Pare had both hands in his hair, stalking like a caged animal. Eriane was breathing hard, her eyes closed and her hands trembling.
“Come on, Pare,” Jacob said, kneeling and putting an arm around Eriane. Pare didn’t even register, instead continuing to mutter to himself.
Eriane let out another strangled cry and pitched forward onto her hand. Pare bolted back, skidding to a halt on his knees in front of her. He reached forward and gently lifted her chin in his hands. She looked at him through wet, unfocused eyes.
“Eri?” Pare said, as though she couldn’t hear him. “I’m going to try something that’ll stop this, and stall the breaker. Eri?” She gave a weak nod. “Look, Eri… This is going to hurt, okay? There’s no way I can stop him without it hurting you, too.”
She nodded again, and forced out some words which came out in more of a croak than in her voice. “Couldn’t be much worse,” she quipped. She slammed her eyes shut and groaned through clenched teeth.
Jacob moved away, dashing back to the edge to look down on their pursuers. Samuel watched as Pare put his hands around the base of Eriane’s head again, much the same way he had in order to set the protection in the first place. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers. She grabbed his wrist with her free hand. He took a deep breath and let it out, very slowly, then took another and held it. Eriane’s eyes and mouth snapped open and she froze, as though she were suffocating and trying to pull in air. And then Samuel felt it.
BOOM.
But it wasn’t a sound, and there was no concussion. It resonated through all of them. Like a thunderclap that surrounded them and pressed in on them, the boom hit hard and then rebounded outward. Eriane screamed and Pare almost couldn’t catch her as she fainted, because he wasn’t in much better shape. The echoes of a terrible scream, cut off as quickly as it had started, reached them on their perch from the valley below.
Jacob was back by Samuel’s side, and the two of them looked down on Pare as he held the unconscious Eriane in his arms. Her head lolled to the side and there was blood running over her mouth from her nose. Pare’s eyes were half-closed and he was panting from effort, but he looked up at the two of them and nodded.
“I think that worked,” Pare said.
• • • • •
Colton had kept them at a relentless pace after their initial night’s rest, jogging up the Morrelton road in pursuit of their fleeing prey. There was, of course, no argument from Bales, and he kept up without complaint. Without a word, in fact, which Colton thought was a nice change of pace. To their credit, the mercenaries at their back also kept up well, the promise of payday spurring them forward.
They knew they were getting close when Bales had sensed the protective constructions ahead of them, shielding their quarry from Colton’s senses. Bales characterized the protections as crude, but powerful, and noted he’d have to work on them carefully to avoid detection. Once one of the protections was down, Colton was in, and this whole ordeal would come to a messy close.
They jogged along while Bales worked, half of the time with his eyes closed, navigating the road better blind than some of the mercenaries were with their eyes open. He’d found the one chink in the armor and had begun working on it several hours prior, but had stumbled over his attempt multiple times.
“Well?” Colton said, for what must have been the tenth time. When Colton had tried to question him before, Bales just shooed him away. This time, though, the breaker’s eyes opened and his face split into a greasy smile.
“I think I’ve got—”
BOOM.
It came from somewhere ahead, high above, and traveled with frightening speed. All of them felt it, like a gathering wave, rolling through the forest, intensifying as it came. Bales doubled forward with his hands over his ears, splitting the mountain air with a feral scream.
His wailing cut off when a fountain of blood sprayed out from his nose, all across the front of Colton’s coat as Bales was lifted off of his feet. It was as though a giant hammer had struck him from where he stood, launching him into the air and over the heads of the others behind him, to land in a hard heap in the center of the road about thirty feet away. Even Colton stood stunned at the ferocity of it.
As Colton moved to check on him, Bales groaned and rolled, trying to get a hand down to push himself up off the ground. Colton was simultaneously relieved and disappointed at Bales’s movement, but couldn’t deny how much he would need the breaker if his target could fight back on this level. Bales turned himself around and sat up, his entire front covered in blood. He ran an arm across his face under his nose to clear some of it away and winced. His cheeks showed signs of swelling.
Colton crouched down and looked at him, but couldn’t hide his own satisfied smirk. “I see they’ve chosen to fight back,” he said.
Bales leaned forward and placed a thumb on the side of his nose, closed off a nostril and blew hard out of the open one, splattering Colton’s boots with more blood. “I’m going to kill them. With my own bare hands.” With a deliberate movement, he closed off his other nostril and repeated his action. It was Bales’s turn at the satisfied smirk. Colton turned his back and stalked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY
* * *
Sounds came back first, before Eriane could open her eyes. An eerie quiet, cut only by fast footfalls and rustling clothing. She felt herself swaying rhythmically back and forth, listening to the sound of the footsteps. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. It was bright, the sky above her stark white and shining right on her face. Snowflakes were falling all around her. It was almost peaceful.
Until the pounding in her head came crashing back, and her stomach lurched. She clenched her jaw and fought back the bile in her throat. Her nose hurt, like she’d been punched in the face. When she tried to reach up and touch it, she found her arms swaddled close to her body in her cloak. She turned her eyes on the brown blur above her, and Samuel’s face came into focus.
He’s carrying me. She kept looking at him, like somehow that would answer all her questions. Instead, she grew more confused, and wanted to know where they were going. Her dry throat prevented her from speaking, so she turned her head to see where they were. Something pounded in her head like she had sloshed her brain against the side of her skull. Her stomach turned harder, and this time she vomited into the snow.
She wanted to apologize to Samuel, but couldn’t form the words. The world went black again.
• • • • •
They were still running, but the sky had turned from bright white to a charcoal grey, snow still coming down around them. The sound of the footfalls had changed from a scuffling to a crunching, and she could see a long cliff face stretching up away from them on one side.
She turned her head much slower this time, and saw a dark figure further up the trail, keeping pace at a solid jog, trudging through the deepening snow. She followed the line of the cliff face up to the left, then saw no such barrier on the right, and turned her head further, only to see the road to their right fall sharply away, a valley stretching far below.
Her heart caught in her throat and her muscles locked with a wave of vertigo. She whipped her head back around and closed her eyes tight, which only made her swoon and her insides turn to liquid. She tried to calm herself but couldn't catch her breath, so she pulled herself in as close as she could to Samuel’s chest and tried to take slower breaths. He pulled his metal arms in closer, tightening his hold on her as they trudged through the falling snow.
Her breathing slowed and her mind wobbled, and after a moment she again descended into darkness.
• • • • •
When Eriane awoke again, they were no longer moving. She was warmer than the last time, and smelled woodsmoke. When she opened her eyes this time, she wasn’t in Samuel’s arms, but bundled up in her cloak on the ground, with something soft supporting her head. A low campfire of small sticks threw weak orange light onto the walls of what looked like a tall cav
e.
She coughed once, trying to clear her throat, and Jacob came into view. “Look who’s awake,” he said, his voice soft and concerned.
She cleared her throat again and attempted to speak. “Won’t they smell it?” The effort of a yell produced only a whisper.
Jacob smiled. “Ever the pragmatist,” he said. He gestured to the walls of the cave. “It’s more of a crack than a cave, and luckily the air flow carries our smoke back and up rather than out toward the pass.”
“Why are we stopped?” she whispered.
“We needed rest,” Jacob said. “Pare’s asleep. Samuel’s on watch at the mouth of the crevice.”
“What about you?”
“Just can’t sleep,” he said. He put a hand on the side of her head, so soft it didn’t even hurt her like she thought it might. “Close your eyes, Eri.”
She did just that.
• • • • •
Eriane heard someone crying from where she stood. She turned around and saw a boy kneeling on the ground before her, facing away. Heaving sobs echoed off of unseen walls, somewhere off in the black. As she moved closer she saw he was leaning over a body—no, clutching a body to his chest—and crying.
The young girl he held wasn’t moving. The front of her sun dress was covered in red splatter. One step closer and she saw two more bodies lying just beyond. A stout older man lay face up on the ground, and a reedy thin middle-aged woman lay across his chest, her face touching the ground. The boy stopped sobbing, taking in a slow breath. His head turned, his puffy eyes boring into hers.
“You did this to them,” Pare said, his voice so loud it hurt her ears. “You did this to me.”
She had no words to respond to him, she only stared as he lay the young girl down in a pool of her own blood and then stood to face her. He held his hands open, palms toward her, out low to his sides and covered in the young girl’s blood.
“You did this to me,” he repeated.
“No, Pare!” she cried. “I didn’t… I didn’t…”
He nodded his head toward her. “You did. You did this to me!”
Eriane looked down and saw her pistols in her hands, smoke trailing from the tips of both. Horrified, she threw them to the ground and stepped toward Pare. “NO! I didn’t do this!”
He nodded once and the pistols were again in her hands. This time, when she tried to throw them away, she found she couldn’t move. Her eyes tracked back up to Pare, whose hands clenched in claw shapes at his sides.
“You did this to me!” he screamed as he advanced on her. She tried to say something but her voice failed. Pare closed down his fingers, and she felt his power constrict around her, crushing away her breath.
His eyes flashed blue and his skin turned black. His jaw elongated, revealing rows of sharp white teeth. His arms thinned and his shirt burst from the back where two curved horns grew from his shoulder blades, coming to points beside his head. His hideous form terrified her, but all she wanted was to tell him it wasn’t her, that she didn’t do it. His grip on her tightened and she knew she would die, with him breathing his carrion breath into her face.
“YOU DID THIS TO ME!!”
He closed his fists.
• • • • •
“Eri! ERI!” A raspy voice drew her awake.
There was a hand over her mouth. Something held her down, her arms pinned to her sides and a weight on her chest. She struggled, trying to break free. Her eyes focused on Pare’s face, close to hers, shushing her. She took a deep breath and relaxed.
Pare took his hand away from her mouth and released the restraint on her body, and Jacob knelt beside her. Samuel stood behind both of them, looking down and then back over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“That must’ve been a pretty intense nightmare,” Jacob said.
Eriane eyed Pare, his look of concern marred by the images from her dream. She exhaled a stuttering breath through her nostrils and nodded.
“How do you feel?” Pare asked.
Her head wasn’t spinning anymore, and her belly seemed to have settled. The headache was still there, but it was just a dull throb now. She pushed herself into a sitting position. It didn’t make her sick. “Better, I think.” It was her full voice this time, and not a whisper.
Jacob handed her a tin cup with cold, clean water. She took a tentative sip, then gulped the rest down and held the cup out to Jacob, gesturing for more. “I’m starving,” she said.
Pare stepped away, and when he returned he handed her a bread roll and some dried venison from the provisions they’d cobbled together in the cabin. She tried not to scarf it down in one bite.
“Do you think you can walk?” Pare asked.
She did a quick mental check and didn’t find any immediate problems, and swallowed a mouthful of bread. “Guess I’ll find out,” she said. She finished the last of the bread and venison and pulled her legs under herself.
Once she was standing, Jacob was at her side, steadying her. Pare had a hand on her shoulder and looked right into her eyes.
“I’m fine, Pare,” she said, feeling weak but able to walk.
“Are you sure?” he said.
That question always annoyed her and made her feel good, all at once. “Yes, Pariadnus,” she said. “I’m fine. At least as fine as I’m going to be, for now. And if I’m not, you’ll be the first to know.”
Pare hesitated, then nodded and took his hand away. With a hand on Jacob’s arm she gave him a gentle nudge, and he stepped away, so she could try a few steps on her own. Her legs weren’t as wobbly as she expected, so she walked up to Samuel and put a hand on his chest.
“Now that we’re rested, we have to get going,” Pare said.
“Okay,” Eriane agreed. Her knees softened for a moment and Samuel caught her, a querying tilt to his head. She patted his hand and moved past, sidling up behind Pare at the entrance to the crack where they camped.
“We’ve got a ways to go until the road to Kelef,” Pare said. “And hopefully the snow has slowed them down enough we can build a lead.”
“Then let’s get going,” Eriane said, now sick of the delays. She wished they’d all stop looking at her like she was about to break in half, and just get on with it. Pare was still looking when she pushed him out onto the road.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
* * *
The wind picked up, swirling powdery snow around Eriane’s feet and buffeting the lot of them against the cliff face as they trudged along. Conditions had worsened overnight; snow was piling up in their path, covering obstacles and making footing treacherous. Samuel took the lead now, barreling through the calf-deep snow and acting both as a wind-break and a plow. The drop to their right had her heart in her stomach, and even with Samuel cutting a trail, Eriane’s feet seemed to find every crack and rock in the road. She stumbled once or twice, which wasn’t helping the looks she was getting from Pare and Jacob.
The curving road followed the line of the incline into which it had been carved. It felt like they’d been pushing forward all day, but in truth Eriane had no idea how much time had passed. As the day wore on and her feet and fingers and the parts of her face not covered by her scarf got colder and colder, each moment extended into an eternity. Every bend looked the same, bringing a frustrating sense of déjà vu.
And yet they kept going, bundled in all the winter clothes they had been able to gather. Reaching the road to Kelef was all she allowed herself to think about. When her mind wandered to what might come after, or what would happen if they caught up, she started to shut down, just wanting to curl up in a heap and sink into everything that had happened to them. But that was unacceptable.
After another one of the endless bends in the road, Eriane felt a tap on her shoulder and stopped. She turned and saw Pare’s eyes peeking out from behind the cloth mask he wore wrapped around his face under his hood. He didn’t speak, but instead pointed out into the expanse of snow and void that had hovered to their right all
day long. They had turned a bend that showed her their path, and she could see a great distance of the road extending out behind them until it finally disappeared around another curve.
She looked back at Pare, his eyes betraying the smile hidden by his mask. Being able to see their progress made her feel at least a little better about the cold clawing at her bones. Jacob almost ran into the two of them where they had stopped, his head bowed and his gloved hand holding his hood shut around his face to ward off the cold. Samuel stopped several paces ahead, and the four of them looked out across the chasm at where they had been.
The cold faded to the background as Eriane took in the sight of it, the massive mountain stretching up and away, the empty expanse below them filling with white. It was a humbling scene, awesome and beautiful in the swirling snow, and all she could do was marvel at those who had come before, those who had forged the path across this pass and carved a trail for others to follow, until Samuel came clomping back to them in his own footsteps.
The construct leaned around Eriane and tapped Jacob on the shoulder, then pointed out into the storm. Eriane and Pare both followed the direction of his outstretched arm along the road all the way to where they could barely see it disappear. Pare moved behind Eri, a hand on her shoulder and closer to Samuel’s arm.
Eriane couldn’t see anything save snow and rocks, until a gust of wind blew through the chasm and cleared the way for just a moment. Pare’s grip tightened on her shoulder, and there they were: several figures—little more than black dots against the white snow—moving around the bend along the same road, pushing forward in their trail. With as long as Eriane had been unconscious, she wasn’t sure if they’d gained ground or not, but they were closer than she expected—or wanted—them to be.
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