“SURRENDER!” a voice shouted down at them. “Do not move or we won’t miss next time.”
“Rollan, we have to do something!” Meilin started to climb faster, ignoring the warning. “They have the advantage up there.”
“Hold on tight!” Rollan took out the Heart of the Land. He thought if he could focus all his energy on hitting the mountain, he could cause a tremor. Enough to shake the trees and maybe knock a few of the archers off the ledge. “Here it goes.”
Just then another hail of stones flew at them. The slingers were back, and this time they were hitting their marks. Rollan’s calf burned, and he hissed as a rock struck the back of his leg.
Another rock pegged him in the back, knocking the air from his lungs.
He glanced up at Meilin just in time to see a large rock hit the back of her head.
“MEILIN!” Rollan’s voice echoed through the valley down below, but he couldn’t do anything as her hands dropped to her sides, letting go of the handholds. Rollan saw her dark hair drape down her back as her body arched and peeled away from the mountain. She tumbled backward, knocking out two of the anchors as she sailed past Rollan on her way down.
Rollan braced himself. Only his counterweight would save Meilin from crashing against the rocks below. The rope’s slack disappeared as it snapped tight against his chest and thrust him against the mountain, pulling him up higher as Meilin dropped several more feet. Then everything stopped. The third and fourth anchors held tight and Rollan regained his footing … but on the other end of the rope Meilin’s limp body dangled in midair.
An arrow flew overhead, this time headed toward the ridge, striking one of the attackers. Abeke was trying to give them cover, but there was no place for them to hide … nowhere to go. All Rollan knew was that he had to help Meilin. She couldn’t hang like that for long.
Rollan grasped the Heart of the Land as tightly as he could and pushed against the mountain with all his might. He tried focusing all his thoughts and energy into moving the mountain. If he could create a ledge just below Meilin, he could then lower her onto it by giving the rope some slack. But he didn’t even know if it was possible to force a piece of the mountain to jut out.
He had to try. Meilin’s life depended on it.
Rollan concentrated, ignoring everything else in the world.
The mountain began to shake. He could hear shouting from their attackers, mixed in with the thundering rumble of rocks cascading from different areas.
He didn’t care. He was going to save Meilin.
“ARGHH!” he grunted as all his energy poured out of himself and into the amulet.
Rollan didn’t even realize that the fighting had stopped. He didn’t know that there were no more rocks being hurled at them, no more arrows flying back and forth. His adrenaline was flowing and he was solely focused on Meilin. He could feel the weight of her body pulling on the rope.
The mountain rumbled and groaned as if in pain. Still, Rollan forced it to shift. He had never tapped into so much of the amulet’s energy. Inch by inch, a narrow ledge unfolded, forming a few feet beneath Meilin.
Once it was about three feet wide, he stopped to catch his breath.
“What kind of power do you have over our mountain?” a gruff voice called out.
Rollan ignored it. He slowly climbed up, allowing the rope to slide through the remaining anchors, which in turn allowed Meilin to gently fall onto the newly formed ledge.
“Answer us!” the voice demanded, but there was no show of force to back up the words. The arrows and rocks had ceased.
“I have to check on my friend!” Rollan shouted. He untied the rope around his chest and quickly scaled down to where Meilin lay.
“Meilin,” he whispered, crouching down beside her. He lifted her head and his fingers came away bloody. “Come on, Meilin. Open your eyes,” he said. “We need Jhi. She can help you. You have to call her out.”
Meilin’s body remained limp in his arms.
“Your falcon!” a much deeper voice shouted from above. “Call it back into passive state or we will finish what we started.”
For the first time since Meilin had been hit, Rollan took a good look at his surroundings.
The sun was beginning to set over the western mountains. He could hear Essix squawking. Above Rollan were warriors with arrows pointed directly at him and Meilin. Down below in the valley, Abeke and Conor were sitting among the snapdragon bushes with their hands over their heads, another group of warriors surrounding them. Uraza and Briggan were nowhere in sight. Rollan assumed that they must have been forced back into their passive states as well.
“Call off the falcon!” the voice yelled again, sounding a little more desperate.
Rollan imagined that Essix was fighting some of the warriors … and likely winning.
An arrow hit the ground, narrowly missing Meilin by a few inches. “Get the falcon out of here or the next one won’t miss!”
“Essix! ESSIX!” Rollan wobbled as he stood up, a sudden wave of exhaustion hitting him. “Please,” Rollan begged, pulling open his shirt, hoping the falcon realized that he had to do this to help Meilin. “Come!”
Essix flew away from the ridge and swooped past Rollan. Their eyes connected, and Rollan knew that the falcon understood the gravity of the situation.
A brief flash and the falcon tattoo appeared over Rollan’s heart.
“She’s gone,” Rollan shouted. “What do you want from us?”
There was silence. Rollan gazed over at Meilin again. He had never thought of her as fragile, but that’s exactly how she looked. He would do anything to protect her.
“I am Jehan, leader of the Dasat,” a strong, feminine voice called down. “We saw what you did. How do you hold such power over this mountain?”
There was no way Rollan was going to tell her about the Heart of the Land. “It doesn’t matter, but I can do much worse if you don’t leave us alone.” Rollan hoped this might be enough to frighten their attackers because, truth be told, he was far too weak to use the bond token again.
“Your friend is hurt.… We can help her,” Jehan offered.
“You are the ones who hurt her!” Rollan countered.
Three long ropes tumbled down the mountainside toward the ledge. Rollan knew there was nowhere for them to go. And even if there were, neither he nor Meilin were in any shape to move.
“Climb up!” Jehan commanded. “That’s an order.”
Rollan was sitting next to Meilin once again, cradling her head. His own body was spent. Moving the mountain had drained him of all his energy. “I can’t. I’m too weak.” His voice shook as he spoke. “And I’m not leaving her here.”
“Tie the rope around your waist and we will pull you up,” Jehan offered. “Once we talk, if I’m satisfied by your answers, then I’ll send a rescue team for your friend. It’s the only way to save her.”
Rollan didn’t like the idea, but he knew there was no other way. Meilin needed to get off this mountain. She needed help. Her head had stopped bleeding, but she wasn’t waking up.
He bent over and gave Meilin a kiss on the forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said softly in her ear. “I hope I’m doing the right thing.” He placed her head gently on the ground, tied the rope around his waist, and gave it a tug. “All right!” Rollan yelled. “Pull me up. Just get her rescue ready.”
ABEKE COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT AFTER EVERYTHING they’d been through, including epic wars with the Devourer and the Wyrm, the Dasat tribe had caught them completely unaware. Even Uraza hadn’t spotted them until it was too late.
“Look! Here come your friends.” Khai, one of the guards, pointed toward a group carrying torches down the mountain. Even though it was dark, the light from the torches revealed an exhausted Rollan using two people as support as he walked with his head hung low. Behind him, several of the Dasat carried a wooden stretcher with Meilin strapped on top. “We’ll see what they have to say.”
“They’ll tell you the truth, just a
s I have.” Abeke tried wiggling the ropes that held her hands behind her back. After being captured, they had all been brought to the small Dasat camp on the other side of the mountain. “We only needed to get a bit of sap from the tree, and then we would have been on our way.”
Khai shook his head. “Greencloaks never want one thing. They always demand more.”
“But there was no reason to attack us,” Conor argued, sitting on one of the many colorful rugs strewn around the camp. He was tied together with Anka, back to back. “We could have explained what we were doing. We meant no harm.”
“A Dasat hunter captures their prey first, then decides what to do with it,” Khai replied, bending down to get closer to Conor. “That’s why I cornered you and your wolf in the valley. But in this case, I won’t be the one to decide what to do with you … that’ll be Jehan’s decision.”
“Who’s Jehan?” Abeke asked.
“I am.” A girl not much older than the Greencloaks motioned for the others to take Meilin to one of the tents. She wore a long, golden-brown scarf over her head and had sun-kissed skin and dark hair that peeked out from the edge of the scarf. “I’m the leader of the Dasat. This is our territory. No one enters without our permission. Your friend’s injuries are the unfortunate consequence of her refusal to follow instructions.”
“Jehan, we meant no harm,” Abeke insisted. “We were simply—”
“Searching for the edge of the land, once you’d stolen the sap of the demon blood tree, correct?” Jehan smiled as Abeke’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Don’t be so surprised. Your friend Rollan was most informative … once he was given the right incentive.”
A honey badger scurried between the guards, causing them to jump aside and give it a wide berth. Abeke knew that these animals were among the most fearless hunters in Nilo, taking on even lions many times their size. The honey badger wasn’t big. In fact it looked similar to a skunk, with a white stripe down its weasel-like body. But its sharp claws and bad attitude made it a ferocious fighter. No one wanted to mess with one of these animals.
The honey badger circled Anka and Conor, pausing briefly to give a guttural hiss and bare its teeth at them.
“Livora,” Jehan reprimanded the animal. The honey badger glanced back, thought better of trying to pick a fight, and trotted over to stand next to Jehan.
Abeke realized that Jehan was Marked, and that the honey badger was her spirit animal. It made sense. Abeke could see that Jehan had the respect of much older and stronger members of her group. She was probably as smart and ferocious as Livora.
“You said you would help her.” Rollan glanced back at the tent where Meilin had been carried. “You’ll keep your word, right?”
“Of course.” Jehan unsheathed a long, sharp knife that she carried at her waist. “But you still haven’t truly explained how that ledge on the mountain moved.” She strolled over to Abeke and stood behind her.
“I did.” Rollan gave Abeke a quick glance. “It’s from my spirit animal bond. A power that comes from within me.… Only I can tap into it … no one else.”
So Rollan wasn’t giving away all their secrets. Only what was necessary to help Meilin. He hadn’t told them about the Heart of the Land or the fact that anyone could use it.
“So you say.” Jehan raised the knife above Abeke’s head.
“NO!” Conor yelled as Jehan sliced the air with the knife, bringing it down with whiplike speed.
Abeke didn’t see the blade sailing down. She only felt the parting of the air behind her back, and then her hands were free. Jehan hadn’t hurt her. Instead, she’d cut the ropes around her wrists.
“No reason to have a fellow Niloan tied up.” Jehan put the knife back in the leather holster. “The Dasat are an honorable people.”
Abeke rubbed her wrists. “What about the others?” She pointed to Anka and Conor.
Jehan chuckled. “We’re honorable … not stupid.” She waved over one of the warriors who had shot at them with the slingshots. “Take the Niloan Greencloak to the injured girl in my tent. Once she gets better, we will escort them all back across the mountains from where they came.”
“Wait.” Rollan took a step forward. “I want to go with Meilin.”
Jehan shook her head. “I’m sure you do, but it’s not your decision.”
“I know of the Dasat,” Abeke said. “Your skills are legendary throughout Nilo. Growing up I would hear stories of your hunting abilities … but no one in my village knew if you still existed.”
“We most certainly exist,” Khai scoffed. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be our prisoners.”
“Guests,” Jehan corrected him. “They don’t have to be prisoners, if they agree to leave the same way they came.”
“But I wonder if all the stories are true,” Abeke mused. She watched as the honey badger used her large claws to dig a burrow a few feet away. “The incredible hunts and contests that the Dasat were said to hold. Rumor had it that they never turned away from a challenge.”
Conor seemed to guess what Abeke was thinking. “We’ve met plenty of exceptional hunters and warriors in our travels,” he said. “Like the Tergesh in Zhong and the Ardu in Arctica.”
“Ha!” Khai rolled his eyes. “As if they could hold a candle to any of the Dasat.”
Abeke had hoped that Rollan would chime in—he was usually good at this sort of thing—but the boy kept his eyes on the tent where Meilin was being treated. He wasn’t paying attention to anything that was being said.
“Perhaps we should have a contest,” Abeke suggested. “Some of the stories I heard claimed the Dasat were always eager to prove their skills.”
“What do you have in mind?” Khai asked, his eyes sparkling at the thought of a challenge.
“Your best against our best,” Conor said.
“No.” Jehan quashed the idea. “We’ve already proven our skills in capturing you. Soon you’ll leave and be grateful that we let you live to tell the tale. We’re not here for games.”
Livora popped her head up from the burrow, as if something had piqued her interest. The honey badger scampered over to a barrel and, rising up on her hind legs, clawed her way to the top.
“There’s nothing to eat there,” Jehan said to her spirit animal.
Livora jumped down and ran between Rollan’s legs. The boy blinked, as if coming to. He turned his attention away from the tent and back to the group.
“What if there’s an incentive for the winner?” Rollan asked.
Abeke smiled. Rollan had been listening after all.
“Go on.” Jehan’s shrewd eyes watched him.
“If your challenger wins”—Rollan paused to consider his words—“I’ll show you how I moved the mountain.”
“I thought you said it was your spirit animal bond?” Jehan questioned, her arms folded across her chest.
“Yes, but I can show you how to work together with your spirit animal.” Rollan pointed to the honey badger, who was busily gnawing on a rock. “That’s what Greencloaks do, after all. Perhaps you could discover your own power.”
Jehan seemed to entertain the idea. “And if you win … what is it that you want?”
“If we win … ” Abeke spoke slowly, carefully considering what she was going to say. “You simply let us cross to get the sap.”
“And you tell no one that we were ever here,” Anka added.
“Ah, yes.” Jehan nodded. “Rollan spoke of these Oathbound who are chasing you.” The girl paced back and forth. “We’re not involved in your dealings with the Oathbound. We’ll take no side in your battle, as neither is a proven friend of the Dasat.”
“Jehan.” Khai slowly walked around Conor, evaluating him. “I know I can beat these Greencloaks. This one and his wolf tried to attack me earlier. I would enjoy battling him again.”
“And you swear that you’ll show me how you moved the mountain?” Jehan asked Rollan.
He nodded as several of the Dasat gathered around. Word had already spread that a
challenge had been issued.
“Then I see no harm in having a hunting contest,” Jehan declared, turning to look at everyone. “Just as our old Dasat traditions dictate,” she announced. “We shall give this matter over to the twin sisters of Fate and Skill, who guide every hunter’s path. The first hunter to return with a significant kill will be declared the victor.” She spun back around. “Our most resourceful hunter, Khai, shall be our representative.”
The crowd cheered.
Jehan then looked at Rollan. “And who is your representative?”
“She is.” Rollan pointed to Abeke, who stepped forward to stand next to Khai. Abeke could sense it was a stark contrast; the hunter dwarfed her in height and width.
The Dasat began laughing, and she heard murmuring rise throughout the crowd.
Khai was not pleased. “This is who you choose?” He grabbed Abeke under her arms and lifted her as if she were a small child. “This isn’t a challenge … it is an insult. And I will not—”
Abeke swung her leg, catching him unaware. As he lost his balance, the hunter dropped her, and she landed lightly on her hands and feet. She turned and gave Khai a strong kick in the stomach that sent him flying onto his back, then quickly pressed her foot against the base of his neck.
“You’re correct,” Abeke hissed, bending over to get close to his face. “It doesn’t seem like much of a challenge … does it?”
Khai glared at her and batted away her leg.
“You going to let her do that to you, Khai?” someone called out.
“Khai, how’s the view from down there?” another voice laughed.
“Enough!” Jehan raised her hands and the crowd quickly grew silent. “We would all do well to remember that a hunter is not measured by his … or her … size.” She faced Abeke. “You will not use your spirit animal during the hunt. This is a test of your skill alone. Is that clear?”
Abeke wasn’t worried. She knew she could hold her own with the very best hunters. “Understood, but I will need my bow and arrows.”
“Of course.” Jehan motioned for one of the Dasat guards to get her things.
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