Chapter 5 #2
Hamstring. Base of neck. Probably eyes too. Sorrow slowly came back to movement as the scent of the giant and the booming of his feet dissipated on the morning air.
He clucked and ruffled his feathers. “Freaky fucker.”
I snorted and loosened my hold on the big bird.
“Yeah.” Sitting there I thought about my next move.
The maps that Dakota had given me were as good a place to start as any.
Spreading the first one out on the slanted floor of the school bus, I took note of the few details.
The landmass seemed larger and mostly intact, the furthest north of the map was blocked out, crossed off with skulls all over it.
Subtle.
“But where am I?” I traced a finger over the map as if that would help me. Sorrow on the other hand, actually seemed to know.
His beak dropped to the southeast corner of the map, tapping it several times. Not far from several seams, and a river that was in shape similar to the one we’d followed all night. “Thanks.”
“De nada.”
I rolled my eyes to the bird. “Seriously?”
He clacked his beak and hopped away from me, taking to the air as he stepped out of the bus. What a strange companion I had. Maybe he’d fly away. I frowned, no…I didn’t want him to go. I liked him as stupid as it might be to like a bird who was known to bring trouble and sorrow.
Hell, I was bringing it all on my own, how much worse could he make it? No, scratch that, don’t ask stupid questions, you’ll win stupid prizes.
I stuffed a bit of crusty bread from my pack into my mouth and followed Sorrow off the bus.
The footsteps of the giant took it north.
“West, we’ll go west. Avoid the freaky fucker.”
“Smart.” Sorrow circled to land and hopped along beside me, here and there trying to stride along like a person.
Tucking the map into my pack, I took a quick look at the sun and my mark on the map and headed west. I didn’t like how much quiet there was in the forest. While it could be due to the giant tromping his big ass through, it felt more like it was an abandoned place—haunted maybe.
Bits of buildings stuck up through the trees, some just the metal struts of the past, but others still resembled proper buildings, with signs hanging off, bits of words still visible, windows gone, busted out by weather or foliage.
I checked my map, saw nothing on it that designated a lost city. If I ever found something to mark it with, I’d write it down, try to fill in the blanks.
Maybe it would help fill in the blanks of my life…
The day passed.
Then another.
And another.
Each night I fought the fear of waking up without my mind intact, and each night Sorrow tucked himself in tight to me. The fear didn’t lessen, but the lead up to the sun dipping below the horizon did.
I was terrified.
But I was not alone.
The dreams were the same each night, slippery, teasing me with glimmers of the past, the numbers on my ring front and center. The man’s eyes. Nothing else.
On the fourth day though…everything changed.
The weather had shifted, a warm spell sliding through on a wind that brought the promise of more heat before the true drop in temperatures arrived.
As if I could scent desert sands and baking foliage. I shook my head, leaning into the climb up the mound of earth and the shattered remains of the past. Tires stuck out here and there, half or three quarters sunk into the ground, not unlike the school bus that first night.
They did make it easier to climb—and I used them as handholds at various points.
Sorrow had flown ahead scouting as he often did.
After the giant we’d settled into a comfortable silence other than a few words here and there—predators were still very possible, and I knew that I’d been lucky not to run into anything larger than a skunk that Sorrow had dared to grab.
He’d been lucky not to get sprayed.
A deep caw snapped my head up, one that was full of something more than a mere alert. “Sorrow?”
He was high above me floating on an updraft, so he didn’t move as he stared down at something on the other side of the hill.
Tucking his wings tight, he dive-bombed toward whatever it was he saw. Shit.
I ran up the last twenty feet, stumbling to one knee as I crested the rise.
Below, a valley of green fields spread out, lush where it should have been dust, mocking the smell of a desert wind still clinging to my skin.
The air shifted — sweet, damp with the smell of fresh grass and loam, cut through with the cool tang of running water.
An oasis in the desert I’d scented.
A wide meadow unfurled, a stream threading silver through its center, willow trees draping long green curtains at the far edge. Beyond it, a dark seam pulsed faintly, humming, steam drifting from its cracked surface.
But none of that held me.
They did.
Shimmering coats caught the light like poured metal, manes tossing as they wheeled in unison.
Their iron hooves struck the loamy ground with a rhythm that thrummed in my chest, making my heart match the pace of their hooves.
Golden and silver horns jutted skyward, proud and lethal.
They circled and called to one another in deep, rolling voices that echoed off the valley walls — ancient, resonant, impossible not to feel in the marrow.
The world could not be as broken as I thought, not if unicorns still dared to bear its weight. My heart clenched. The sheer beauty of them stole my breath, and I let the tears come. They were worth it.
Sorrow called to me, drawing my eyes away from the herd.
Steam rippled above the Rift as it cracked wider, darkness vomiting out of it, spilling across the ground.
What fresh hell was this now?
Sorrow flew between the Rift and the herd, drawing my eyes away from the blackening seam.
“Veilrunner!” Sorrow cawed the name and it slid into my mind, settling there as if it had always belonged. That’s what they were.
A low grunting moan snapped my eyes away from Sorrow to the ground directly below him. The wind blew the grass to the side and my heart stumbled.
A mare lay on the ground, flat on her side, red coat patched with sweat, legs straining straight and quivering.
Giving birth. Vulnerable to whatever was going to come out of that fucking Rift.
“Stuck!” Sorrow screeched.
I did not need Sorrow to tell me to save the mare and unborn foal.
The bellow of a beast from the Rift had my body moving, running, dropping my pack as I pulled the bow clear of my back, reaching for an arrow.
The roar had my blood singing—this was no riftwolf.
A new to me creature stalked out of the seam on silent paws, its body sleek and silver-gray, like a panther carved from metal and shadow. Light rippled over it in waves, every step both fluid and too fast, faster even than the riftwolves.
Feline.
Its eyes were worse than the strange white orbs of the riftwolves—void-black, swallowing the world whole, no pupils, no whites, just nothingness staring back at me.
The wings that curved off its spine snapped wide, membranes gleaming like hammered steel, then folded tight again, built not for flight but for increased burst of speed, for ambush.
The tail lashed once, the hooked barb at its end dripping venom thick enough to smoke where it hit the ground.
I knew its name, though I couldn’t say how when I could not remember the veilrunners. Sagryl. Riftborn predator. Not pack hunters like riftwolves—this one killed alone, silent and sure.
And it was going straight for the downed veilrunner.