The carrion beetle came out of the rubble like a sprung trap—half-shattered carapace, one eye gone to ash, its body leaking a foul stench of decay—but with those hooked mandibles still cruelly intact.
They shot out, clamped, and caught. The world lurched yellow-white with pain as jagged mandibles sank into Ash's hind leg, trying to tear flesh the way they would strip carrion from bone.
Ash let out a raw, guttural noise of pain.
He faltered. It was not dramatic—a stutter in his stride, a heel dragged an inch too long—but momentum and Veyra's weight turned a stumble into a spiral.
He snarled, twisted, snapped down with his jaws and raked with his foreclaws, trying to wrench free.
The carrion beetle shrieked, the sound like iron tearing mixed with the wet rasp of meat being pulled apart, and dug in deeper, its rancid odor filling the dust-thick air.
"Ash!" Veyra's voice was right at his ear, hot with fear.
