Light of Epertase 01: Legends Reborn (8 page)

Alina snuggled to him. He put his scrawny arm around her.

“What about our stuff?” she asked as she tugged at the blanket.

“Leave it,” he shouted and yanked her away.

He pretended to be calm but his face betrayed him. He led her through the passage and into the forest.

A shadow bounced off the trees in front of them. A wolf howled in the distance.

“Allusia,” Alina whispered loudly. “Allusia!”

She feared their horses were lost. Blair tried to assure her that horses could find their way home if they’d been spooked. He wasn’t a good liar.

She huddled to him. “Where are all the animals?” she asked. “We should’ve seen a bird or a mouse by now, shouldn’t we?”

“Just keep moving,” he said.

Alina tugged on his arm to slow him as he dragged her along. She worried the cracking of sticks beneath their feet would draw out whatever had the forest animals so quiet and scarce.

He grabbed her shoulders and faced her. “We are being stalked,” he whispered without trying to soften the effects of his words. “We need to hurry.”

She knew well that it was a half-day’s travel by foot and he knew it too. “We’re not going to make it,” she whispered.

Blair ignored her.

A tree limb snapped behind them. Blair sucked in a startled breath and sped to a jog. Alina held his hand tightly, trailing behind. The forest was almost black as they entered the time between the setting of the suns and the lifting of the moon. Soon, their vision reached less than a few twisted, prickly trees ahead.

A staccato growl broke the silence. Alina flinched and stiffened her grip. Blair shook her hand loose and drew his sword.

“Run,” he whispered while nudging her again with his free arm. His sword shook in his hand. The monster before them resembled a scorpion from the Wastelands except it was as large as a horse. The animal’s tail curled above its body like a candy cane. It crouched, poised to attack.

Alina recognized the creature from old fables she’d heard as a child. Their hunter was an ochrid, a creature as dangerous as any in the known world. The stories told that no man had ever survived an encounter with the beast.

She stuttered back a step.

“Ruuuuunn,” Blair screamed.

Please, Blair, don’t.

Her husband-to-be leaped into the air like the warrior she knew he wasn’t. The eight-legged creature snarled, showing its razor-sharp, pointed teeth. As Blair neared, the creature hissed. Blair thrust his steel forward. The ochrid’s tail sprang forward, striking Blair’s chest true.

He screamed the most awful sounds Alina had ever heard.

He pleaded one last time. “Alina, ruuuuun!” Then his shriek turned to drowning gurgles.

The creature ripped its tail free of her lover’s chest and cocked it back again. Alina turned to run. A cold, slimy slab of meat slapped against the back of her arm. She swatted at it as she ran but the slug slithered into her blouse and down her back. Scorching pain erupted from between her shoulder blades.

She felt faint, slowing her run to a stagger. She imagined she had been poisoned. The echoes of Blair’s screams were more than she could stand so she jammed her hands against her ears.

She stumbled like a drunkard. The few trees that she could see in the dark wobbled and spun as though taken by tornadic winds. Reason told her it wasn’t the trees that moved at all. Her feet grew numb until she no longer felt the ground against her soles. She staggered to a stop. Her legs slowly turned to mush. When she tried to take another step, they didn’t answer her command and she teetered to the side before crashing face-first into the weeds. Her stomach cramped and she thought she might be ill.

She pushed to her hands and knees, which quivered beneath her weight. Her shins and thighs began to tingle. She swayed. Her left elbow gave way and her face slammed the ground again. With her last bit of strength, she rolled onto her back and stared up, hopelessly, at the spinning trees.

A thousand needles stabbed her – first her fingers, then both of her arms. The last thing she felt below her waist was her bladder letting loose. Blair’s screams, in the distance, weakened to low agonizing moans.

Her neck stiffened. Her ears began to ring, drowning out every other sound until even the ringing was gone.

The outlines of the spinning trees dulled until she couldn’t see their dark edges any longer. Her breathing slowed to an occasional gasp. She realized it was only time before her lungs ceased to draw air and was terrified at the thought of suffocating.

She tried to close her eyes but her eyelids no longer worked.

The blur of the creature’s face replaced the trees. It tilted its head from side to side. A long, stringy glob of drool hung from its mouth and then dripped onto her cheek, though she didn’t feel it. The ochrid lowered its head and its snake-like tongue swiped across her brow; she wondered if it tasted her.

The creature roared into her face though she didn’t hear it. Then it opened its mouth.

Do it now, monster,
she demanded as her breath grew faint.

The ochrid lunged forward but froze before taking a chunk of her flesh. Something moved behind it —a man’s figure landed on the ochrid’s back. The creature pulled its head away from her cheek, ready for its next fight.

Blair, you came for me.

Alina’s shallow breaths slowed until they stopped altogether.

The ochrid thrashed to the side, trying to buck its attacker.

The world faded to white.
Is this death?
she wondered before she was overtaken by nothingness.

T
he ochrid screeched and flailed back and forth, Rasi’s strap wrapped tight around its neck. The creature whipped its spiked tail toward Rasi’s exposed back. A strap curled around the tail, stopping it short of its target. Rasi wrapped both arms around the creature’s neck. The ochrid wrenched its head over its shoulder, lunging with snapping teeth. Rasi leaned out of reach.

The strap around the beast’s tail squealed and fell limp to the ground, a black leech-like creature attached to its side. Rasi’s fingers started to tingle.

A couple more straps curled around the beast’s gut, squeezing, refusing to let up. The tail lunged again toward Rasi’s back. This time, instead of defending against the leeches, he dove to the ground. His straps, however, held strong.

The ochrid galloped into the thick, thorny brush. Rasi bounced against the hard ground with his worthless limp strap dragging behind. Thistles and branches beat against his arms and face, opening small, stinging cuts wherever they struck.

Release,
“Unh!”
him! Come on you idiots, release …
“Unh!” As he pleaded, he knew his pleas were in vain. He had seen his straps’ insatiable bloodlust before and knew they would not quit until their prey, or Rasi himself, was dead.
Let go,
he pleaded.

Another strap tangled the creature’s front legs and tightened. The ochrid’s growls and hisses were replaced by pitiful cries as its front two legs snapped and it crashed to the ground. The creature caterwauled while struggling to its other feet.

The suffocating strap around its waist quivered as it squeezed tighter. Another strap coiled around the ochrid’s open jaw while a third wrapped around its head. Rasi stood up. The straps flexed. The ochrid’s jaw popped. Then, with one brutal flinch, the strap ripped its jaw away from its skull.

The creature collapsed into a growing pool of its spurting blood.

Rasi’s strap hoisted the creature’s messy, severed jaw into the air like a trophy.

The girl!

He staggered, still drunk from the slug’s toxin. Knowing mere seconds separated her from joining her slaughtered friend, he raced back through the overgrowth of the woods. The useless strap dragged behind, making his legs cramp like he was sprinting uphill.

He leaped from the brush. There she was, sleeping, appearing as peaceful as a morning sunsrise. Except instead of sleeping, he knew better.

She was unconscious.

She was dead.

He crumbled to his knees alongside her pale body. Her lips were blue like a river. He rolled her to her side and ripped the clothing from her back.
There!
He tore away the leech and threw it against a tree.

Come on, breathe.
He pressed his lips against hers like he’d learned in military training. Her breasts lifted with each puff of air from his lungs.

Breathe, damn it.

Again and again he blew into her mouth until by some miracle she gasped, like a newborn taking its first breath. She inhaled another lungful, and another, coughing and choking on the freshness of the air. Rasi collapsed back onto his ankles with a relieved sigh. She rolled to her side, still not completely awake, and tried desperately to break her coughing spell.

Rasi watched as her breathing returned to normal. With her out of imminent danger, he turned his attention to his paralyzed strap. He cocked his head to the side and wondered why the other straps hadn’t helped their brother.

He reached for the leech.

As though another threat had arisen, the other confused straps shot into the air. One of them gently slithered around his neck and tightened slightly. Another one tied around his wrist. He froze.
Eaaasy,
he whispered while withdrawing his hand from the injured strap. The tension around his neck and wrist loosened. Once his hand was far enough away for their comfort, they released.

Rasi scanned the moonlit trees.
Now what do I do with her?
he wondered. Leaving her in the forest wasn’t an option, nor was being seen with her in town. He sighed again as he rubbed his forehead. He had no choice. If for no other reason than honor, he had to help her until she could take care of herself. Besides, ochrids were never far from their packs. He cradled her body in his arms and carried her to safety.

By the time he reached the base of Shadows Peak, his legs hated him, his sides stung with cramps, and his head spun worse than before. He glanced back at his worthless strap dragging behind and cursed it.

He carried her past the jagged rocks to where Salient drank from a small puddle.
No dinner tonight, Salient. But I found a guest.

He draped the girl over Salient’s back and climbed up behind her. Salient clopped along the narrow canyon path until he came to Rasi’s cave.

Rasi considered making the journey up the mountain to his home in the clouds but knew the day’s travel wouldn’t be wise. The lower cave had been his refuge from the cold so many years before and it would serve as refuge for this young girl this night. He leaned against the outside wall and dozed while the moon crossed the sky. His guest slept inside, snuggled in a fur beside his freshly built fire.

The peace of the early dawn erased the chaos from the night before. Rasi wiped the sleep from his tired eyes. A cool breeze brushed across his face. He wondered if it had been created by the wingspan of a stunning, rainbow-colored butterfly that fluttered past his nose. Gently, he guided his finger toward the soft creature and it landed atop his knuckle. Such reminders of the good left in the world were rare, but when one presented itself, he cherished it. Then, as quickly as his gift had landed, it floated away.

Rasi was excited, not because of the butterfly – well, not entirely – but because of his new company. He hadn’t heard a voice, other than the one in his head, for many years and was giddy about the prospect. Add that the voice would be a pretty woman’s and he could hardly bear the wait.

A rustle from inside startled him. He felt like a schoolboy about to meet his secret crush for the first time and yanked away the makeshift wood-and-twig door from the cave’s entrance. Not seeing her at first, he took a couple steps inside. The dawn’s light flickered across a pair of feet poking from the shadows. She clutched her knees against her chest, hiding her toes from the light.

He wanted to tell her everything was alright but was afraid his jumbled speech would frighten her more and feared that his voice wouldn’t be strong enough. He decided silence was a better route.