He says nothing, but he looks like he is going to be sick. Stellan looks satisfied enough with his healing work so he stands Kelen up, releases him, and watches him crumble right back to the floor. We all look on in silence, unimpressed.
"He can't walk," observes Onyx, eventually.
"Thanks, Onyx. I've always felt that our missions need constant narration," quips Stellan, causing Onyx to throw a bottle at his head.
I clear my throat. "We leave now. I'm not wasting another minute. We take him with us.
Stellan hauls Kelen over one broad shoulder as if he weighs a pound. "Did they go left or right out of the cave?"
"Left," the River King croaks, his voice barely audible.
The three of us freeze, looking at each other with the same expression. Left is up towards the mountain summit. That makes no sense. "Kelen, I will set your head on fire," I threaten, kindling a small flame between my thumb and index finger. I think I quite like being a sorceress.
"I swear. Left," he rasps, blood dribbling out of his mouth. Stellan grimaces, veering left.
The crimson light of the quickly vanishing sun paints the floodwaters and the mountain a vibrant shade of blood red, the route becoming darker in front of us as we climb. I grunt with effort as I scale another sheer rock face, cursing Stellan who is climbing up it with another man clinging onto him as if it’s no trouble at all.
The sun says her final goodbye and vanishes below the waterline, but we don't stop. We can't stop. We climb and climb until dawn caresses the land with gentle light, my head clouded with exhaustion. Onyx drops Kelen on the floor. "I don't even know what we're looking for here."
“Nor do I, O, but there are footprints on the trail so Kelen must've told ussomethingtruthful."
"And when can I chuck him off the edge of the mountain?" Asks Stellan, tossing sticks at the unconscious man on the floor. One bounces off his forehead unceremoniously.
"We need him. He's the only one who knows what whoever has the stone looks like. We use him, then we kill him."
"Fine," agrees Onyx, accompanying his capitulation with his trademark grumpy sigh.
We’re hungry, but we push on. My legs drive me up the steepest climbs, and I ignore the protests from tired muscles and the migraine that envelops my skull. But as our altitude heightens, so does my malaise. Every foot we gain is a little piece of lost hope, and when we summit the mountain as the second day draws to a close, we've seen and heard no one.
Stellan slams his fist into Kelen's nose, breaking it more than it already is. "Fucking liar!" He screams, each word bursting with fury. Kelen starts to howl in pain, and right on cue, I hear distant voices. My stomach plummets twenty feet and I lurch to desperately try and stop Kelen screaming.
I've been a hunter long enough to know that stealth is everything. Surprise is the greatest weapon we can have, and with every noise that escapes Kelen’s lips, I see it slipping away.
"Who's there?" Yells a deep voice. Stellan's eyes widen, his knuckles flexing around the knife at his belt.
"Kill him now!"
"We need him!"
"We'll manage without!" He hisses, as voices draw nearer.We need him. In a split-second decision, I rip one of Rexxan's potions from a pocket against my thigh and force it down Kelen's throat, both of my battered hands over his mouth.
I can feel Onyx and Stellan's blistering fury scorching my back as I do it. They'll call it a waste, but I call it protection of our resources. Kelen's screaming stops abruptly, his eyes widening in confusion as all his pain melts away. The voices are nearer, louder this time.
"Go, go, go," I shout-whisper, as I haul our things into a bag and over my shoulder. Stellan picks up Kelen, a hand over his mouth. I should've gagged him. A careless but potentially costly mistake that I don't doubt has arisen from my severe lack of sleep.
We skid down the rocks, cringing every time a fragment starts tumbling down the slope. Stellan stops up front, finding a windswept shrub to hide behind.
"Do your thing, beautiful," he whispers, pale pistachio eyes on mine. I nod with bated breath, stalking across the rocks in complete silence, darting from boulder to boulder towards the voices. The earth doesn’t make a single sound beneath my quick feet. I slow to a stop behind a shrub, waiting, watching. The voices go quiet, only the sound of the wind and the dull thud of my quickening heartbeat filling the surrounding air.
"Swear I heard someone," comes a gruff voice, in a language from the South that I haven't spoken for a while. I spot a group of twelve, all carrying the grey bandana of the enemy. They all look like they are cold-blooded lethal killers.
But so do I.
One of them crouches down, hands with black fingernails running over the muddy rock beneath his feet. I grab the stuff, Stellan grabs the prisoner, Onyx covers our tracks. That's been our evacuation plan for years. It’s a mantra we've exercised over and over in every corner of Yterras. I just hope Onyx did his job well today.
As they turn away from me, I run a hundred feet between trees and boulders to return to Onyx and Stellan. "I need Kelen."
"Fuck no. He isn't going to be able to run. You'll give yourself away."
