The great animal pounced, slamming Elzar onto his back, the full weight crushing down on him, the tip of a razor-sharp claw piercing his shoulder. Elzar screamed in pain, trying his best to hold back all three of the beast’s heads with the Force, anything to give Klerin Chekkat the time she needed.

“Run!” he bellowed, not knowing if she could hear him over the ’scythe’s roar. She ran all the same, not looking back as she disappeared into the fog. Now he just had to save himself, which proved easier said than done. The claw pushed deeper into his shoulder, and Elzar’s concentration faltered, taking with it his grip on the hragscythe’s jaws. He felt the beast’s breath wash over him, stale and rank, hot drool pouring into his eyes. The hragscythe howled in victory …

… and a flash of purple streaked past his eyes, accompanied by the tang of seared meat.

Elzar opened his eyes in surprise as two of the beast’s severed heads slapped down on either side of him, the third knocked away along with its body in a sudden tsunami of the Force.

“What the crik is wrong with you?” Ty yelled, her lightsaber humming in her hands. “Who faces a hragscythe with their saber still in its holster?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Elzar jumped up, the world suddenly very much in focus, thanks, in part, to the pain radiating from his shoulder. “I was trying to calm the bloody thing.”

“Then you didn’t do a very good job,” the mercenary snarled, glancing to where Mantessa lay, regret registering across her cold features. “Damn.”

“I’m sorry. Did you know her well?”

“No. And what little I knew I didn’t like. Where’s Klerin?”

“She ran … that way,” Elzar said, trying to point in the direction Klerin had escaped and wincing.

“Is that your saber arm?”

“No.”

“That’s something at least.”

“Says the woman who’s nearly killed me twice.”

He glanced down at her blade, which was still very much activated.

“Did you come back to finish the job?”

She clicked her hilt, and the purple blade slid up into the spiked grip.

“Look, what you said …” Her eyes narrowed as if this was difficult for her to admit. “You’re right. People are dying. It’s bad enough that the Nihil are swarming all over the place, but if the zoo animals are free …” She nodded at the hragscythe’s severed necks. “I didn’t want to do that, but I can’t catch them all by myself.”

A shriek echoed above them. Elzar waved a hand, pushing at least some of the smog aside. What he saw made him wish he hadn’t looked.

“Are those …”

“Sanvals,” Ty confirmed, watching the animals that whirled in the sky.

“And do they usually travel in pairs?”