The scouts cantered forward, the horses restless and skittish with the wind and sand. Daniel Favour watched the road ahead; from time to time, he swept the roiling sea of sand to his left and the sand flat to his right, which went all the way out to the horizon of tall, jagged peaks capped, it appeared, in snow. The crawlies were horrible enough, and yet, in ten minutes of riding, they’d faded into the background of his thoughts. He tried to concentrate despite the hellish heat.

They rode almost half an hour, and Favour’s mare began to flag, and he reined in.

“Water up, and switch horses,” he said. “Wha’hae! Daud! Watch the sand.”

One of the Vardariotes walked over to the edge of the road and began to relieve himself. Suddenly he stumbled back, spraying urine.

Kriax was there, her strung bow in her hand, and Daud the Red. Both shot immediately, even as Favour moved to his latchet, which hung from his saddle.

The crawlie came right up the embankment of the road and half a dozen legs showed, as well as its coarse hairs and the jaws . . .

Kriax got off a veritable string of arrows. They seem to go so close together that the head of one touched the fletchings of the last, and she hit it with every arrow, but none seemed to penetrate very far.

Daud loosed, and saw a full-weight war bow arrow shatter on the thing’s foreparts even as a pair of wicked mandibles the size of a child’s legs reached for its victim.

Old in war, Favour looked back. Sure enough, there was another crawlie coming up the left side of the road. “Even files!” he roared. “Left side!”

The sound of pottery shattering as someone dropped their canteen. A horse bolted.

Chaos.

Arrows.

Favour ran across the smooth, even stones and spanned his latchet at the same time. He ran up the road, widening the gap, working on a theory. He stepped to the edge of the road . . .

There were ten of the things right beneath his feet.

“Jesus,” he spat. Paused, aimed, and shot—back, at the monster going for Kriax. In the side, between the segments, as he’d seen Cully do.

His bolt sank past the wood fletchings, opening a hole that spouted white ichor like a fountain.

Instantly, another crawlie attacked the wounded one. It was pulled down off the road, and eaten as fast as Favour could stumble back from the edge and span his crossbow for another bolt, ratcheting the slide with all the power of fear.

The scouts knew their business; every man and woman knew exactly how the kill had been made, and they spread out along the road, enveloping their immediate attackers in a crossfire. A dozen crawlies were hit, and suddenly there were exploding mounds of carnivorous nightmares . . .

“Mount!” roared Favour. “Go, go, go!”