Page 45 of Finding Her Heart
They moved as one in waves to their targets, as single-minded as an insectoid cloud of hunger, like beetles descending on a crop. Glossy with a viscous snail slime, they poured out of the black gaping holes left behind by the fallen trees, ignoring the Orki as if the warriors with their sharp edges and pikes were invisible, intent on racing to their goal. Only fire made them hesitate. Doing nothing to avoid being chopped in two, they kept their distance from the flames, their clicking increasing with angry distress when an Orki torch stopped them from their goal.
A shovel through garbage, the hunting party kept moving, cutting through the hungries with spikes, ax's, and blades. The threat of pain did not slow the stunted creatures at all. Hunting for their survival, the swarm targeted the four women riding war beasts. Instinct forced them forward until the Orki lopped their heads from their bodies or punctured them through with a spear.
A carrion smell reached Annabell. Reminding her of the raiders, bile rose in her throat. The things smelled like rot, death, and woe. A smell she would never forget.
She knew it. She knew as soon as Doku-ni mentioned them, woe would come again for her. She could not escape the curse of the Mother and Father moon.
She didn't deserve to escape.
Taking up the road, climbing on each other three deep, the sheer mass of the hive slowed the party to a stop. For every one cut down, ten replaced it. For every ten cut down, twenty replaced it. Within a matter of minutes, the party was no longer moving.
Doku-ni fought with two others and their war beasts, creating a circle around Annabelle and Zerzer. It would be a matter of who could outlast who. Soon there were hills and mounds of gruesome dead hungries and severed body parts.
Hundreds of sharp white little teeth were everywhere. They jumped onto Doku-ni, chewing at his legs before he could kick them off. Their bites didn't penetrate, but clinging bodies inhibited his movement. Too many to pin down with his spear at one time. Beneath her, Zerzer bucked and kicked, bit, chewed, growled—adding tooth and claw to the battle.
Holding on to Zerzer, the cold screen of woe and empty pain descended over her. Everyone would die in the storm, but Annabell would remain at the center, left to bury the bodies alone.
"Anna!" Doku-ni yelled.
He threw a torch at her. Reflexively, her hands came up, fumbling with the thing, nearly dropping it. The hungries didn't like the flame. Clicking madly, the noise they made increased in angered distress. The torch fire smoked when it got near the hungries, as if ready to set everything alight.
Fire.
Their eyes were dark, tiny spots, and their noses were lifted, scenting the air, piggy-grinning-beetles. Farm girl Annabell knew the dangers of pigs and beetles.
In the year when the black beetle population blossomed after a wet summer, valley farmers tried everything to save their crops from the infestations. The beetles could not be allowed to lay eggs, and no poison worked to rid the world of them. Only fire. These hungries were just the same. Although they had humanoid bodies, they disgusted her like that swarm of beetles. The crop had to be burned. Every crop with any infestation of the insects had to be burned. Many families lived off the community storehouse that year.
Ahead of her, Annabell saw another group of Orki surrounding a brown-haired woman on the back of a light gray war beast. They, too, were struggling. The hungries were bold, relentless, mindless. Climbing over each other to get to the woman in the center of the circle. The dark skin Orki was prominent among them, the largest male of the group. He chopped down their enemies with vicious efficiency. Creating more bodies. The hungries were using the dead body parts to separate the woman from the warriors. The swarm acted with vicious hunger and intent.
She watched the torches, Orki swinging their flames to keep the circle wide. When the blaze came near the slick hungries’ flesh, it smoked black and sizzled. As mad as the creatures were to get to their goal—the flames sent them careening over each other to escape. The hungries didn't want to be touched by the fire, nor did the Orki Warriors want to touch them. There had to be a reason for that, because it made no sense. Why not use the most effective weapon? Fire was the only weapon that worked against them. There were no answers to that question.
And then it was too late. They separated the woman and war beast with a wall of dead flesh, pulling them beneath the tide of the swarm.
Annabelle shouted. The deafening ticking of the hungries drowned her out.
She couldn't do it again. She couldn't watch another woman suffer and do nothing. She was too awake today, too aware. She couldn't stay safe in her circle while her curse ate up another life. This thing needed to be done, right in front of her and she would do it. Blazing torch in hand, she didn't know why she shouldn't use it.
Annabelle jumped from Zerzer, clumsy and stumbling, landing on her knees instead of her feet. Screaming, she swung at the enemy, not afraid to hit them. They lurched backwards, stood, running and falling toward the brown-haired woman. As fast as she left Zerzer behind, the hungries closed the gap. Stinking body pieces and grinning snub-nosed faces surrounded her on all sides, under her, before and behind. Ignoring the gore, she climbed over the top of them, hoping she had not gone the wrong direction. All instinct and impulse, Annabell wasn't thinking. She wasn't feeling. She would do what needed to be done.
A thunder rose over the racket coming from the swarm, roars of outrage. The Orki realized his female was missing. Reacting to it, the monsters surged towards her. They drove the sliced-up wall of their dead hive at her so that she had to move to the softer ground of the tree line. The direction Annabell wanted to go.
The other woman was a flash of color. Long, brown hair and white skin, dragged towards a hole in the ground. So close and so far away. Annabelle knew she wouldn't reach the woman in time. Naked and helpless, outnumbered by the sea of mucus-coated evil around her, outnumbered. If that poor woman went down that pit she would become the next hungries queen.
No. She wouldn't.
Annabell threw her torch toward the trees and the woman as hard as she could. A chance. It was a chance.
Hungries scattered. But the torch landed to the side of the hole, away from the woman. Not close enough.
Annabell Roe, Woman of Woe failed. She risked everything, and she failed.
No protection in hand, the hungries swarmed her in a heaving mass of insects, pulling her down, smothered her inside a living, heaving tube of flesh–hiding her from the Orki. Naked with disgusting little dripping twig pricks, they had her by the arms and hair. Clawed hands were everywhere. Pulled down and lying prone, they passed her from one to the other—ants moving food to the nest—toward what she assumed would be a hole in the ground.
Instead of fighting to get away, she fought to get her right arm free and her leg lose enough to get to her favorite boots. The hungries hold was tight, but greasy.
Hurry. She had to hurry. She got one arm free, bucked and kicking, and managed to get her heel in her hand and the packet of ten matches. The longer she took, the closer she came to becoming royalty. Annabelle needed to create fire before she got to a hole. Made to ignite wood, these were short, quick matches, a fire that burned hot and bright. The dim-eyed hungries would hate it. Annabell lit one with her thumb, a flick removing the wax coating. Flaring as bright as a small star, she knew she only had a few seconds to hold it.
She counted to five, fast, and threw it to the side. Trying to escape the light, the nasty creatures were like the beetles in the fields, scattering to escape. Still lit, the match landed on a hungries shoulder. It caught fire, sizzling, smoking, little eyes bulging and hair crackling. The thing ignited with a whoosh, before exploding, along with every hungry touching it, a chain reaction of horrendous sizzle, pop, and burning. Their burning parts were sparks in the air, landing in a red rain to set fire to plant life. Anything and everything touched by burning hungries caught fire. Annabell found herself caught in a circle of flames, laying on chopped dead hungries that caught fire easier than dry straw in summer.
