Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Six nights in the forest had done little to make it less daunting and everything to dampen my hopes.
I’d come here knowing full well that this task would be close to impossible but even so, I was being given a sharp taste of reality now that the task had begun in earnest.
I had no spirits to my name, not a single amulet to offer up in payment for the curse the forest suffered under. Worse, since coming face to face with two of the mystical beings which embodied the raw power of this lawless place, I had to question how I might ever hope to overpower one anyway.
I’d always known that defeating the spirits and shattering the spell that had abandoned them to madness would be hard, but now? Well, now I was having to admit to myself that the thought of overpowering one of them with my wits and a slingshot seemed almost impossible.
Not least because of the company I kept.
Colton was stoic in his loyalty to our alliance despite the fact that it seemed far weighted in my favour.
But between us, we kept watch, prepared food and sought out shelter each night.
We’d even dared to take a taste of the berries and mushrooms on offer between the trees and had thankfully lived to tell the tale.
I’d begun drawing maps of the places we explored, keeping track of the buildings we discovered and taking note of streams, locations with potential for foraging and anything else that might be of use.
I’d been marking out what we’d termed the ‘Damned Ones’ too.
The trees that had consumed fallen Fae and humans alike, keeping them somehow alive while melding their bodies with bark and brush.
The poor souls trapped in that fate hissed words of warning at us, speaking as if they knew us, their eyes staring endlessly, pain written in every expression.
I hated them. I knew it made me callous to think so cruelly of living beings suffering such a heinous fate but they only ever filled me with dread. I marked their positions to make certain we avoided seeing any of them twice.
“Do you hear that?” Colton’s rough question had me stumbling to a halt, my instincts on high alert.
“What?” I hissed, but he only cocked his head to listen.
A distant cry made my heart lurch with fright, and I wrapped my fingers around my slingshot as I turned to try and determine the direction the sound had come from.
There was something about the way noises moved within these woods which made it far harder than it should have been to follow them.
We’d spent an hour chasing the trickling sound of a stream yesterday only to give up when the wind turned and it was lost. Not to mention the fact that the trees liked to play their tricks.
A path one day could be a chasm the next.
“It could be a trap,” I said hesitantly.
“Could be a spirit,” Colton replied. “One that someone else has found. We can’t risk that happening, we need to make sure it’s ours.”
I nodded, eyeing him warily. We hadn’t spoken frankly about our plans for the remaining spirits but I got the impression he believed I would assist him in capturing them for himself.
He knew my motivations for coming here, knew what it was I hunted for in every house we discovered and along every trail we explored, but I didn’t think it had occurred to him that I might try to claim it by using the boon.
I supposed I seemed entirely unthreatening to him, the girl who read too many books and had too few friends. But if he truly thought that was all there was to me then he was a fool, and he’d soon come to realise the truth of it.
The cry carried on the wind again, and I bobbed my chin towards a bank on our right where the trees rose up and away from us. We hadn’t intended to turn in that direction yet but as Colton nodded his agreement, we both slipped from the path we’d been taking.
Colton unsheathed his sword and I tugged my slingshot free of my belt, palming a stone in my other hand too.
We broke into a run, moving swiftly – though carefully enough to remain quiet. The cries came again, a chorus of terror on the wind, at least two male voices, possibly three.
I bolstered myself for what was to come, wondering if I was going to meet my end in the next clearing this time. It certainly seemed as though my death lingered in these trees, haunting my steps, waiting for its moment. I wasn’t confident I would escape it, but I planned on trying my hardest.
We crested the ridge where a circle of huge oak trees were splattered with blood, a man’s screams cutting off abruptly before I managed to locate him.
Two more figures had backed up to the edge of a stream, bloody swords raised before them, their shoulders butting against one another.
I made to run towards them, but Colton caught my arm, jerking me to a stop.
“They’re Fae,” he said gruffly just as one of the males noticed us. He had golden hair which shone even in the poor light beneath the trees, his features a perfect balance of beauty which momentarily startled me.
I’d seen a few Fae when they’d come to trade in our village, but they always kept their hoods high and more often than not covered their features in cowls or scarves.
My father had told me it was because they didn’t want to dazzle the humans who laid eyes on them, and I’d always thought that was ridiculous until this moment.
“Help us,” the male demanded, his tone rankling against everything I was as he made commands of us so easily.
“Come,” Colton ordered, turning away and catching my arm to make me follow him.
“You plan on abandoning them?” I asked, tugging out of his hold and tightening my grip on my slingshot. I had no intention of helping the Fae but there still might be a spirit here. We didn’t yet know what they were running from.
“That’s exactly what they did to us when they built their walls,” Colton bit back.
“I don’t mean to help them,” I hissed, and the golden-haired Fae spat a curse our way as though he’d somehow heard that. “But what if there’s a spirit, like you said?”
“I don’t like our chances of claiming it from two Fae,” Colton grunted, his irritation at that fact clear. “Besides I-” Whatever else he’d been going to say was cut short as his eyes flicked toward something behind me.
A chill slid right through my core and I stilled, like some primordial instinct already felt what was happening before the rest of my brain caught up to it.
I turned just as a guttural shriek burst from the lips of the thing which was running at me through the trees.
My heart leapt into my throat, terror compounding in my veins as it exploded through me on a wave of adrenaline.
The Hollows were in the forest.
I’d come here knowing I would be forced to face all manner of beast and monster, malignant magic and scorned spirits.
But the one thing of terrors which I had counted on being able to leave beyond the border of these trees had been the dead who rose at the command of the Necromancer Bane Crownthief and haunted all corners of Rathian for ruinous sport.
The Hollow ran at me with a ferocious want in its faded grey eyes, the beast which had once been a human man now nothing but a feral creature set only on the desire for bloodshed.
Rot had begun upon the face of the corpse, a pale blue light clinging to its grey skin where the foul magic which summoned it into being had imbued it.
I turned and bolted, fear blinding me and my instincts taking hold. A Hollow could not be felled by a stone from a slingshot and I had no blade to strike for its heart.
Colton ran too, both of us racing down the hill toward the Fae who clung to the edge of the lake like it was their one hope of salvation. Neither made a move to help us and I cursed myself for ever having come in search of their cries.
The Hollow screamed and slammed into me, knocking me from my feet with the full weight of its decaying body and sending us flying down the bank.
The band of my slingshot caught then ripped free of its holding on one side as I tumbled over the dirt and leaves, kicking and thrashing as the Hollow’s fingers bit into my arm and shoulder.
We struck a tree, and I thanked all the spirits in the woods as the beastly thing was knocked off of me and I skidded through the leaves towards the booted feet of the two Fae.
One of them lunged, swinging his sword so close to me that for a moment I saw my death in the reflection of the sharpened steel, but then the Hollow screamed in raw frustration and a severed arm fell to the dirt before me.
I scrambled backwards, kicking out at the creature as it lunged for me again, its dull eyes pinned on me, its want for my death so compelling I could feel the grip of its fist around my soul.
“Not yet,” I spat. I’d come too far to fall here now.
The other Fae with dark hair and golden eyes yelled a warning to his companion and leapt over me like I was nothing but a stray log in his path. I didn’t care, I was all too happy to allow them to place themselves between me and that monster.
A second Hollow shrieked with violent desire as it ran at us from the trees, this one female, her ragged dress tangling around her long limbs, though she paid it no mind, her sole intent to bring more death to pass.
I backed up further, pushing my useless slingshot back into my pocket before shoving to my feet and hefting a large rock into my grasp, the cold stone weighting me in the moment as my boots splashed into the water at the edge of the lake.
I hunted for Colton in the dim light, finding him fighting yet another of the heinous creatures, his sword swinging with ferocious force that struck the Hollow in the neck and almost decapitated it.
Still the beast threw itself at him and I broke into a run as he fell beneath it, hefting my rock in my fist.
Blue light exploded from him before I could reach him, the roar of the Bear echoing from the trees as he Summoned the spirit he had captured to his aid.