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Riley
“It’s a Zylvari,” Talan announced. “They’re ruthless beasts that won’t stop until they get what they want.”
My breath came in ragged gasps, my chest burning with each inhalation.
Every muscle screamed in protest, and my mind raced with the reality of our situation.
With Talan’s powerful arm tugging mine, it felt like I was being pulled along by a force of nature.
A few items I held slipped from my grasp and scattered on the forest floor, lost to the foliage and the frenzied rush of our escape.
I tried to pull him back, wanting to retrieve what we’d lost, but he shot me a look filled with a mix of urgency and fear. “We can’t stop! Not now!”
His words were punctuated by the unmistakable sound of a dart whizzing through the air, embedding itself into a nearby tree.
The bark around the dart turned a sinister shade of black, an ominous sign of its lethality.
A chill ran down my spine.
Between the relentless pursuit of the Zylvari and the lethal threat of his darts, our odds seemed slimmer with each passing second.
“What do we do?” My voice was a high-pitched, desperate plea.
“Check the supplies I gave you. Find something that looks like a fi’jan,” Talan instructed, glancing over his shoulder to gauge the distance between us and our pursuer.
A panicked laugh bubbled up. “I don’t know what the hell afi’janis, Talan!”
His eyes darted to mine for a brief moment. “It’s like a fruit, about this size,” he said, making a fist for reference.
Running as fast as my feet could carry me, I sifted through the assortment of items with shaking hands, discarding anything that didn’t match his vague description.
My fingers brushed against an unfamiliar object that was neither fruit nor the size of Talan’s fist.
Hesitating for a split second, I showed it to him.
He began to shake his head before thinking better of us. “Give it here!”
I handed the peculiar device to him.
Talan hurled it ahead of us and, not slowing at all, stamped on it as we passed over it, burying it in the soft ground.
“Wait! What did you just do?” I yelled, struggling to match his pace.
“It’ll slow him down, but it won’t stop him,” he panted, not bothering to look back.
Fwa-boom!
A screech and pained howl followed hot on its heels.
The explosion came from behind us and I knew it justhadto have come from the device he’d planted in the ground.
“Keep looking for the device!” Talan yelled.
I did as he asked as we burst through a thick curtain of foliage.
“Look out!” Talan’s voice was a desperate shout, echoing the alarm in my own heart.
