I clung to the dagger, the blade still crusted with the blood of the beast from the stream. Without warning, an arm wrapped around me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides, my hand still gripping my dagger. A blade pressed to my throat and suddenly I was being shoved toward the woods.
The steel at my neck sent such a chill through my body that I couldn’t think enough to fight it. The havoc continued behind me as my captor pushed me, pinning me up against a wide tree trunk. “The perfect distraction,” a voice growled in my ear. “No one will think anything of your screams.” My blood turned to ice as my mind worked on placing that voice. “Miles isn’t here to ruin my fun tonight.”
Ythan.
If I could get an arm free I could try to drive the dagger into his flesh.
He spun me toward him and I took the chance to raise the dagger in front of me. The bastard had the same idea as I did, because his own blade was clutched in his hand pointed straight at my chest. The smell of rum radiated from him, his scuffed stag mask icy in the low forest light. I inhaled, willing my face to remain neutral, knowing that any show of emotion would trigger him further and I’d lose any chance I had. His voice was eerily measured as he spoke. “You’re not supposed to have that.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I whispered.
He huffed a laugh from under his mask and in one swift moment my blade was on the ground, Ythan’s face just inches from mine. “Let me ruin you like Landgrave ruined last night.”
He shoved me to the ground, my head striking the soil hard enough for stars to swim in my vision. With his blade still in one hand, he used the other to reach for the ties at his waist as I willed my sight to clear and my ears to stop ringing from the impact. My arms flew out to my sides, wildly searching for the dagger I knew I wouldn’t find. I squeezed my eyes shut, steeling my resolve.
His blade dropped to the ground as his hands spasmed, suddenly covered in a ruby river as his neck erupted in a spray of blood, an arrow protruding from the side of his throat. His mouth hung open, the arrow quaking with the movement as his jaw opened and closed. He dropped to his knees before me, the blood pouring from his neck in spurts, giving me a look of pathetic desperation before falling forward. I had just enough time to scramble out of the way before Ythan landed face first in the dirt. His last breath choked out as a gurgle.
The initial shock faded and I sprang to my feet, fumbling for my dagger and whirling around toward the source of the arrow. I saw no one, only the spastic movements of combat throughout camp. Leaving Ythan’s body crumpled, I inched toward the noise, ducking behind thick tree trunks.
Carnage.In the firelight, the Onytes had lost significant numbers to the hands of the soldiers, but now a number of prisoners lay slain, their bodies being trampled by those still engaged in battle. The prisoners that attempted to fight made feeble, uncoordinated attempts at best, the others sitting leisurely as if hell wasn’t raining down around them. The reek of blood and gore hung in the air.
When the last of the Onytes fell to the ground, neck sliced from ear to ear, Kauvras’ soldiers panted with exhaustion. I stumbled from the tree line back to the group as it was announced that a dozen soldiers had fallen, not including the one unaccounted for. Ythan. I kept my mouth shut as his comrades shouted for him, knowing they’d find his body soon enough, the soldiers having no knowledge of what he had been attempting when he was struck. I saw no sign of Miles. I wasn’t sure I hated the idea of him being among the fallen.
I wrapped my arms around myself as soldiers shuffled to and fro, separating fallen soldiers and prisoners and Onytes. The Onytes’ bodies were heaved into the forest, discarded like trash. Soldiers began digging holes — a mass grave for prisoners and individual resting places for the fallen soldiers.
The dark of night hadn’t yet lifted as bodies were lowered into the pits, the other surviving prisoners showing little interest, limbs twitching. How long would it take for the leechthorn withdrawal to make them stronger?
I surveyed the forlorn faces of the prisoners glowing by firelight, but I was met with nothing but cold, vacant stares. It had been two weeks since I’d first heard of leechthorn. Two weeks since Castemont told us it had come over the border of Widoras, that it had been here for a while. And here I was, rubbing elbows with its slaves. Face after face, shadow after shadow, until…
Slumped against a small boulder a hundred feet and twenty prisoners away, hair tangled and gown filthy, was my mother.
The only thing I could hear was the beating of my own heart as it exploded in my ears. I fought my initial instinct to rush to her, to throw my arms around her, shake her. If the leechthorn did nothing to me, maybe it was the case for her. I stood slowly and trudged to the edge of the forest, ducking behind a tree to feign relieving myself. Careful not to seem too eager, too obvious, I stumbled back to camp, this time in her direction, and sank to the ground directly in front of her, placing myself directly in her eye line. Her mouth hung open like a door off its hinges.
“Ma,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes. She stared at me, eyes narrowing so slightly I almost didn’t notice. “Ma, it’s me. It’s Petra.”Please.Her expression didn’t change. The same vacant, far-off glaze clouded her eyes. “Please, Ma.” She looked at me for one more second before turning her head, staring off in the direction of the plains. I threw my head about, looking for any sign of her bastard husband. Castemont’s face was not among the prisoners.
It took everything in me to keep myself from crumbling, from breaking into hundreds of broken shards of despair that would ignite and burn this camp to the ground. My jaw clenched as I stared at the husk of my mother.
As dawn broke, two soldiers dragged a body out of the forest with an arrow in his throat, dug him a grave, and laid him to rest. While the soldiers called us back to the chain to march out of camp, I spat on the dirt that covered him, before taking my place on the chain behind my mother.
???
Dusk came and I could see the plains yawn open at the base of the mountains through the branches of trees, the grasses dusted with the pink of the setting sun. My mother stumbled ahead of me as her knees and ankles seized every so often. I was thankful to be headed out of this Saints forsaken mountain pass. Ingra hadn’t been completely right, after all. No beasts prowled the Onyx Pass with my blood on their jowls.
My mouth felt like I’d swallowed sand and my stomach grumbled so loudly I was afraid the soldiers would hear it. If we camped on the plains tonight, there would be nowhere to hide as I found and ate what I could. I had gone longer without food before, but I hadn’t done so while exerting so much energy.
We started our descent down what seemed to be the last slope of the mountain pass, the trail opening wide, when a soldier near the front threw a fist in the air, signaling everyone to stop. Prisoners collided as they missed his signal, and the sound of clanking chains reverberated through the forest.
Then, silence. Eerie, too-still silence. My bones went cold.
Like an explosion, the trees erupted with every nature of beast I could have possibly imagined and some I couldn’t. Dozens of winged rats the size of dogs swooped from the trees. Rivodian crows. Hounds with shoulders as tall as a horse rushed from the overgrowth, lips pulled over their maws to reveal a row of razor sharp teeth. Wolfhounds. The same kind of beast that had attacked Miles yesterday, now bellowed toward us in droves, letting out the same blood curdling screech — a bonehog. Beasts of every size and shape spilled from the forest.
And we were chained in place.
I saw soldiers scream but couldn’t hear what they were saying over the roars, caws, and screeches. Soldiers ran for the chain, unshackling as many prisoners as possible as the stampede descended upon us. Some prisoners stirred, having the sense to run even though the beasts were closing in from all directions. Most prisoners simply stood in place, oblivious to the onslaught of certain death.
My mother and I were released as the first of the animals reached the group, soldiers swinging their swords furiously. The crows swooped down, chunks of flesh ripped from vacant faces and thrown about.
“What the hell?!” I heard a soldier scream, sword drawn. “I’ve never seen this before!” The panic in his voice was unmistakable.