by Carol A Park
She had reserved what she had for when it was most needed. “What’s the plan?”
“You’re asking me?”
“You’re the bloodbane expert.”
Vaughn exhaled. “They have good eyesight, even at night. We should stay put for now. Let’s see what it does. It doesn’t know we’re here, or it’d already be throwing boulders at our shelter. If that changes…” He looked back into the shelter.
There was a back door, of course—no one in their right mind created an aboveground shelter intended partially to shield against bloodbane that one could get cornered in.
“We turn invisible and make for the next closest shelter,” Vaughn concluded.
That could be a mile or two away. “You don’t want to just try to take it down?”
Vaughn grunted. “I’d rather not engage it if possible. Those things are vicious. And where there’s one, there are often more.”
Crash.
Ivana grimaced. “So much for an easy passage tomorrow.”
“Yeah. If there’s one lurking this close to the descent, it probably means there’s a group of them watching the pass. Thankfully, they’re also stupid as bloodbane go, and half-deaf. We should be able to slip by without incident, if we stay alert—and out of sight.”
Vaughn played the idiot so easily that it was easy to forget he was rather intelligent. He had made bloodbane an area of study. If there was something to know about a bloodbane, he probably knew it.
They fell silent. The bloodgiant seemed in no hurry to leave the area.
Vaughn opened his pack, took out a bowstring, and strung his bow.
Light emitted from the open pack, too bright in the otherwise dark night.
Ivana tugged on Vaughn’s arm and jerked her head toward his pack.
Vaughn flipped the flap closed on his pack with a curse and then glanced back out into the darkness. The bloodgiant didn’t seem to have noticed.
Then it went silent. The dark form of the monster stopped moving.
Ivana felt Vaughn tense next to him. She held the sliver of aether tightly between her fingers, ready to burn it at a moment’s notice.
The lumbering form moved closer and then stopped again. The sound of rock scraping across rock was far too close.
Vaughn pulled Ivana away from the door. “We’re out of here,” he whispered. “Burn it now, and let’s go.”
Ivana crushed the aether and willed herself to turn invisible.
No sooner were Vaughn and Ivana out the back than the bloodgiant hurled a boulder at the shelter. They were built strong for a reason; even so, the sound of stone crashing into the roof of the shelter they had just fled gave him an extra burst of speed.
The shelters followed the road—which was little more than a series of painted stone markers to point the way—so he didn’t have to worry about losing Ivana in the dark. He just moved as fast as he could down the road until the next shelter came into view.
He darted inside. “Ivana?” he panted.
“Here,” she said, reappearing. Her face was grim. “Did we lose it?”
Vaughn didn’t let go of the aether yet. He poked his head out the door and listened.
Nothing… Nothing…
Then there was a thunderous roar in the distance.
“Probably realized we escaped,” he said. “But as long as it didn’t see us, it isn’t smart enough to head toward the next shelter—on purpose, anyway.”
He stopped burning aether and sank down on the ground. He didn’t, however, unstring his bow yet. He sighed and laid his bow on his knees and his head against the wall. He had been asleep maybe half an hour before Ivana had woken him. “So much for sleeping tonight.”
She sat down near him, but she said nothing.
He turned his head to look at her. She hadn’t slept well, either. Before she had woken so suddenly with a frightened exclamation on her lips, she had been tossing and turning, and occasionally…whimpering.
It wasn’t the first night he’d heard her unconscious mutterings.
He didn’t tell her that. A dream that could make her so terrified must have truly been a nightmare.
At least she had had a couple of hours before she had woken.
Even as he sat there, weariness tugged at his eyelids. But he needed to stay awake until he was certain the danger had passed.
He bolted upright a moment later at a horrific roar, and then a crash, both far too close to the shelter.
Ivana, too, sat up straight. Had she fallen asleep as well?
“I thought you said they were too stupid to guess where we’d go next?” she hissed.
“They are… Coincidence—has to be.” The shelter shuddered. That boulder had connected.
Again, they ran.
Again, they only had a brief reprieve before the damn bloodgiant showed up again.
“It has to be a different one!” Vaughn gasped as they darted into the fourth shelter. This one was right near the beginning—or end, depending on what direction one was going—of the path down off the plateau, which fell sharply away on one side. “There’s no way it’s following us. The shelters are just boulders sticking up out of the ground, as far as they know!”
Her eyes narrowed. “They aren’t intelligent enough to know what the shelters are, yet you’re suggesting they’ve stationed what amounts to guards along the way? It must be the same one.”
The slow scraping of enormous feet against rubble that had become too familiar in the past two hours started up again.
“No. No way they have the brains for that, and yet—” He drew a deep breath. “Whatever the case, there are no more shelters. There’s nowhere to go but down, and even I don’t want to try that descent in the dark unless we have no other option.” He dropped his pack and pulled one of his beastblood-infused arrows out of his quiver. “Plan B.”
He waited. The bloodgiant lumbered on, throwing boulders as it moved—in their direction.
Ivana crouched next to him, tense and alert. Her hand was at her thigh, but she hadn’t drawn her dagger. She didn’t have beastblood aether she could use, so her dagger was nearly useless against these things. She’d be good for a distraction if they needed it.
He sincerely hoped they didn’t.
The bloodgiant came into view. It was almost a smaller version of the behemoth he and Ivana had slain in Weylyn City, what seemed now like eons ago, though it hadn’t even been two years.
It was brawnier, though. Muscles rippled along its thick arms, and it had huge, clawed hands, if they could be called “hands,” that seemed to be custom-made for flinging around boulders. If it didn’t manage to kill someone by crushing them with a rock, it could also easily break a neck with a squeeze or disembowel them with a swipe of its claws.
And while a bloodgiant’s feet were slow to move at first, its arms and claws were quick enough if one dared to move within reach of them.
He sighted the bloodgiant with an arrow. As with all bloodbane, it had a thick hide, difficult to penetrate with any normal weapon. Certainly, any normal arrow would have bounced off it.
Fortunately, he didn’t use normal arrows against bloodbane.
He drew and released. The arrow hit right where he wanted it to: in the soft part of its throat. It stuck there, and the bloodgiant roared. Its white, pupil-less eyes turned in Vaughn’s direction, and one clawed hand ripped the arrow from its throat.
Not good.
He loosed another arrow, this time into its knee.
The bloodgiant stumbled and fell. The ground under Vaughn’s feet vibrated with the impact, but he didn’t waste the moment. He darted out into the night and stuck the monster two more times. Finally, it lay still.
He crept over to its side and yanked out what arrows he could save. He might be able to get another use out of them, and if the aether crafted directly into the heads had been spent, he could still smear them with beastblood aether, like poison.
And then, just as he turned back toward the shelter…
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Another roar.
“Vaughn…” Ivana whispered from the shelter behind him.
Vaughn’s eyes widened. There were three—no—four—of the hulking figures materializing out of the darkness.
What in the abyss? They tended to congregate, yes, but had they just been lying in wait for them? Herding them toward this end? That was far too clever for these brutes.
He turned invisible again and backed into the shelter.
“We might have a problem,” he said. He looked in his quiver. These weren’t the first arrows he’d spent against bloodbane on the trip. If it were just another bloodgiant or two, they’d be fine—but four?
He didn’t have time to heat beastblood aether and tip the rest of the spent arrows.
He looked at Ivana. She looked at him. “Not intelligent?” she quipped.
“I swear on the moon goddess herself,” he said. “They aren’t. They group together, but they don’t work together.”
“We’re going to be surrounded,” she said. “I can’t fight those things.”
“No, but you can distract them.”
“Oh, no, no. Not that again. Don’t you remember what happened the last time I ‘distracted’ a bloodbane for you?”
He winced. He remembered. Her leg had been almost ripped off by a bloodwolf. “You have my aether this time. You didn’t then. Stay invisible. They won’t see you. Make noise and draw one or two off. They’re slow.”
She heaved an enormous sigh, but a moment later, she disappeared.
Vaughn, likewise, disappeared—and stepped back out of the shelter to meet the encroaching bloodgiants.
The four remaining bloodgiants had surrounded the area. Whatever Vaughn might say, Ivana felt that showed a degree of intelligence.
She slipped past their perimeter, invisible. Vaughn’s bow twanged, and another one fell to the ground. The second, third, and fourth monsters simultaneously threw the boulders they had been carrying in the direction the arrow had come from. More intelligence.
Ivana heard Vaughn curse, and then the skittering of feet before the boulders crashed into the ground—but there was no scream, so she assumed they had missed him.
Ivana threw a much smaller rock at the closest monster’s head. “Rocks for brains!” she shouted. “Come and find me!”
She didn’t know if it could understand her, but the one she had hit turned around, its eyes searching the dark for its assailant. It roared, picked up the nearest boulder, and threw it in her direction.
She rolled out of the way.
There was another roar near Vaughn, and a few more crashes.
The other bloodgiants had moved out of her throwing range, so she hurled another rock at the one she had distracted. It was the best she could do.
The monster lumbered in her direction, scooping up another boulder with one hand as it came.
Then the monster threw it. She had already moved, but it was rather disconcerting seeing the boulder crash into the ground where she had been standing not five seconds before.
She circled behind the monster again, and it turned, its white, pupil-less eyes trailing her progress.
Uh-oh.
She plucked another sliver of aether out of the bag and burned it.
The monster ran in her direction.
Now the aether chose to be finicky?
She darted back toward where Vaughn had been. The monster started slow, but as it ran after her, it picked up speed. Soon, its enormous feet were shaking the ground, and for every five of her steps, its long legs took one, gaining on her far too quickly for comfort.
She passed two more bloodgiants lying motionless on the ground, but the last was still searching the area for Vaughn. Its eyes lit on her instead as she ran past.
“What’s wrong?” she shouted, zigzagging across the area and then doubling back. The creature, despite all other indications of intelligence, followed her exactly, losing momentum as it slowed to turn. Apparently, coming up with the idea of cutting off her path was a hair too intelligent.
“I’m out of arrows!” a voice yelled back.
Great.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Make it chase you!”
“Already doing that, genius!”
Another crash, another curse. “Just split—opposite side—try to aim for the edge—and then—boom—crash—”
“Got it!” she said before he could finish his scattered thought. She could see where he was going with it. It was no sure thing—but in lieu of another option—
He reappeared, and Ivana also let go of her aether, though it didn’t seem to be doing any good. They took off in opposite directions along the steep edge of the plateau.
Ivana’s bloodgiant thundered after her, and Vaughn’s after him. They both skidded and turned. The bloodgiants followed and gained speed after they, too, had turned.
Ivana swerved to avoid Vaughn in the middle, and she stopped short, rolled to the side to survey the situation—
The bloodbane were headed toward each other, but they weren’t going to crash.
She scrambled up a boulder and hurled herself onto the back of her bloodgiant as it passed.
It bellowed and reached around to try to grab her off its back, staggering dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, but its thick arms weren’t quite long enough to reach her.
Vaughn waved his hands at his bloodgiant, and it ignored its spinning and thrashing comrade and headed straight toward him—and into the bloodbane Ivana rode.
She flung herself off as the bloodgiants crashed into each other, a sudden tangle of crashing arms and flashing claws as the two bloodgiants turned their attention toward either freeing themselves from or wrestling one another.
They staggered toward her, and she twisted and inched out of the way—
Just before the two of them thrashed themselves right over the edge of the cliff.
Her ankle caught in the tangle and dragged her over the edge with them.
Chapter Eleven
Homecoming
Vaughn hurled himself toward the edge of the cliff just as Ivana disappeared from view.
His heart leapt in his chest. “Ivana!” he shouted. No, no, no!
He looked over the edge—only to see her plastered against the side of the cliff about fifteen feet down, one hand grasping a tangle of thorny brambles struggling to life through a fissure in the crumbling rock face, and the toe of one boot tenuously braced against a narrow ledge. Bloody streaks followed the trail of her other hand, the fingers of which were pressed up against the rock, as if trying to find a way to dig in, and her other foot dangled over the open air.
Her face was pale, and her eyes roved the cliff face, no doubt looking for holds that would give her better stability.
It wasn’t a completely vertical face, but it was close enough. There were spots where she might be able to climb, either up or down—which was much farther—but given the way that her arm was shaking as she clenched the brambles, he doubted she could manage either.
And if she fell…it was too far to survive.
He swore. “Don’t move!” He had rope in his pack, which was still in the shelter, so he ran to retrieve the pack.
She was still there by the time he got back, and, thankfully, hadn’t tried to move. He uncoiled the rope and tied one end to a boulder that one of the bloodgiants had thrown nearby. He then tossed down the other end to her.
She pressed her forehead against the rock face. Then she grabbed the rope with her free hand.
She tightened her hold on the rope with one hand and let go of the brambles to grab it with the other, then snaked the rope around her arms. “Brace the rope,” she said, her voice hoarse.
He scrambled back and took hold of the rope, just in case.
She heaved herself backward so she could brace her feet against the rock. Together, she climbed, and he pulled, until she was close enough to grab. He tugged her up over the edge, and she immediately tried to stand.
She s
taggered, and he caught her and pulled her away from the edge.
Sometime along the way, the sky had lightened. The sun hadn’t fully risen, but the plateau was no longer shrouded in complete darkness.
She stood there for a moment, her hands gripping the sleeves of his shirt, his own hands on her waist, steadying her.
Her arms were shuddering.
“Sit down and rest for a minute,” he said. “They’re all gone.”
She didn’t move. Instead, she muttered, “Burning skies, I’m out of shape.”
It was a ridiculous, absurd statement. They had been darting from place to place and fighting for hours—and she had had to dangle by a thorn bush before having to haul herself up over a cliff edge with bloody hands—
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry.
Instead, he spread his hands on her waist and said, “I don’t know. You still seem pretty shapely to me.”
Silence. She lifted her head to look at him. “Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”
He looked down at her—and then grinned.
And she laughed. Not a wry or dark chuckle. But a full-throated, full-bodied laugh.
He had heard her laugh like that only once before.
It affected him no differently than it had before.
His arms drew her against his chest almost of their own volition, and she collapsed against him while she continued to laugh. Then the laughter took on the manic edge of over-exhaustion. He himself felt as though he were ready to keel over, so he could relate.
But he didn’t allow himself to collapse. He let her cling to him until she stopped laughing. Then she stood there, her entire body trembling.
She had never let him hold her like this before. He didn’t think it would be her choice to now, if it weren’t that she was using him as a support to stay upright. Stubborn, as usual.
Frankly, he’d rarely held any woman like this. It was too intimate, in all the wrong ways.
A year and a half of distance had done nothing to lessen what he felt for this woman—both physically and beyond.
But it was much easier to think about the former than the latter, so he enjoyed it while he had it.