Specter Rising (Brimstone Network Trilogy) by Thomas E. Sniegoski

about facing her in battle.
    Inspired by the battle cry, he did the same, but it didn’t have quite the ferociousness that hers did. He was going to have to work on that.
    The Shriekhounds were at first startled, jumping away from them as they attacked. But it wasn’t long before the monsters returned the favor, their clawed hands and feet reaching out for flesh to tear from bones.
    “Don’t let them pass!” Lita cried, swinging the blade with devastating efficiency. “Remember, we are the first line of defense between these foul beasts and the queen.”
    Bram was impressed. He had been trained for combat by some of the finest warriors on the planet, and from what he was witnessing it appeared that his half sister had had similar training.
    The Shriekhounds were very animal like, stumbling and tripping over themselves to get to him and Lita in their bloodlust.
    Bram had lost count of how many he had killed, and still they continued to come at him.
    “How many of these things are there?” Bram asked, bringing his blade down on one of the grotesque things’ bald skulls, cutting it in two like a ripe melon.
    “Barnabas is desperate to see our mother dead,” Lita answered breathlessly. She killed one of the beasts with a devastating blow through the shoulder, and then cleaved another’s head from its body. “He’s probably sent every one he had in his breeding pens.”
    For a moment Bram thought there might have been a light at the end of the tunnel. The remaining Shriekhounds, their numbers severely diminished, were holding back, no longer attacking.
    “This is good,” Bram said, taking the moment to catchhis breath.
    “No it’s not,” Lita answered. “They don’t do things like this . . .”
    The corridor was suddenly filled with the cries of reinforcements, their overwhelming presence like a wave of evil flooding down the rotting passage at them.
    “We have to retreat,” Bram said to Lita, and then to the soldiers.
    The armored warriors held their ground, refusing to listen.
    “Listen to me,” Bram cried. “We have to move back or we’re dead for sure.”
    The Specter soldiers looked to Lita, who struggled with Bram’s words.
    “He’s right,” she said. “We have to go back.”
    The soldiers acted at once, picking up the queen’s stretcher and carrying her back the way they had come.
    The passage was too tight for the number of Shriekhounds pouring down it, and their foul bodies became wedged as they struggled to reach them.
    Bram and Lita followed the soldiers, stopping every so often to dispatch a beast that managed to free itself from the logjam of Shriekhound bodies.
    They were in the stomach again, searching for a place tomake their stand against their foes’ overwhelming numbers.
    Bram wracked his brain, trying desperately to remember something—anything—that they could use in their defense. But no matter what he thought of, it just wasn’t enough.
    The Specter soldiers hid the queen behind what looked like large, cancerous growths, and joined Bram and Lita.
    They could hear the Shriekhounds bounding down the fleshy tunnel toward them and prepared for the horror that was to come. The soldiers raised their weapons, staring unblinkingly into the passage—looking the inevitable in the eye.
    They had to be afraid, but they didn’t show it.
    Bram wished he could have been so brave.
    The Shriekhounds flooded the chamber, their screams and cries of excitement nearly deafening in the confines of the dead giant’s stomach.
    This is it , Bram thought, glancing quickly at his newfound sister. He was surprised to see that she was looking at him as well.
    “Nice to have met you,” he said as he turned his gaze back to the shrieking wave coming at them.
    “Likewise,” she responded. “It’s a shame that I wasted so much time hating you.”
    If the current situation hadn’t been so dire, he would have taken a certain amount of comfort from her words, but now . . .
    The Shriekhounds were