Chapter 23 #2
I throw myself to the ground as another beam of silver light shoots out, pulsing with power, slicing through the forest like a scythe, cutting everything around us down. Those great trees fall. They fall and fall, snapping with ear-splitting cracks.
I see a chance for cover, and I run, heart in my throat, as all these glorious trees come down around me.
One crashes at my side, nearly taking me with it.
Another blocks my path. I scramble over it and keep going.
They keep falling. They’re so large that some fall together, leaning, creating cages, and I run as fast as I can, knowing all it would take is one—one to fall on me and turn me into no more than a pool of blood in these ancient woods.
The bear does not stop. It crushes and splits these fallen trees as it hunts me, as the forest continues to break apart, and I run. I run toward a shard of light beyond the fallen trees, a clearing, a hole in the weave of this forest, and I launch myself through it.
Suddenly, he’s there. Stepping out of the trees and into my path, on the other side of the woods.
Raker seems to sigh with his entire body when he sees me bellowing at the top of my lungs, clothes still wet, trees falling behind me, a massive bear at my heels.
Sometime in the half hour I was bathing, he seems to have found time to clean himself, because his hood isn’t covered in dried blood anymore. Neither is his armor.
The ground lurches. I can feel the beast’s breath on my head. The trees I just ducked beneath now shatter into a thousand splinters. Some hit my back, piercing my flesh like throwing stars, and I gasp at the pain, but I keep going, right toward Raker.
He does not turn and run. He stands his ground. Pulls his sword from his back in a flash, as if he is going to cut right through the towering beast.
He doesn’t get the chance.
From nowhere, an arrow the size of my leg slices through the forest—and sinks right into the creature’s heart. It seizes. Gasps.
Then it falls. It falls and slides, dragging up dirt and stumps and roots, coming right toward me, eyes alit with that silver from its breath. I trip and am nearly crushed, before Raker yanks me to the side, out of its way.
“Fucking gods, Aris,” he growls. His sword is still up.
An immortal steps out of the woods.
He’s a man holding the largest crossbow I’ve ever seen. Its wood is pure silver, as if carved from a tree in the Land of the Gods. Just like the metal-tipped arrow currently buried in the bear.
He glances over at us, nods in greeting, then proceeds to climb the beast. He’s muttering to himself, as if taking notes. He sounds excited. In a flash, he unsheathes a massive, glimmering saw and begins to cut the needles right off the bear’s back.
I look over at Raker in question, but his gaze is still locked on that immortal. His grip is still tight on his sword.
I take a step forward. Another. I have the urge to sink to the floor, or retch, or simply curl into a ball and sob.
But I need to know. “What is that creature?”
The immortal glances down at me from his place high above. He looks me up and down for a mere moment, before grinning.
He has flame-red hair, tan skin, and bright, golden, glittering eyes. He has the body of someone who has done extensive fight training. Perhaps for centuries. He’s handsome. He tilts his head at me, in faint amusement, as if taking in my notice.
Then he turns back to the spines. I think he’ll ignore me, before he says, “This is a steelclaw.”
I glance down at the bear’s claws and my breath hitches.
They’re each longer than my sword, glimmering in some ancient material that is decidedly not steel.
The immortal seems to track my gaze, because he says, “Not really steel … but stronger than most metals. Melded into swords to make them stronger. Made into weapons itself …” He nods toward his arrow, and I notice its tip is made of the very same matter.
Interesting.
“And the spines?”
“Contain some of the most potent poison ever discovered.”
I raise a brow at him as he unceremoniously collects almost all of them. “And you’re what? A hunter?”
He flashes a white, perfect smile. “Precisely.” He turns fully toward me. “Thank you, by the way. For drawing him out. I haven’t seen one of these in a very long time … They’re rare. They hibernate for centuries. Some thought they were all but extinct …”
My back teeth grind together. So, I was no more than bait. I remember what Xara said about hunters. How they’re the reason some ancient creatures are all but extinct. I study this hunter, wondering if he’s one of the ones she was referring to. “Steelclaws have an appetite for humans?”
He tilts his head at me, looking amused again. “No. They’re aethervores.”
At my blank stare, he says, “They eat magic.”
Oh. I think about that glimmering silver beam it emitted. But that doesn’t explain why it was chasing me.
I must look confused, because he motions toward my back. “Your blade.”
“My sword?” He nods, and I shake my head. “It … it doesn’t have magic.”
He frowns. “I’ve never seen a beast chase an object with such singular focus. It most certainly does.” At my insistence, he shrugs. “You’re mortal. You can’t activate it.”
Both Xara and the book said scales and claws and bones from magical creatures can be melded into weapons, to give them a shred of their magic. Is that what mine has?
I reach back and trail a finger down its hilt. No wonder so many people are after it.
All at once, I remember the fact that this is an immortal.
With a baldric full of weapons. If he wants this one, it won’t take much effort for him to steal it from me.
I take a step back. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, he flashes that smile again.
“Not to worry, human. I’m more of a bow and arrow man myself.
Your sword would go for a pretty penny, I’m sure …
” He purses his lips, considering. “But it would also likely cost me my head in the process. And I quite like my head.” He winks at me.
“You seem to like it too.” I scoff. He just smiles wider before shrugging.
“A blade like that isn’t worth the trouble. ”
I look over at Raker. The other person who might steal this blade from me. But he doesn’t spare me a glance.
The immortal looks over at Raker too, then seems to pale. His smile dims. “Especially when you’re guarded by that,” he says simply.
I almost keel over at the thought of Raker being my guardian. Someone who has practically promised a death at his hands.
I want to laugh, but I don’t. Better the immortal thinks Raker would protect me.
And … I suppose he does. When he wants to.
“What else is valuable about the beast?” I ask, looking it over.
“Well, its saliva has healing properties. You must feel them.”
I look down at myself. I feel sticky. Disgusting. But I turn over my hands. The scratches … they’re gone.
That’s when I remember the half dozen daggers of wood sticking out of my back. I gasp, pulling one out and clenching at the pain … before feeling the wound heal completely.
The saliva will dry. Will its magic dry with it? I won’t take the chance.
Jaw tight, I take all of them out, sealing my lips to keep from screaming. Until they are just blood-tipped shards of wood at my feet.
When I glance back up, the hunter is still cutting off spines. “You’re lucky, you know. Few immortals have survived a creature like that. Let alone humans.”
Lucky he was there with his massive arrow, I think.
I dig into my pockets, until I find an empty vial.
I approach the bear, the vestige of fear still prickling across my skin, but I grit my teeth against it and climb up the beast’s paw.
Fist my hands in its fur and ascend until I’m high enough to reach its mouth.
I wince at those fangs. How close they were to cutting me to pieces.
Slowly, I begin to collect the saliva still pooled below its tongue.
“Who gave you those?” the hunter asks.
“A healer,” I say simply, not wanting to get the immortal in trouble. Perhaps it’s frowned upon to share with humans. It’s not like she ever told me her name, anyway, and perhaps for this very reason.
But he just hums in approval. “Those are useful. They don’t shatter. Good quality.”
When I’m done, I climb down and study the rest of the creature. I have little use for poison. Even the fangs in my pockets from those wolves seem almost useless now. They would have done absolutely nothing to slow this beast.
But … maybe not completely useless.
I turn toward the hunter.
“How did you get here?” I ask. That crossbow is enormous. He wouldn’t have just walked all this way with it on his back … And he must have a way to transport all the spines he’s collecting …
His eyes narrow. He lets out a high whistle.
Then another shadow casts across the forest. My bones clench, remembering how the bear towered over me. I take a step back.
And a dragon lands with a forest-trembling force right between us. It stretches out its wings, dappled light filtering through the sheer, forest-green webbing, before the claws tipping them sink into the dirt.
“You have a dragon,” I breathe.
He nods proudly. “This is Invira.”
Invira just huffs. The steam she emits is cold, like what I imagine a winter breeze is like.
I can’t stop the questions spilling out of me. Especially when this immortal seems so content to answer them. “Did you claim her at the Beast Tree?”
He shakes his head. “I freed her from a snare when I was very young.” He frowns, looking at a jagged scar on her foot. I notice she’s missing a talon. “Not all hunters follow the same code,” he says sadly.
“And the code is?”
“Don’t kill anything that doesn’t first try to kill you.”
Interesting. It seems like a loose code, one with more than enough room to allow for an innocent creature to be hunted and sold in parts. Not that I can be too upset at the hunter, given he just saved my life.