by Elise Kova
“I don’t hear anything,” he said finally.
Craig settled back into his saddle, albeit somewhat uneasily. He had a look about him like someone had placed cool water on his seat. “Perhaps it was just the wind…” He trailed off, looking forward through squinted eyes. “Daniel, are you certain we’re going the right way?”
“Of-of course I am.” Another lie, a reflex this time; he wasn’t and knew it.
“I would think we should’ve hit the burning from the last battle by now.” Craig held out his hand. “Let me see the map.”
Reluctantly, Daniel searched through his saddlebag for the requested item. He knew Craig was likely a better fit for navigation—surely, he’d had some practice being a lieutenant under Raylynn—but Daniel loathed the idea of admitting he’d been wrong. Furthermore, the second he passed over the map, he would give away his lie. At best, he would be reprimanded. And at worst… at worst, he might suffer some kind of demotion.
Daniel’s fingers gripped the parchment so tightly it crumpled some at the folds of his hand. He studied the ink lines for a long moment, glancing at the compass for comparison. They had been keeping to his northeasterly heading just fine.
I can do this, he told himself.
“I’m confident we’re going the right way,” he announced. “The compass hasn’t changed. We likely haven’t seen the burn because we’ve overshot, just a little.”
“If we’ve overshot, then we’ve not been going the right way.” Craig made a reach for the map.
“We’ll just cut east now.” Daniel rolled up the map and returned it and the compass to his bag. His chest tightened some as he latched it closed.
“As we should have done from the beginning.” The lieutenant didn’t sound upset. If anything, he sounded amused. And amusement, Daniel had begun to realize, was far, far worse.
“We still saved time,” Daniel insisted. If he forced the words off his tongue, perhaps they would become true.
“As long as we’re heading east now.” As expected, Craig was the first to move. He steered his horse, adjusting the direction just slightly to change their course for a more easterly direction.
Daniel watched the movement intently. Craig had been too far away to see the compass. Which meant that Craig had known their heading all along.
Heat weighed on his shoulders, slicking his shirt to his skin under his jerkin. Still, a small chill wormed its way up his spine. It was a sensation Daniel didn’t like and didn’t feel often: guilt.
“Lieutenant—” He had to say something. He had to find some way to convey the odd position he’d found himself in before Craig caught his lies. He needed to explain that usually, he’d never dream of overstating his credentials or capabilities. That he’d been well-intended, at the very least, all along. If he confessed, then maybe there was a chance Craig wouldn’t outright demote him.
Daniel never got another word in.
A roar of shifting leaves and breaking branches broke to their left. Daniel turned toward the sound on pure instinct.
“Get down!” Craig shouted, in the same moment his body slammed into Daniel’s.
7. Craig
By the Mother, it just had to be a noru cat.
They couldn’t have simply spent a day wandering lost in the wilderness waiting for Daniel to find a scrap of humility and admit that he’d led them astray. No, they had to end up horseless, facing down a beast with the speed and nimbleness of a field mouse, but the power and endurance of a thoroughbred warstrider.
They were screwed.
The two landed heavily on the ground, scabbards clattering like thunder. But the sound was dull compared to the scream from Daniel’s horse. Spooked by the death of its companion, Craig’s mount reared then fled the carnage at a gallop. For a brief second, the attacking beast considered pursuit, its attention focused on the bolting equine.
Craig rolled off Daniel. He shifted his feet, softened his knees—prepared to strike. His hands were at his hips, ready to spring upward. He had to make a break for it while the creature was distracted.
Just when Craig was about to move, the monster turned its attention toward them, its golden eyes flickering with hunger and bloodlust. Long crimson streaks dripped down its muzzle from Daniel’s mount. Craig heard every drop spatter onto the forest floor with frightening clarity. It was as if the Mother had bestowed upon him an enhanced sense of hearing, the better to notice the sounds foretelling his imminent death.
“What do we do?” Daniel whispered. Craig couldn’t help but flinch. He’d all but forgotten the man was there.
Why did I save him? The soldier had been nothing but a hassle this whole time, and his inadequacy had now landed them in a terrible mess. Daniel was stubborn and strong-willed and didn’t know when to quit. Letting the noru feast on his obsequious tongue would have certainly prevented Raylynn from taking him under her wing...
“Craig?” Daniel’s whisper was strained and tense, pressed through the corner of his mouth as though the cat’s over-sized ears wouldn’t be able to pick up the words. Craig tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, fingers practically cramping beneath the strain.
If he had just left Daniel to die, he’d still have his horse. In those few precious moments, he could have been making a break for it. The noru would’ve been distracted chewing on the soldier Craig had little and less love for…
“Craig?”
“Here’s what we do…” Craig spoke low and slow, not wanting to alert the beast prematurely. “I’ve heard their eyesight isn’t as good as we think, that it’s all in their hearing.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that too,” Daniel agreed hastily.
“Good.”
Daniel had most certainly not heard of that particular fact, because Craig had made it up on the spot.
“So I need you to lie down, get low, and stay still.”
Daniel eased himself to the forest floor, wincing as his sword scabbard clanked. The noru cat watched intently, its ears swiveled forward and its eyes thinned to slits.
That’s a good, giant man-eating beast, Craig praised mentally. Focus on the tasty Eastern snack.
Once Daniel was in place, his eyes flicked back up to Craig, though he seemed reluctant to look away from the noru for long. “Now what ?” His breathing was even louder than his forcefully restrained words.
“Now… you…” Craig shifted slightly between every few words. “You just lie there… And I…” He wound up his muscles, tensing his body like a coiled spring. He should’ve left Daniel to fend for himself from the beginning. It was never too late to correct one’s mistakes. “I’ll run.”
Craig released the coiled energy in a half-leap to his feet.
“Wha—?!” Daniel couldn’t get the words out. Even if he could, Craig would’ve barely heard him over the crunching of leaves, snapping of branches, and roar of the animal as he made his hasty escape. “You bastard!”
Craig glanced over his shoulder. Daniel was on his knees, unable to get further than that before the beast was upon him. In less than a breath, he brandished his joke of a sword—Craig was almost impressed at how quickly he had drawn it from its sheath.
The noru cat lunged and Daniel stabbed. The sword knocked against the animal’s teeth, glancing just shy of the soft palette and missing its mark. It lodged itself through the cat’s cheek, poking through the side of the animal’s face with a small burst of blood. It was a fearless attack, one that Craig hoped would buy him more time to escape.
The animal hissed in pain, then let out a low, yowling keen. Craig forced his eyes forward again. Couldn’t well leave a man behind and then lose his lead by craning his neck over his shoulder. A man as inept as Daniel was bound to have gotten killed somewhere along the way. War was far from kind to men like him; there wasn’t much of a need for Craig to feel guilty over it. Plus, he spared Raylynn the d
isappointment of discovering her potential new protégé wasn’t nearly as competent as she’d thought.
Another roar sounded at his back. Craig half-turned, wanting to get a look at how close the animal was on his heels. What he’d expected to find was the cat bounding toward him. What he saw instead was the creature stunned at the scene of the attack, a bloody socket where his right eye should be. It shook its head in obvious pain and confusion, while Daniel sprinted toward Craig with alarming speed.
“Get back here and help—” Daniel vaulted over a low-hanging branch with a grunt. “—you coward!”
“Me?” Craig spun around a tree, deciding to dart farther into the forest on a diagonal tangent. It made no sense for them to run the same path; the cat would just kill them both. “I’m the coward?”
“Yes! You are the coward!” Daniel panted back, dipping around another branch. “Who leaves a fellow soldier to die?”
“Someone smart!” Craig didn’t dare say more. A glance back at the cat revealed its single eye trained viciously on Daniel. If an animal could seethe vengeance, the noru would be wearing his intentions like a second coat of fur.
“You’re intelligence is going to get us both killed!” While Daniel spoke, he leapt to grab the wide branch of a sapling. Twisting and pulling, he turned to face the wild beast. The noru cat was nearly upon him. Daniel gave a last mighty tug before releasing the small tree. Its green wood swung back into place, smacking the beast across the muzzle and dazing it once more.
Craig nearly tripped at the sight, unexpectedly impressed. Did he even dare think it? Daniel might not be so useless after all. If he could muster half the thoughtfulness and skill he was demonstrating here in situations where he wasn’t in mortal danger, the man might have some real value. Then again, the next moment saw Daniel making for a nearby tree, his intentions to climb it plain. Craig’s stride faltered.
“Don’t do that!” he yelled.
“What?” Daniel shouted back over the screech of the reeling cat.
“They can climb as well as they can sprint.”
“How do I know I can trust you? You left me to die!” Daniel was two branches up in his foolish mission already.
“Just trust me. I’m not lying now!” Craig would have offered some better reasoning, but he was beyond wasting any more time on Daniel’s mortality. If he wanted to get himself killed, Craig wouldn’t stand in his way.
Daniel groaned loudly, but it seemed the other man would heed his advice after all. He leapt like a madman into the open air and landed in a tuck, rolling on the forest floor. He was lucky they were in the jungle; had they been back in the Southern tundras, the ground would’ve been hard as rock and far less forgiving.
Craig focused ahead of him. Branches scraped his face and body, snagging at his clothing and holding him back. Hot, visceral determination welled up from deep inside him; he would fight forest and noru and Northerner alike until he got what he wanted—that damned golden bracer. Nothing was going to stop him.
As he struggled against the forest, a twin of Raylynn’s hastily scribbled map unfolded in his mind. He recounted every step and misstep that had led them to where they were now. The forest inspired its own sort of vertigo, but the land spoke to Craig. It always had.
He adjusted his course. For the first time in several breaths, Craig glanced back over his shoulder. Daniel was red in the face and heaving—but he was still alive.
“I know how we can lose it!” Craig shouted.
“Why don’t we just kill it?” The animal was gaining on them. Even with Daniel’s clever use of the forest as defense, the noru could only be delayed so long.
“You think the two of us can bring it down?” Craig appreciated the confidence in his prowess. It was stupid confidence. But confidence never the less.
“We can’t run forever.” Daniel side-stepped some small trees that the cat bounded through without a problem.
“We won’t.”
They only had to find a hideaway large enough for both of them to fit into, but small enough that the noru cat couldn’t get to them—a place strong enough to withstand the animal’s inevitably frustrated attempts at entry. “Trust me, Daniel, and just do as I say.”
“Trust you! Trust you?”
“Or don’t, and see how you end up!” Either way, Craig was going for the one shot they had—the one and only place he could think of that might shelter them from the noru.
Their fates hung on his assumptions about their location. If he was wrong...
Well in that case, they were both as good as dead.
8. Daniel
Trust him. Trust him?
Of all people, Craig was the absolute last person Daniel was inclined to trust after what the lieutenant had done—which amounted not only to leaving him in peril, but orchestrating his death to aid in his own escape. Daniel cursed under his breath between gasps of air. No, Craig was no longer “lieutenant”; he lost that distinction the moment he acted so dishonorably. Daniel was prepared to let him know it, too.
If they actually survived this.
His sides burned, every breath stoking the fire that raged from his feet to his lungs. He couldn’t keep pace for much longer. Soon, his legs were going to give out and he would be left at the mercy of the noru, the animal seemingly determined to consume him whole.
Daniel glanced over his shoulder, regretting it instantly. Every time he looked, the beast was that much closer, gaining ground on him with every guttural growl. It wouldn’t be long before he looked and the animal’s teeth would be a whisker’s length away and primed to sink into his flesh. He needed to do something to delay the noru cat once more.
But what?
Daniel’s eyes darted around, looking for anything that could be of help. Instinctively, he looked up. In the forest, death came from above. But, this time, it appeared that there their salvation also lay.
He hoisted himself onto one of the low tree branches, scaling as fast as he could. His legs protested every motion and his foot slipped as his fatigued muscles gave out for the first time. Daniel let out a grunt as he tried to cling onto the trunk of the tree.
“What are you doing?” Craig called from below and ahead. “I told you they could climb trees!”
“I know!” Daniel called back. There wasn’t any time to explain. “I’m counting on it.”
As if on cue, the noru cat leapt for the tree behind him. It sunk its long claws into the bark, peeling back layers until the razor-sharp talons gained purchase. Bending its powerful legs, it dug in its back claws and worked to find footing, aiming to get to where Daniel had scaled.
The branches were now as large around as his waist, and climbing was becoming difficult. Sweat soaked through his clothing and his leather felt like lead, weighing his shoulders down. He wasn’t as high as he would’ve liked… but he should have enough space to clear the vines he’d seen from the forest floor below.
There wasn’t even time to catch his breath. The noru cat had almost made it to him and Daniel looked between the animal and a shrub tree. The bit of foliage suddenly seemed half a world away, almost hidden behind a moss-laden veil of thick vines. Every instinct told him to jump, to run, but Daniel waited. He waited long enough for the noru cat to gain balance, to build strength and speed.
That’s right, Daniel thought, come and get me.
The second he saw the animal’s claws leave the bark, Daniel jumped. He angled himself, feet first, through one of the narrow openings that the interlocking sections of the vines created. The shrub tree he’d eyed below caught him with a thorny embrace. The jungle was determined to repay Daniel back for what he’d done to one of its own it would seem, a spindly branch nearly gouging out his right eye and making him a mirror of the noru cat he’d wounded minutes before.
Daniel tumbled, falling from branch to branch, his muscles not heeding to his commands to
catch himself. With a thud, he landed onto the damp earth below, a pillow of leaves making for soft release. Daniel opened his eyes with apprehension at the roar that filled the air around him then, the sound reverberating into his very bones.
The beast had leapt after him and straight into the thick vines of the Northern jungle. The foliage was as dense as several ropes woven together, holding just as strong. The noru cat twisted and writhed, but the more it fought the more entangled it became.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Craig took the words right from dry and panting mouth.
Daniel scrambled to his feet, moving as quickly as he still could to catch up with the other man. “It won’t hold for long.”
“Obviously.” They were now close enough that Craig no longer had to shout to be heard. Though, he still half-shouted anyway.
Daniel stayed out of arm’s reach to help resist the urge to punch the lieutenant across the face. “Where are we going?” he asked as they started running again, opting to save his arguments and possible fisticuffs for later.
“We’re not far from The Pass.” Craig didn’t seem in much better shape than he. Blood and bruises mixed with sweat and dirt across all visible skin. “There’re caves all around there. We can hide in the smallest one we find.”
“That’s your big plan? To find a hole to crawl into?”
“You have something better?” Craig snapped back. “Maybe use your keen sense of direction to get us out of this?”
A mighty thud drew attention to their backs and both men stalled. The noru cat had clawed or bitten its way out of the vines. Daniel watched as its darkly spotted fur rippled from the spasms of the muscles underneath it.
“Think the fall killed it?” he breathed.
“As if we’d be that lucky.” Craig cursed loudly as the beast swayed and stood, shaking its massive head. Daniel’s blows appeared to be taking their toll, however, the beast taking longer and longer to recover. But recovered, like death itself animated in the wilds of the Northern jungle. “Come on.”