“Or a gardener!” Yells Onyx, his legs running so fast they’re just a blur.
“Or a baker!” I screech, my own legs dangerously close to giving up on me as I run from the giant group of soldiers that is hot on our heels. “Free warm bread, all day!” I skid down a pile of loose rock, the sharp edges slicing into my skin. A wolf is biting at my fucking heels.
Oh, who am I kidding, I’d miss the thrill.
As it turns out, I was right to assume that there is a whole network of underground rooms on this mountain, and it strikes me now that the South is so much more prepared for the floods than we ever imagined. This is why they removed the River Stone, and this is why they were prepared to remove the Fire Stone shortly after. They can survive underground for a long time whilst the rest of us die out.
Stell sprints ahead, tossing a huge branch onto the floor in front of our boat to trigger all the traps. "Run!" He yells, as arrows whizz past us. I swear through my teeth and catapult myself over a fallen log, ducking an arrow that skims my neck by a hair's width.
"Hold them off!" I shout, bolting past our boat, a hundred feet around the treacherous side of the mountain to where three wooden boats are tied to a shrub.
It takes me three tries to summon any fire, my body weakening on me more by the minute. I haven’t slept, I have a bad cut to the leg, and we’ve been sprinting for near on an hour. "Rennalya!" Yells Onyx, telling me they are struggling. I toss a load of dry twigs into the first boat, setting it ablaze, and then do the same with the second and third.Good luck escaping now, fuckers.
"Rennalya!" Comes Stellan's voice now, amplified by Evergreen magic. I sprint back along the mountainside, my leg screaming at me to stop. My heart beats out of my chest as I dare glance over my shoulder and see I’m being chased. Stellan is pinging the King's arrows off like they are going out of fashion whilst Onyx hauls the boat into the water.
"Get in the fucking boat!" Screams Stellan, as arrows fly at us. Driving my legs faster, I sprint harder, veering off into the shallows of the water.
"My leg hurts,” is all I can whisper, through the agony that sears my thigh. Onyx lifts me up and into the boat, shoving me behind his giant frame and shouting for Stellan.
"Stellan!" I scream, as his oversized body ducks a spear at his head. He just keeps walking backward. In fact, he’s fucking singing a nursery rhyme, unbothered. I fight the blackness that looms over me, threatening to take me under, but my treacherous body gives in and the whole world goes dark.
* * *
A hand clamped firmlyover my mouth startles me awake.
I scream through the hand, but it only squeezes harder, stopping any noise from leaving my throat.
"Quiet, beautiful," comes a rough voice.Hm. That's Stellan's accent.
I try and fight but exhaustion has tied weights to my limbs. They feel too heavy to move. Stellan's pale green eyes blink back at me, and I realise it'shisgiant hand that's pressing my mouth shut. "If I take my hand off your mouth, will you be quiet for me?"
I nod, confused and dazed. He pulls his hand away, and my head is free to move. I look down and my stomach roils. I was dizzy before, but now I see I'm all the way up a giant tree, I feel even worse. "What's going on?"
"You've been asleep twenty-four hours."
"I feel like it,” I croak, sleepily. There are stitches in my leg. “I think summoning the fire took it out of me." An alarm sounds in my subconscious. He's not telling me something. He looks almost…worried.
Stellan doesn’t worry.
"We have a big fucking problem. Our plan of getting out of the boat and making the ten-mile hike to the Vault?"
"Yeah?" I whisper, holding the rough ridges in the tree to focus on not passing out again.
Stellan shuffles to my left so I can see the forests and clearings ahead of me. My stomach drops to the floor. Hundreds of wolves, spies, and soldiers patrol the forest, blocking our every route. The damp earth is crawling with them like a sick infestation, each one of them actively looking for something—or someone.They know we’re here.Stellan's finger hovers over his lips as a man bearing the grey bandana of the enemy walks beneath our tree, a barbed club dangling from his hand.
I hold my breath until he's passed, letting out a shaky exhale. "Where's Onyx?"
Stellan's heavily jewelled finger points to another tree. "We fell asleep and woke up six hours later to this shit.We're fucked, Renna. We need a new plan. We can't just wait for Rexxan to send an army because they'd have to get here by boat. We could starve before they get here."
Oh, no.Oh, no. I try to grapple with the loose strings of the situation, but they end up knotted every time. "I need to think about this."
Stellan nods, reaching across me to get some water.
And I hear it before it happens, but there's nothing I can do.
Part of the branch beneath his feet snaps, and although he catches the branch above us, it tumbles to the forest floor with a deafening crash, alerting every creature in the forest of our presence.
Chapter37
