Trin

Excerpt:
In the drowsy sun, Trin didn't hear the devlars until they were swarming over the back of the truck. "Trin!" Blain cried. His brother gave him a shove that sent him sliding off the hood and into the dust, and before he could stand Blain grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. Dark shadows flittered over the ground from preybirds circling above, sensing a kill. He got one good look at the devlars -- claws and teeth and hateful eyes like drops of black blood -- and then his brother foisted him into the cab of the truck, slammed the door shut behind him. Inside the heat was stifling, and Trin could hear the insidious sound of dry wings rubbing together, teeth squealing off metal, his brother's gun firing laborious rounds into the horde. And what about when the pillshot ran out? What about when they overtook Blain, and Trin was trapped inside? He tried to peer through the windows but they were thick with dust. His heart hammered in his chest -- three seconds ago, he was almost asleep. He couldn't seem to comprehend that this wasn't part of a sun-induced dream.

The ground rumbled like thunder and Trin wiped at the windshield, desperate to see. From out of the swirling sand rode two large run-gun trucks, one gunner on each roof, another leaning out the passenger side windows, flames licking from their guns. The driver of the closest truck held it on the run with one hand and aimed into the devlars with the gun in his other. Trin saw the hand steady on the wheel, felt the pellets strike the truck, each shot carefully aimed. Later, after the devlars were dead and the men gone as quickly as they had appeared, he asked Blain who they were. "Gunners," his brother replied. The look he gave Trin suggested that he thought the sun had melted part of his brother's brain.