Luckily, it was dead.
Its torso had been ripped open, and it had been stripped of half its flesh, but that didn’t make it any less alarming to behold. In fact, it makes it worse. Because it begs the question: what killed it?
They crept around it.
The kill looked recent, which meant it was possible that its foe was still nearby. The last thing they wanted to do was be that predator’s dessert.
As they passed by its rib cage, Zera paused.
Kreya saw her eye the exposed ribs. It was tempting. Such bones were rare, due to the difficulty of collecting them, and the strength they held . . . “We can’t linger,” she whispered. But she stopped beside Zera, staring at the exposed bones.
“Think of the possibilities.”
And she did. “I can use a strength talisman to break it off,” Kreya finally said. “Speed to get us out of here before anything notices us.”
Eyes glued to the beautiful bones, Zera passed her the necessary talismans, while Kreya drew out her sharpest knife. She felt the weight of the blade in her hand and readied herself. Bringing the talisman up to her lips, she whispered to it. She felt the strength fill her arms. Climbing up to the dead beast, she swung the knife and hacked through a rib.
Close by, much too close, a creature roared.
Kreya yanked the rib free. It was heavy, but she was still imbued with strength. She positioned it over her shoulder and then activated the speed talisman. They both fled down the trail as another river lizard, larger than the slain one, crashed through the trees behind them.
“Shit!” Kreya swore.
“Pass it to me!” Zera said.
Kreya handed the rib to her. “Peel off,” she ordered. “Five hundred paces, whistle.”
They separated, each plunging into the forest, forcing their pursuer to choose. Kreya ran toward the river, hoping her speed talisman would last until they rejoined each other. Alone, she felt the forest close in on her, but she kept her pace up, scrambling over the underbrush.
At three hundred paces, she veered in the direction in which she knew Zera had run. Please be okay, she thought. Please don’t be caught. Don’t be dead. She listened as she ran, knowing that any second she could hear the sound of a river lizard making a kill. She could hear her friend’s last scream. And it would all be her fault. Again.
I shouldn’t have let her come. I shouldn’t have—
She heard three short whistles. When she found the trail again, Zera was only a few yards ahead of her. Giving herself a burst of speed from the talisman, she caught up with her. Her sides were heaving hard, sweat shone on her face, and blood dotted her forehead.
Not dead. Very much not dead.
But there was no time to feel more than a flash of relief. Just because they’d survived a few minutes apart was no guarantee they’d survive for longer together.
Wordlessly, Zera handed her the rib, and Kreya shouldered it.
They kept running, side by side, until the talismans’ power wore off, and then they slowed, stopped, and panted, listening for any sound of pursuit. Kreya tossed her drained talisman into the bushes.
Lowering the rib bone to the ground, Kreya looked at it, then at Zera.
Zera grinned at her, and Kreya grinned back.
“I missed this,” Zera said. “Never thought I would.” She then eyed the lizard bone. “Hello, my pretty. You were worth it.”
Kreya imagined if she’d had this kind of bone to fuel the crawler, it could have scrambled across that cliff in minutes. She’s probably calculating how much she can sell lizard talismans for, Kreya thought.
But Zera said, “I spotted the crash site, not far from here. The crawler is pretty banged up, but if you could use the lizard bone with it . . .”
Kreya was startled. “You want me to use it?” It was worth a fortune, and Zera was a businesswoman now first and foremost. She’d made that clear enough with her life choices.
“Of course.”
“Then we are still a team?” She hadn’t thought that, after so many years, after Zera’s disapproval of what she’d done and what she planned to do with Jentt, they were still . . . well, anything to one another but reminders of the past. She’d thought Zera had accompanied her out of some kind of leftover sense of responsibility or guilt or . . . I don’t really know why she came.
Zera rolled her eyes. “Obviously. You don’t flee from a river lizard with just a casual acquaintance. Come on, hermit girl. That busted-up spider won’t walk by itself, you know. And we still have a long way to go.”
They slept near the crawler crash site, beneath the shell of a dead giant tortoise, which was cramped for two and stank of swampy rot but was at least relatively safe. Kreya woke to the cry of a bird she didn’t recognize and listened for a while before crawling out from beneath the shell. We’re not dead, she thought.
Nothing had killed them during the night. She marveled at that.
She checked for any sign of nearby predators before relieving herself and attending to her teeth. She was still sucking on a mint leaf to rid herself of the last taste of morning breath when Zera emerged from the shell.
“I will never not smell of dead tortoise,” Zera announced. “It’s seeped into my skin. It’s a part of me now. Henceforth, all tales and ballads about me will speak of my reptilian aroma.”
“Mint leaf?” Kreya offered.
“I packed my own, thanks.” Hands on her hips, Zera surveyed the remnants of the crawler. “Any thoughts on how we do this?”
The crawler had cracked open like an egg, and the passenger compartment was unfixable. But the underside was intact, even though a few of the legs had snapped off. I could reattach them, Kreya thought. But we’d have to ride exposed. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it was possible she could get it moving again. “Plenty. I need you to be lookout while I work.”
“And if something comes to eat us before we finish?”
Kreya shrugged. “Eat it first. I could use some breakfast.”
She got to work, hauling the snapped-off legs back to the crawler body and lashing them together with vines. There was no shortage of materials in the sunken forest, which was a nice change from the mountain forest—she had access to an abundance of timber around her tower from the pines and spruce, but the myriad vines in the river valley made for excellent ropes. She also had her full array of tools. No respectable bone worker would ever be without them.
Or unrespectable, she conceded.
As she worked, she abandoned hope of manufacturing any kind of compartment for them to ride in and instead devoted all her attention to the floor and legs. It required her to use a bit of a strength talisman to rebend the metal back into the right shape, but in the end, it all fit.
“Almost done?” Zera asked.
“It won’t be comfortable,” Kreya warned. “We’ll feel every bump and bounce.”
“But will it go fast?”
Kreya eyed the fresh lizard bone with glee. “Let’s find out.” Measuring, she decided half would do. They could save the other half for later. With Zera’s help, she sawed the bone in half and installed one piece on the crawler’s underside, between its many legs. As she carved the markings, she felt it begin to hum beneath her finger. This bone, even halved, had a lot of power.
Poking her head under the crawler, Zera asked again, “How about now? Almost done?”
“It’ll be done when it’s done.”
“Sooner would be better, dear one.”
Kreya paused, listening. “How many are coming?”
“Let’s just say it’s more than even Stran could fight with one of my best talismans.”
She carved faster. Spreading her palms across the bones, touching each of the marks, she said the words that would infuse the crawler with the power of the monster’s rib. “Get on,” Kreya ordered.
She could hear the predators coming: croco-raptors, from their cries. Smaller than river lizards, but known to be just as deadly. They hunted in packs. Shit, we�
��re going to cut it close. Their luck had run out. It was time to go.
Zera climbed on top of the crawler, and Kreya joined her. There weren’t seats—those had been smashed beyond fixing—but Kreya had lashed on a log for them to use as a bench. She wished now she hadn’t wasted the time on that.
“Come on, bone, show us what you’ve got.”
As the cries grew closer, echoing on both sides of them as the croco-raptors surged to surround them, Kreya ordered, “Nacri-ze.”
The lizard bone hummed, the legs clicked, and the crawler moved forward. It crashed over bushes and rocks, and Kreya steered for the river lizard trail, using it as if it were a road.
Behind them, the croco-raptors gave chase.
“Faster,” Zera murmured in her ear.
“Raca!” Kreya commanded the bone. It threw more power into the legs, and the crawler raced forward. She clutched the steering rod, keeping it steady.
“One to our left!” Zera cried.
Gritting her teeth, Kreya concentrated on steering. She headed for a tree with a massive trunk, gauged the speed . . . “Raca!” And then veered at the last second.
They heard the cry of the croco-raptor as it hit the tree.
Branches crackled as they smashed through them. Ducking, Kreya steered the crawler along the path. It rattled so hard that she felt as if her bones were clacking against one another.
“Hold together, baby,” she said to the crawler.
“Kreya, I think we— Fuck!” A croco-raptor leaped onto the side of the crawler. Its jaw clamped onto Zera’s coat, and it yanked her off the seat.
“Zera!”
Kreya lunged across the side of the crawler, but her hands closed over air. Her friend sailed backward, pulled by the monster, between the trees. Swearing, Kreya leaned hard on the steering, forcing the crawler to pivot fast. Its legs shrieked in protest.
Behind, she heard the other croco-raptors gaining on her.
“Go, Kreya!” Zera shouted. She let out a cry of pain as she was dragged over rocks. “Get out of here!”
Not happening. She hunched down beneath the branches. “Raca! Raca!” The trees blurred around her as she focused exclusively on the river lizard dragging Zera. “Use strength! Break free of it!”
Ahead, she heard branches breaking.
And then suddenly silence.
“Zera!”
Behind her, they were still coming. She didn’t know how many. But where was the one who’d taken Zera? No, no, no, Kreya thought. She was not losing her friend. Not like this!
The crawler burst into a clearing, and suddenly Kreya saw them:
Suspended above the clearing were webs, thick vinelike ropes that crisscrossed between tree trunks on either side of the opening. Caught in the middle of the web was the croco-raptor. Zera was prone on the ground beneath it.
She wasn’t moving.
“Get up, Zera!” Kreya called.
She lay staring up.
What’s wrong with her? Kreya wondered. “Zera! Snap out of it!” Please, stand up. Run! Every bit of her felt as if it were vibrating with the need to scream at her friend to move now. A web in the valley—
Lifting her arm, Zera pointed. “Pretty as the sun.”
Kreya ordered the crawler to stop as she looked up. She expected to see one of the wolf spiders, known for their size and their webs—this was obviously a wolf spider’s web. But what she saw was far worse.
Rare, very rare, the mindcloud jaguar was perched on a branch above a tear in the web, a dead wolf spider beneath one of its paws. She’d only heard descriptions of the elusive predator: shadow-gray fur, onyx-black teeth, and eyes . . . they were said to be golden.
You didn’t ever look in its eyes.
The mindcloud jaguar hypnotized its prey, before it killed them.
Only three feet in length, the cat had been known to take down river lizards many, many times its size, subduing them with the power of its mind before ripping them apart with its teeth. Behind her, Kreya heard the other croco-raptors burst into the clearing, see the mindcloud jaguar, and then retreat. They prowled just beyond the clearing, ready to catch her when she ran, unwilling to risk the stare of their enemy.
“Listen to me, Zera. I am your commander. Not that cat.” Squeezing her eyes shut, she kept her voice even and firm. “And I need you to get up and run. Run toward my voice.”
“I’m sorry, Kreya. I can’t move. It doesn’t want me to move. I can’t . . . I can’t stop looking at it. You have to go. You have to leave me. Or it’ll take you too.”
Not an option. “You’re looking at it right now, yes?”
“Yes. Said that.”
“Then you guide my aim.” Kreya drew one of her knives. She adjusted her grip on the hilt. Her palms were sweaty from clinging so hard to the controls of the crawler. Lifting the knife, she said, “Give me a position.”
“Raise it higher.”
She did.
“Left, twenty degrees. Less.”
Kreya breathed in, steadying her arm. She’d never had Stran’s strength with a sword or Jentt’s speed and efficiency with daggers, but she knew how to throw a knife. She’d practiced for hours each day, at Jentt’s insistence, and she’d continued having the occasional practice even after she’d exiled herself to her tower. No matter how many constructs she created, he wanted her to be able to defend herself. It had been a while, but her muscles remembered the grip, the angle.
“Lower,” Zera said. “Only a—yes, there. There.”
As soon as she moved, it would see her and switch its attention to her. She’d have only a brief second between throwing and when it could seize her mind.
She didn’t hesitate.
Snapping her eyes open, she gauged the distance, adjusted the angle, and threw. As her arm completed the throw, she felt a warmth spread through her body. Her thoughts slowed, as if they were swimming through mud, and she dropped to her knees.
Distantly, she heard a wet thunk.
The blade buried itself in the jaguar’s neck. It screamed, and in that instant, it lost control of its prey’s minds. The croco-raptor thrashed in the web. Zera sprang from the rock and ran. Kreya grabbed the controls of the crawler. Reaching out an arm, she pulled Zera up onto the crawler with her and shouted, “Nacri-ze! Raca!”
The crawler shot back into the forest.
Beside her, Zera activated a strength talisman. As one of the waiting croco-raptors hurled itself at them, Zera kicked it back. It slammed into a tree. A second raptor leaped for the crawler, and Kreya turned hard right toward the river.
Closer to the river, the forest was less dense. She urged the crawler faster, beyond the speed of the croco-raptors. At last, the cries of their pursuers faded. Soon, they were gone entirely, off to hunt easier prey.
“I fucking hate this place,” Zera said.
Kreya agreed. “Sinna,” she said soothingly to the bone.
They slowed to a less breakneck speed, and they continued along the river, northward, between the mountains and toward the forbidden plains.
Chapter Seven
After stashing the crawler beneath an overhang of vines, Kreya crept out of the mist to emerge just beyond the mountains. Zera was behind her, peering over her shoulder. Ahead of them was the border wall. Beyond it was the forbidden zone, an uninhabited land that stretched so far that it exceeded the horizon.
We made it, Kreya thought.
Getting here was supposed to have been the easy part. Instead, she felt as if she’d been shoved through a cheese grater. Zera looked in even worse shape, with a bruise across her left cheek and a slash through her left eyebrow. One arm was wrapped in bandages, though thankfully not broken. Kreya felt an ache through her whole body, plus a pain in her lower back that felt as if someone were drilling between her vertebrae. Still, they were at the wall.
“Should I distract the guards?” Zera offered.
Kreya snorted. “Not enough of them to be worth the effort.”
She co
unted—three guards visible on this stretch of wall, which was far too few for the size of the area. Just bowmen, mostly clustered by the guardhouse. Catapults had been set up at intervals, but no one manned them.
It looked like no one cared.
Last time Kreya had been here, the guards had very much cared. When Grand Master Lorn had sealed the forbidden zone, he’d done it with an army. Where was that army now? Maybe there was something she was missing. A trap.
“Stealth and speed then, and they’ll never know we were here.” Zera started forward.
But Kreya grabbed her wrist. “It’s too easy.”
“You’re too worried. Eklor’s dead. There are no traps. Just a few barely-out-of-diapers guards to keep up appearances and keep out ordinary bone thieves. Darling, it’s been a good long while since we’ve been ordinary. No one’s expecting anyone like us.”
Kreya loosened her grip. She’s right, she thought. No matter how fresh the memories felt to her, it had been many years since the end of the war. This guard duty . . . It looked as if it was considered mostly ceremonial at this point, a light duty for those in training before they took on more important assignments. In fact, the nearest guard looked barely older than a boy. She couldn’t see his face from this distance, but his body was lanky, the stretched-out look of a just-grown child. Still a baby, she thought. He hadn’t even been born yet when the war happened. Besides, no one was expecting any thieves to try to cross the wall, especially here. Thanks to their crash into the valley, they were approaching from a completely unexpected direction.
She wondered if people had forgotten what had happened here. Had it been long enough for it to fade into legend? Luckily or unluckily, she didn’t have to rely on half-forgotten legends. She had memories.
And she remembered there were culverts with drainage grates along the wall, every quarter mile, to allow rainwater to flow from the plains and funnel into the valley. When the wall had first been built, they’d been secured with fine ironwork, the thick kind—impenetrable. “How long does it take iron to rust?”
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