinnies as their front legs pawed at the air, the wagon tilting precariously on its left wheels behind them.

The Gwir Gwaed ground troops sprang into action; some frantically fumbling for their weapons while others darted across the shifting sands and through the cutting winds to Peisma's side, their eyes wild with the lust for battle. Intricately curved blades and dull, blunt weapons were hefted from hip and shoulder, while all the quadruped troops bared their fangs, claws protracting from leathery, furred toes, ready to rip out the throat of whatever foe emerged from the blasting sands.

Peisma calmly extended her own weapons—two scythe-like appendages curving from her forearms—and waited. The sand geyser showed no signs of stopping, but Peisma didn't need it to. She could sense them now, smell the sulfuric tang and the dry, pungent aroma that so reminded her of empty locust husks.