Page 73 of Vasmora

Except, it wasn’t metal at all.

Iridescent green, it appeared to be a broken insect leg. My hand jerked with repulsion, but I held onto it. Gods damn it, we had to get out of there.

In the light, I could see the hasp was bent and lifted. Perhaps another had tried to pry it off at one point. I shoved the broken limb beneath the plate and, using it for leverage, pulled back on the hasp. The metal groaned and squealed as the nails lifted from the rotted wood, offering a small shock of hope. Something heavy thudded against the ground at our back, and Melantha’s body jerked against me.

“What was that!”

I dared no more than a glance to see one of the beetle-creatures standing upright only a short distance from Melantha’s outstretched legs. Swells of hissing and tapping had my hands shaking as I pried the metal harder.

“Something is in here, Maevyth! We have to leave!”

More hard thuds. Undoubtedly more of the beetle men blocking our exit.

The door was the only way out.

“You’re almost free. Keep going,” Vaelora encouraged.

Teeth clenched, hands shaking, I kept at the hasp, wedging the leg deeper. Deeper.

Melantha jerked again. “Something touched me! Oh, gods, forget the damned door!”

I turned to see one of the beetle men bent forward, its feelers reaching out for her leg. Growling, I lifted the rock and chucked it at the creature, striking it in the eye.

It let out a squeal and backed away.

Twisting back to the lock, I pried at the wedge. Harder. Harder.

I cried out as my arms shook with the last two nails that let out a metallic scream as they loosened from the wood.

The ticking around us intensified, the beetles scampered in a frenzy.

Just as the plate burst away from the door, and I swung it open, light spilled into the dark tunnel and Melantha let out a scream.

Her body slid away from me.

I swung around and reached out for her, grasped her flailing arm. One of the beetles had clamped its mandibles around her ankle. With a strength I didn’t know I had left, I tugged at her body, pulling her backward. “Kick with your other foot!”

Instead, she screamed.

Blood spilled across her leg, the mandibles undoubtedly sinking deeper. A wet clicking grind was the sawing of her bone, and Melantha shook, a rough guttural sound tearing from her throat, as she frantically kicked, the heel of her free foot smashing against its mandible.

“Kick its eyes!” I shouted, my arms shaking, fighting its pull.

As she drew back for another kick, a second beetle scampered alongside the first and clamped down on her other leg.

“Oh, gods, Maevyth! Please don’t let me go! I’m begging you!”

Shocks of pain struck my temples with the gnashing of my teeth, and I heaved again. A third beetle, larger than the others, crawled over the first two, and its mandibles sank into her thigh on a spray of blood. That stomach, churning wet grind nearly faltered my grip, but I leaned back into the pull and let out a scream from deep in my chest. Her body snapped free, throwing me back, and I tugged her toward me, scooting backward through the door. It wasn’t until we’d breached the entrance that I realized her left leg was severed at the thigh, her right, at the calf.

Blood poured out of her wounds, spilling onto the gritty floor.

Another beetle charged toward us, and I hauled her backward again, watching it slam into the door’s frame, the opening far too small for its oversized shell. It let out a hiss, reaching out with its legs that did nothing more than smear the pool of blood on the ground.

Melantha lay across my legs, gasping for breath, her body pale and trembling. “I … I can’t … I can’t feel my legs.” She swallowed a dry gulp. “I … I can’t feel anything.”

Her artery had been severed.

She was bleeding to death in my arms.