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I held out my blade, peering down through the sparse leaves of the old oak tree, breathing quietly. I steadied myself with my free hand planted against the rough bark of the oak’s trunk.
He came less than twenty seconds later, crossbow up and ready as he moved stealthily through the brush and bramble. The snake.
I leaned forward on my toes, trying to get a better angle as he approached and the branch I perched on creaked under my weight.
The snake jerked his head up, raised his crossbow, and fired. I dodged the bolt by a hair, falling, and threw, having to curve the blade to account for the lower branch.
I reached for a handhold, but my fingers clutched at nothing, just empty air as gravity worked against me, pulling me back down to earth. With a grunt, I hooked a leg out, catching myself on the branch below me to hang upside down. Brutally tearing something in my knee.
Dammit.
I drew the second blade as I flipped from the lower branch and prayed to land anywhere that wasn’t on my face. It was a surprise to land on my feet, though the ache in my knee sent me bending to one side to account for it.
It surprised my attacker even more, though.
His eyes went saucer wide at the sight of me, more or less unharmed while he clasped his hands around the blade protruding from his gut. Hands slick with red.
His crossbow was discarded on the ground, two bolts scattered around it.
He went for the handle of the blade, but I lifted another and it flashed in the moonlight, drawing his attention. “As much as I’d love to have that back,” I hissed, careful to keep my voice low. “If you take it out, you’ll die, and I’m not entirely sure what that means for me.”
I wasn’t not sure what I expected, maybe for him to suck it up and take his defeat like a champ, bow out of this stupidhuntlike the harmless reptile he was pretending to be, but that’s not what he did. Not by a fucking long shot.
“She’s over here!” he called, his voice carrying in the night, and my skin iced over with a new layer of cold sweat.
I reeled back and kicked him hard in the knee, satisfied to hear him cry out in pain as he slumped to the ground in my wake. I stomped on his crossbow too for good measure.
Run, bitch,I scolded myself.You got this.
But my knee was aching, and every step felt like another thread torn in whatever was holding the whole fucking hinge joint together. I pushed through the pain anyway, resolved to get the fuck out of here.
I stopped, only for an instant to hear sounds of pursuit, but I heard something else instead. Faint. Super distant, but it was there.
Music.
Dance music. A house party?
Or was it…
It could be…
I ran in that direction, trying to listen to the far-off sound of the bass to guide me.
It was almost impossible to hear it over the sound of my own breathing. And the thudding of my pulse pounding in my ears made it hard to distinguish one from the other.
Shit.
I rounded a boulder, crouched down behind it to listen again, holding my breath even though it made my chest burn.There.
More to the east.
I jumped back to my feet and was thrown forward, a whistle the only sound before I hit the ground, the air leaving my lungs in a pained gasp. Dirt and blood filled my mouth and the pain came all at once. An increasing pressure in my shoulder that was reaching a volcanic eruption size breaking point.
Still gasping for air, I twisted my head and came face to face with the arrowhead protruding from the fleshy bit of skin connecting my right shoulder to my torso. Blood dripped from the black metal tip and on a stomach twisting glance back, I saw the rest of it, sticking out the other side. Wood fletching and speckled feathers.
Holy shit.
They shot me.
