2. Killian
“The vines are closing the path after us,” Alistair says apprehensively.
“Better pray to the fae gods that we don’t need to turn back, then.” An hour into this misadventure, my arm is already sore and my axe blade dulled from chopping. We’ve made scarcely any progress up the pathway.
“I think I heard something.”
“Probably.”
We’re being stalked. I’ve known it for the past quarter-hour. Although the sun is high overhead, its light and heat barely touch the depths of the thorn forest. No breeze penetrates the gloom. Thorns as long as a bear’s claws tear at my sleeves. One slashed my cheek before I returned the favor and severed it.
Behind us, beside us, come the soft, rhythmic sounds of a large creature padding through the dense undergrowth. Slinking around twisted knots and fallen, rotting trees. The terrain beneath my boots tilts sharply upward.
“We’d better not spend the night here, Kill.”
I take a break from hacking and slashing to glare at him over my shoulder. “Walk faster, Highness.”
His throat works, the movement visible beneath the high collar of his shirt. Why he felt the need to dress like he’s attending a fancy ball baffles me, but I’ve got bigger concerns at the moment.
“Alistair?”
“Kill?”
“Take my shield and watch my back.”
He unhooks it and holds it out. Good. At least the prince isn’t too frightened to be useful.
I inch forward, hacking and slashing my way through the foliage while attuning my keen hearing to the sounds of the forest. My mother wasn’t good for much, but her addiction to illegal magic did give me the heightened senses that make me an excellent hunter.
I can hear Alistair’s heart battering his ribs like a trapped animal. Each twitch of a leaf and paw padding as the thing that stalks us draws nearer.
Alistair’s stomach gurgles.
“You’re not going to shit your pants, are you?” I swing the axe through a vine as thick as my wrist.
“I’m hungry, you idiot. Breakfast was hours ago.”
“Must be nice to be accustomed to regular meals.”
“I feed you,” he retorts.
“When you aren’t sending me out on pointless missions.”
“Don’t be such an ingrate, Kill.”
I want him mad. I grunt in response, which infuriates him further.
“I’m the one who pulled you out of the gutter,” he grumbles.
“After I saved your worthless hide,” I counter, biting back a rare smile. No one else talks to Alistair this way. Insulting him is my special privilege, as long as I only do it in private.
Spite has always been his biggest motivator. We have that in common.
The thing stalking us goes quiet.
“Try burning them.”
“What?” I pause, swiping my forearm across my forehead. Although there’s little sunlight, the air is humid and I’ve been exerting myself all morning.
“The vines. Burn them. It might prevent them from growing back.”
“Trying to preserve an avenue of escape, Highness?”
Alistair’s cunning problem-solving is one reason why we’ve become something akin to friends. I’m teasing him, yet this isn’t the first time he’s come through in a tight spot. When push comes to shove, he comes through. Usually.
A motion in the periphery of my vision kicks my instincts into kill mode. Alistair’s yelp almost bursts my eardrums as I pivot, raising the axe.
The beast pounces. Alistair twists and falls, bringing the shield up and tucking as much of his body as will fit beneath it. The tail-lashing chimera leaps, pinning him to the ground, its claws scraping against the impenetrable dragon scale. Yellow-green eyes meet mine a split second before my weapon severs its head from its body. Blood spurts across Prince Alistair’s cheek.
“That thing nearly killed me,” he gasps once he’s lurched to his feet, clutching the shield. His blue velvet jacket is covered with dirt. Twigs tangle in the gold braid. He casts me a narrow glare and says, “You used me as bait.”
“Get down.”
I shove him aside as the second chimera, a half-wildcat, half-lizard, attacks from the side. I was expecting this one, but not the third that leaps at Alistair.
“Kill it!” he shouts, barely holding it at bay.
“I’m busy at the moment,” I grit out. The one that pounced on me is the biggest, and the heaviest, a blow hard enough to knock the wind out of me. Claws scrape over the dragon-scale armor protecting my chest. I manage to wedge the head of the axe into its sternum, barely holding its snapping jaws away from my face. The thing’s back claws catch my boot, pinning one leg to the ground. I can’t get enough leverage to push it off. The quiver clipped to my hip digs painfully into my flesh through the flexible but impenetrable armor.
I flick the clasp on the sheath at my thigh and bring a short, thick dagger straight up into the creature’s belly. Hot, foul-smelling innards spill down on me. Its teeth snap inches from my face, but I feel it weakening. The chimera staggers to the edge of the thorns, dragging its guts in long strings as it tries to crawl away.
Rolling upright, I find Alistair dispatching the third chimera. Breathing hard, he passes me the dragon-scale shield.
“I expected better of you, Kill.”
Meaning, he didn’t expect to have to fight at all. He’s good with a bow and decent in a fight, but monsters rattle him. They rattle everyone. Even me, not that I let it show.
Ironic that he’s set himself up as the defender of Belterre against the influx of monsters.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
I sling the shield onto my back, check the quiver at my hip to ensure I haven’t crushed my supply of arrows, and heft my axe once more. I’m covered in offal and blood, but there’s nothing to be done about the fact that I smell like a charnel house.
“Keep moving. We have a distance to go yet.”
I’m not optimistic about our chances of making it to that castle before nightfall.
“Wait.” Alistair wipes his blade clean and sheathes it. “I want to try something.”
He rummages in the pack, wraps a thick stick in a twist of linen, strikes flint until it catches, and raises his makeshift torch to the rapidly spreading vines. Once singed, it stops sending shoots and turns brown.
“Good idea,” I admit begrudgingly. “Let’s keep moving.”
“How close are we?”
“Not very.”
Having made it through the thick barrier of vines, it’s time to begin our proper ascent, up a nearly sheer wall. I point to the top.
“We need to use this”—I toss him a severed vine—“to climb up that.”
“I’d have worn better clothes if I knew we were going to be mountain climbing.”
“Did you think this was going to be a walk in a park?”
“No. But I did think you’d have matters in hand.”
“I do.” Gripping the vine, I lean back to test its strength. I’m a large man, and while my armor is as lightweight as it is strong, my weapons are heavy steel. “Not my fault you dressed like a prat.”
Alistair’s blue velvet sleeve rips at the seam.
“Why did you wear such a ridiculous outfit, anyway?” I ask, eyeing his peacock-blue and gold-trimmed jacket. The white pants are marred with stains, and his gleaming boots’ polish was scuffed off miles ago.
“She’s expecting a prince when she awakens,” he says as loftily as a man can when dangling ten feet off the ground, with his feet braced on a sheer cliff. “A prince she shall have.”
I snort. “How do you know she’s expecting anything? According to the history books, she was poisoned at her own betrothal ball.”
For all we know, the lady’s been dead for a hundred years. Alistair’s great-great-grandfather claimed she was asleep when he laid her to rest in this monstrosity of a castle, and had lain unchanged in a glass coffin. But given the royal family’s penchant for deception and intrigue, I won’t be surprised if we get to the top and find a skeleton inside.
Pissed, but not surprised.
“You aren’t entirely illiterate, then.” Alistair grunts. “I had wondered.”
“With all due respect, fuck all the way off, Your Highness.”
Alistair’s half-grin tells me my insult has been received the way it was intended.
We spend the next several minutes huffing and straining our way up the sheer cliff face while I mull the ways in which his marriage will change our friendship, when it happens. We’ll never be free to go on adventures like this together again. His pampered arse will be glued to that throne while his queen pops out a litter of heirs.
I understand why he wanted this misadventure before he settles into his predestined role. As much as I hate it here, I can’t shake the disturbing sense that this is our final escapade together. A bittersweet tang of nostalgia already hangs over Thorn Mountain and its mysterious castle.
The stone is so pale it glows almost white in the strong afternoon sun. Now that we’re above the thicket of vines, it beats mercilessly upon our backs.
Until a cold shadow falls over us. Glancing up, I find a huge bird winging through the bright afternoon sky. A harpy. Great. Just fucking fantastic.
Best not to panic his Highness. I say nothing except, “Climb faster.”
“You’re certain—there wasn’t—an easier—way to—the top?” Alistair pants and grunts each syllable.
“There is, if you wanted to spend days wandering around this cursed place. I didn’t think that was what you had in mind.” I take care to speak smoothly, giving as little outward indication as possible of the fact that my arms are burning and my calves cramping. “Get in. Get the girl. Get out. Wasn’t that the plan?”
The prince’s pained wheeze is the only response.
Minutes later, we haul ourselves over the stone parapet. I let my red-faced friend gasp his way back to standing from a hunched-over droop while I untie the ropes, coil them, and put them back into our small pack. We have enough supplies for three, maybe four days. Rations. Water. Ropes. Bandages—what we haven’t burned for torch wicks.
“Keep moving.” I toss him the pack. Alistair’s lip curls, but he knows better than to fuck with me. I won’t hesitate to drag his ass out of here, and then he’ll look like a fool. His pride won’t let him back down. He tosses the strap over his shoulder and parks his free hand on the hilt of his sword.
“The view is magnificent,” he says a few minutes later.
“Hadn’t noticed. I’m not here as a tourist.”
“You need to let yourself enjoy life a little, Kill.”
I ignore him, listening for the scuffling sound that’s trailed us this far. It was buried under the chimeras’ slinking footfalls for a while. Now I’m sure: there’s something else stalking us. Not large—but that doesn’t mean it’s any less deadly.
Despite the warm afternoon sunlight beating down on my black armor, a chill skitters up my spine.
We follow the curve of the steep pathway around a blind corner, where one look at the enormous nest on a protrusion of rock has me flattening my palm against Alistair’s chest.
“What is it?”
“Shh.” I poke my head around the corner, checking to ensure the huge raptors haven’t seen us. “New plan.”
“What’s going on, Kill?”
I fist his wilted white ruffled shirt and drag his face close to mine. “Harpies. If you can’t be quiet, I’ll fucking feed you to them. Understand?”
He shoves me off, lifting his chin.
“All you had to do was say so.” Tugging his clothes straight, he starts back down the trail. “Let’s try this way.”
Back into another thicket of thorns. We’re quiet for a while. Every few whacks, I pause to listen for the scuffling sound.
It’s gone.
I take down a thick curtain of vines and come face-to-skull with the desiccated body of a knight.