Warrior of the Wild(27)

And I wasted some of that time by watching it, too.

But now his attention is back on me.

“Is that as fast as your mortal legs will go?” he questions cruelly.

Peruxolo runs for me. He gains momentum quickly, while I stumble over my own feet trying to retreat. Just before I turn around, to put all my efforts into sprinting away from him, I watch him thrust his arms out in my direction. And that invisible force that I felt earlier—the god’s power—

It strikes me, forcing me off my feet, flinging me backward onto the hard ground. I breathe out once, deeply.

Then I’m scrambling—running—fleeing for my life.

When at last I find the road, I dare a glance back over my shoulder.

Peruxolo sweeps his cape behind him before disappearing into the mountain.





CHAPTER


8


After a time, I think my lungs will burst if I do not stop  running. I collapse onto the ground, my body quivering  with exertion and fear.

I manage to skid off to the side a ways, burying myself into the thickness of the wild, out of the obvious sight of the road. Just in case Peruxolo followed.

Not that it matters. If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead.

I don’t know how long I sit there, catching my breath, imagining all the ways I could have died, but it doesn’t feel terribly long before I hear something.

Steps in the wild. Approaching from the god’s direction.

I have the ax off my back in an instant.

I crouch behind a tree close to the road, watching, waiting.

When a figure comes into view, I pause, trying to make sense of it.

As it comes closer, I ready my ax, preparing to strike. And at just the right moment, I thrust the shaft toward the road, causing Soren to trip right over it.

He’d been running, and the fall sends him flying, crashing and skidding across the broken-up ground.

He curses as he stands, wiping rocks and mud and dried leaves from his scratched-up palms, his skinned knees.

I’m fuming.

“Did you follow me?”

“Did you trip me?”

What. The. Hell.

I hold my hands in front of me. They’re shaking. I can’t decide if I want to wrap them around Soren’s neck or cover my face with them.

I almost died. And Soren is here. Why is he here?

I growl. “What’s the matter with you? I told you to stay away from me! You promised you would! What are you doing here?” I’m a pot of water that’s just set to boiling, and I’ll burn anything that gets too close.

Soren, realizing this, takes a step away from me, brushing carefully at his bleeding palms. “I promised no such thing. I said I’d leave your camp, and I did. What are you doing here? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Of course I wasn’t, but I say, “That is the purpose of our mattugrs, is it not?”

That brings him up short. “Your mattugr…”

“I’ve been sent to kill Peruxolo.”

There it is. I said the words out loud. Now I realize just how hopeless they are.

“Which is, once again, none of your business,” I add.

“Your life is my only business now. Do I need to remind you? I owe you a life debt.”

“And just how do you think you’re—” I cut off as I realize something. “The rockslide. That was you?”

“I tried to divert the god’s attention so you could flee. Thank the goddess, he didn’t think to climb the mountain and see what caused the slide.”

“They’re probably a regular occurrence near the mountain,” I say, thinking aloud. “I doubt he thought anything of it.”

“That’s good for us.”

“There is no us!” I shout. “I neither need nor want your help.”

He doesn’t want to help me. Getting close to me only serves his own ends, whatever they are. I know this. I know that people are only capable of thinking about themselves. I don’t have any desire to find out what it is Soren wants. I don’t care.

I will not make myself vulnerable like that ever again.

“It’s not up to you,” Soren says. “The goddess wills it. I will not disobey her laws. Will you?”

“You—”

A sound fills my ears. Something loud, like a rock falling to the ground. It comes again. And again. And again.

“What is that?” I whisper.

At first, I think I see one of the trees moving. Moving. But then I realize it’s no tree. Its skin is the same color as the deep brown bark of the innas, a perfect camouflage. It’s so very tall and large, over four heads taller than Soren and me. Four black eyes stare down at us, unblinking. They dilate simultaneously once they take in the two of us. I realize now that the loud, crashing sound is each of its steps across the ground, but I can’t make sense at all of what I’m looking at.

But Soren must make something of it, because he says, “Run.”



* * *



I TAKE OFF AFTER him down the road, Soren barely one leg stride ahead of me. And whatever that thing is, it races after us, bounding on two legs.

“What the hell is that?” I shout.

“The gunda,” Soren says.

“The gunda isn’t real.”