We didn't go back to the village. If we retreated now, the adrenaline would sour and they'd go back to being cowards. I pointed toward the upper crags, where the rock was stained with old, dark streaks of filth.
"The nest," I said. "We finish this now."
The climb was vertical and brutal. One of the village boys lost his grip, his fingers sliding off a wet ledge. He fell sixty feet, hitting a jagged outcrop. His spine snapped with a sound like a dry log cracking, and he tumbled into the mist below. Nobody looked back.
We reached the mouth of the cave. It was a wide, jagged hole that looked like a wound in the mountain. Inside, the floor was covered in a thick layer of crushed bone and grey sludge. Three Drakes were huddling over a pile of half-decayed carcasses. They were larger than the scout, their scales a dull, bruised purple.
"Go," I hissed.
Agnes charged in, her white fur almost glowing against the dark stone. She slammed her chitin blade into the nearest Drake's throat. The beast tried to roar, but only a spray of black fluid came out. It thrashed, its tail smashing into the cave wall, bringing down a shower of grit.
The other two Drakes lunged. One caught a villager by the waist. Its needle-teeth sank into his gut, ripping through his tunic and skin. The man screamed as the Drake shook him like a rag doll, his insides spilling onto the floor in a tangled, steaming mess.
"Kill the bastards!" Mo yelled, firing his rifle.
The bullets punched holes into the Drake's chest, spraying the back of the cave with a fine mist of ichor. I moved in, sliding through the slime on the floor. I drove my knife into the soft gap behind the Drake's jaw. The beast's head jerked, its eyes rolling back as I twisted the blade, grinding it against the skull until the brain went to mush.
The third Drake was pinned by four of the rabbits. They were hacking at it with their jagged shivs, their faces covered in the beast's yellow bile. They used no technique; they were just venting years of fear. They ripped the wings off while the creature was still breathing, the leathery skin tearing with a loud, wet snap.
Agnes stood over the first Drake, her blade buried deep in its chest. She was panting, her ruby eyes wide and vacant. She reached into the open wound and pulled out a pulsing, translucent sac.
"The core," she muttered, her voice trembling.
"Take it," I said, stepping over the headless body of the villager who'd been gutted. "The Queen uses those cores to track them. We crush it to stay invisible for a while."
She squeezed the sac until it popped, coating her hands in a cold, silver liquid.
The cave went silent, save for the sound of blood dripping from the ceiling. We stood in a pile of dead monsters and dead kin.
"Pack the hides," I said, checking my mag. "We've got company coming, and I don't want to be in this hole when the rest of the swarm wakes up."
We scrambled back down the ridge, slipping on loose shale and the thick, black trails of Drake fluid. The village kids were different now. Their eyes were vacant, fixed on the red stains on their hands. One boy was still clutching a severed Drake talon like it was a holy relic.
"Move it!" Mo barked, shoving a straggler. "The rest of the swarm is going to wake up and find their cousins turned into a rug."
We hit the village square just as the grey fog started to lift. The Chief was standing there, his face going pale when he saw the mess we dragged back. He looked at the empty spaces in the line where three of his boys should have been.
"They're dead, aren't they?" the Chief whispered.
"They're feed now," I said, dropping a heavy coil of Drake hide in the mud. "But the rest of these runts actually killed something. Start tanning these skins. We need armor that won't melt when the next rift opens."
Agnes pushed past me, her white fur matted with yellow bile and grit. She went straight to the well and dumped a bucket of freezing water over her head. The water turned a murky, rusted color as it hit the dirt. She didn't say a word to her father. She just picked up her chitin blade and started sharpening the serrated edge against a stone.
"James," Mo said, nodding toward the southern pass. "Look."
A thin plume of black smoke was rising from the horizon. It wasn't a Stormbeast. That was high-grade fuel. The Queen's Guard was moving in. They were burning the outer camps, probably looking for the "traitor" who took out their scouts at the pier.
"They're coming faster than I thought," I muttered.
I grabbed the scrawny kid with the notched ear by his collar and slammed him against a hut. "Listen to me. You and the others take the hides to the cellar. If a single silver helmet shows up before I say so, you stay down there and don't make a sound. You hear me?"
The kid nodded, his teeth chattering.
I looked at Agnes. She was standing by the well, her eyes locked on the smoke. She knew what was coming. The Queen's pets were one thing, but the men in silver armor were a different kind of butcher.
"Mo, get the Gear Six ready," I said, checking my mag. "We're going to give them a welcome they won't survive."
I walked over to the village gate—a pathetic pile of rotting logs—and kicked a loose board into place.
"Chief, get your people inside," I ordered. "The Empire is here."