Chapter 22 #2
“And why didn’t you just tell us?” Kladara’s voice getting starting to get louder.
Tonhald stepped up to his sister, putting a hand on Kladara’s shoulder. “Don’t be childish, Kladi. We can ask more questions where it’s safer.”
Kladara’s glare spun to Tonhald. He was taller than Uncle Byorsh, and Kladara had to tilt her chin up to hit him with her gaze. “You are not father. Don’t treat me as if you were.”
Tonhald pulled his hand back from his sister’s shoulder, pain flashing across his face.
Iryana pushed through her tight throat to say, “I had to tell as few people as possible. If the soldiers find out I’m only there for the metal well, they’ll kill me. Probably go after our post, too.”
Kladara ground her teeth and then spun, heading back toward the post.
Iryana breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hurry.” Iryana ushered them east, scanning the trees behind them. Hadima gave her a long look, seeming to try to communicate something, but Iryana didn’t know her sister well enough to understand.
As they walked through the trees, weapons ready and eyes scanning the forest, Iryana couldn’t help but think of Vaneshta and her team. Part of her itched to suggest they cover the trees like the brigade did when passing through, but it wasn’t her place. She didn’t want it to be her place.
They made it anyway, growing jumpier by the moment, the moon climbing higher in the sky.
A crack in the trees not too far away had them all freezing in place.
Iryana saw Kladara raise her air-bow, an arrow half-drawn. Iryana knew they needed to avoid a confrontation, and looked around, waiting for her sister or one of the cousins to give them direction.
It was painfully silent.
Then, finally, Hadima hissed, “Go that way,” herding the group around to avoid them.
They made their way around, but now and then, they would hear something in the woods again, following along on their left. Iryana wasn’t able to see more than a couple dakii in the trees, but she still held her bow tighter.
The dakii were outnumbered, which must be why they were keeping their distance. They showed far more restraint than she was used to. Probably hoping to pick off any of them that strayed too far from the group.
Tonhald moved beside her, falling into easy steps.
“Are they going to let you in?” he asked in a whisper, not taking his eyes off the surrounding trees.
“The brigade?” Her heart started racing again. There was a yearning in his voice, and she couldn’t stand to let her cousin get his hopes up. “I don’t know if they will in time. I’m trying.”
In truth, she felt like she was on the path to being initiated, but even thinking hopefully made her lungs constrict, and she felt lightheaded. There wasn’t a lot of time. One shouldn’t count the buds until they’d bloomed, lest one doom them never to open.
“If there is anything I can do…” his voice trailed off. When she peeked at him, his eyes were dark and his face pinched. His voice came out hoarse when he added, “Another metal-forged in the family would make a big difference.”
She felt queasy, not sure how to answer that. Her cousin was one of the last people she expected to go hunting with her sister. “Why are you here? This is dangerous, and you have Teshya and the baby.”
“They tried to keep me out of it.” Tonhald sighed. “I found out what they were doing, though, and I’m the oldest. I couldn’t let them take risks like that on their own.”
It wasn’t as surprising when she thought about what Pyetar had told her about Tonhald trying to contact the brigade.
Iryana looked to her own sister, a stone-like heaviness in her stomach. Hadima was like that for Misha, and had once been protective in that way toward Iryana too.
There was a rustling sound off to their right, and Iryana noticed there were a few dakii there, closing in slowly. Her head snapped back to the other side, and she realized the dakii on that side were slightly closer than they were before.
“We’re being herded,” Iryana whispered, making Tonhald and Hadima, who stood in front of them, tense. Her sister put on a brave face, but Iryana could see the terror in her eyes.
Levek slowed, drawing closer as they all bunched up. “Iryana, what do we do?”
“Me?” Iryana gasped softly. They had been hunting together for weeks—why would they ask her?
“Yes, you,” Kladara hissed. “You’re joining the brigade, you run around the forest by yourself. What do we do?”
There was fear in her voice, but Kladara tried to mask it with anger, just like Iryana remembered.
Iryana’s throat dried up, and every thought in her mind blanked. The last time she’d led her cousins, one of them had ended up dead.
But then they could hear the dakii even closer, the rustling. They weren’t even trying to hide that they were following them anymore. It was more than the few they had seen before. They were more than outnumbered now.
Then she looked into her sister’s eyes, at her cousins’ faces, and something snapped in her.
She was a fool to have thought they could secretly pick off the dakii one by one, make a difference on the Kleesold’s part of the border.
They weren’t metal-forged; they weren’t trained for this.
They’d trained to defend the wall, to defend each other.
In one-on-one combat with a guardian, most soldiers or fighters would lose spectacularly.
But they hadn’t learned to hunt the dakii and patrol the woods like the brigades did.
To move in formations like soldiers. Didn’t have the numbers to chart the way the dakii moved.
They were out of their element and deeply at risk.
If they retreated to the post now, even if they managed to make it the entire way without losing anyone to the dakii, the commotion would draw more. Her family’s post could be entirely overrun tonight.
Iryana looked around them, piecing together as much of a plan as she could, her heart hammering inside of her.
“Tonhald, Hadima, Kladara, get to the front, keep as much distance between you and the dakii as you can. Take turns covering each other as you retreat.” She took off her own quiver, grabbed a few arrows, and tossed the rest to Tonhald; she knew he was an excellent shot.
The arrows would do more good coming from an air-forged bow than hers. “Don’t stop firing.”
She turned to Levek and Sanora, who had been very quiet, looking pale in the moonlight. “Don’t let the dakii get to the archers. Use your shields if you have to. Don’t bother trying to kill them, just make them bleed and slow them down.”
“What are you going to do?” Hadima asked, with a tremor in her voice.
Iryana sucked in a quick breath. They were nearly out of time.
There were too many dakii for them to fight off, she knew it deep in her heart; that was why she had run so fast to warn them.
But if she drew the beasts away now, not only could her family make it home, but she could make it back to the fort before morning. If she survived that long.
“I’m going to get them to chase me back down the Yuresh.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Hadima hissed.
“I do this all the time, remember? And I don’t need to fight them off, just outrun them.” She shrugged her shoulder as if she were completely confident in her ability to outlive her plan. It would at least be easy to draw the dakii’s attention with her white dress.
They still didn’t look convinced, and she needed them to listen now. There was one thing she could tell them to convince them.
“Remember that day right before we got the duchess’s ultimatum? With the two-call alarm? When the dakii just ran off?”
Hadima nodded slowly, brows twisted with confusion.
“That was me. I ran a chase and led them away.”
Kladara grumbled something about secrets and moved into the position Iryana had given. The others soon followed, but Hadima’s eyes followed her warily. Iryana gave her a nod.
No one seemed to question that she had given most of her arrows away.
In a sudden blur of silver-blue fur and black claws, the dakii pounced out of the trees.
The Kleesolds were trained warriors from birth, and not one of them faltered.
Arrows flew over Iryana’s head, digging into the dakii, while the younger two slashed with their blades.
The dakii came from both sides, pressing in, and Iryana knew they wouldn’t hold long—but at that moment, they were strong.
She watched one of the beast’s assessing eyes as she took a few steps away from the others and fired an arrow at him. It missed entirely, landing a few paces shy, right where she had aimed.
The dakii’s attention narrowed in. Iryana made a show of looking around nervously, and then she bolted into the trees the way she had come.
Bow spinning behind her, torso twisting, Iryana fired her second arrow in front of the dakii on the other side, making sure it passed right through their line of sight.
Please work, she chanted to herself, running faster. Crashes sounded out behind her as the dakii must have leaped after.
The initial burst of adrenaline wore off too quickly, and Iryana’s legs protested her sprint.
She risked a glance back to count the dakii, and it looked like they were all following.
Relief flooded her limbs, making them even more tired. She could feel her speed waning already, her lungs burning and her head getting lighter. She had to get them further from her family.
All around her, the forest was a chorus of snarls and pounding paws.
She mapped out the valley around them in her mind, picking her path as she ran. Taking sharp turns through narrow ravines, squeezing between thorn thickets, anything she could think of to slow the dakii down.
At first, it seemed to be working.
Just as Iryana thought she had gained enough ground, a smaller dakya leaped in front of her, cutting her off. It must have circled around and dove from one of the overhead ridges.
With a gasp, she barely summoned her shield fast enough to block the swipe of the beast’s sharp black claws.
The impact threw her hard into a nearby tree, hitting her side with enough force to knock the wind out of her. She didn’t feel the pain, but she glanced down to see red seeping through the gap in her armor where two of the buckles were now ripped off.
Gritting her teeth, Iryana rolled, somehow holding onto her spear, and dove into the dakya.
Amidst the rushing shadows and pine needles and pale blue fur, the imbued tip of her spear hit just the right spot. Not waiting to see if the dakya was dead, Iryana tore off again.
She was far enough away now that the dakii weren’t likely to turn back around. And her family must have had enough time to make it most of the way back.
Up ahead was a cluster of younger trees, so dense they were hard to move between even for her. They wouldn’t slow the dakii down for long; the dakii could go around or crash through quickly enough. But it would give her enough of a chance to lose them.
That dense wood was all she could think about as she pushed on, the pack growing closer again.
She thought she wouldn’t make it in time, but then she was there. Slipping between the trunks, not much thicker than her thighs, a brief wave of relief hit her.
The dakii snarled behind her, slapping against the edge of the wood, a half dozen trees creaking from their weight.
She hurried further, ignoring the creaking and cracking behind her, slipping between trees as branches snapped at her clothes, hair, and face.
Running her hand over her side, Iryana pulled back red-stained fingers.
Perfect.
Not letting herself slow down, Iryana ran those fingers over the trees, cutting back and going in other directions until the whole wood was full of the overwhelming stench of her blood.
She couldn’t ignore the pain in her side now, not with her adrenaline fading and with how she kept touching it to gather more blood. But she clenched her teeth and hurried.
Satisfied, the sounds of the dakii having spread out around the edges of the woods as they slowly tore in, Iryana slipped out of the far side where a babbling brook wove between the trees.
She tried to move as quickly as she could without splashing too loudly. The water would make it hard for them to track her, or at least slow them down. Cold mountain water immediately seeped into her boots, soaking up her leggings and the skirt of her dress.
The sounds of the pack spread out behind her, as if they didn’t know which way she’d gone and had split up.
That was good.
She left the brook, cutting through a winding bit of forest that would eventually lead to the Yuresh River.
She was slowing down, tiring, but if she could make it to the river, then she could throw herself in.
Let it carry her away from the dakii and hide her scent until she found some shore to collapse against before making it the rest of the way.
Then a sound tore out of the forest behind her.
With a silent scream, Iryana glanced behind her to find two dakii, both with double sets of gleaming horns and snouts stained red as if they’d rubbed them against her blood on the trees.
Shit.
Yanking her bow out, Iryana fired two arrows at them, hoping to slow them down.
They dodged easily.
Iryana pumped her arms harder, trying to fight the exhaustion in her limbs, the pounding in her head.
One of the dakii pounced but her shield absorbed most of the blow. Still, one claw slid through, digging into her shoulder, and almost sending her spinning.
Somehow, she stayed on her feet.
She reached for an arrow again, but her shoulder protested, not letting her move her arm high enough.
Swallowing, she tried to ignore the panic. She couldn’t shoot her bow. Probably couldn’t use her spear with just one hand.
The river was her only chance. She had to make it to the river.