Chapter 65
Sixty-Five
Ayla
Ihad never seen the Reapers like this before. The moment a decision was made, every single person got to work making it happen. Every cart, regardless of type, was hitched to a horse. Guardians and militia members piled in or held on to the back and sides with weapons covering our bodies.
The dogs blazed the path. I counted at least fifty, and I was sure there had to be more.
Every shadow in the forest moved. Half the patches of moonlight were reflecting from white markings on an animal.
Knives, daggers, krael, and even scythes had been strapped on.
Bows were everywhere, in all different shapes, sizes, and styles.
Then there were the arrows.
Entire buckets of the things had been loaded into the carts.
The bigger wagons had even more. And while we'd just become a fast-moving army, this mess was far from silent.
From the yapping of the dogs and the snorts the horses let out, to the worried voices of the people piled into the carts, it was all drowned out by hooves.
Large, powerful, thundering ones that left worrisome divots behind from the speed we were traveling.
I was tossed and jostled. Kanik shifted behind me, helping me to keep my balance. It was a learned skill, he assured me, but also exhilarating. I hadn't realized it was possible to travel this fast - which was good, because it had taken far too long for all of this to start moving.
The sky had barely started to change into something a bit less black when dozens of dogs dropped to their bellies, lying down before they even stopped running. Immediately, people began yelling for a halt, and everyone piled out - just as the first Moles rushed us from the trees.
Arrows flew, dropping the closest, and the rest pulled back.
Here, the trees were thick, giving them far too much cover, but we didn't have time to worry about that.
I jumped over the side, trying to figure out if we'd just stumbled upon the men at the back, or if they were all here. Sadly, I knew the answer.
They'd heard us coming. Of course they had, but I'd been hoping for more light before we'd reached them. Moles couldn't see in the sun, and we couldn't at night. And yet every dog handler yelled the same command, one after the other.
"Disarm!"
The dogs were our first wave as we hit the ground and pulled our weapons. Eriska was screaming orders at the back. At the front, Zasen was doing the same, so I turned to head that way, but Kanik caught my arm.
"Rymar!" he snapped, looking over my shoulder. "You stay with Ayla. If she says to do it, you listen." Then his eyes found mine. "And find Tobias. I need to help Zasen keep these Reapers alive."
I nodded and called for Holly. It took her a bit to return, and when she did, her coat was muddy, but Pepper followed right after, dragging a gun by the strap.
"Good girls!" I praised, taking the weapon. Then I looked at Rymar. "How do you fight?"
"I usually don't," he said. "Yellow is a hard color to miss. I have good aim, though."
"What weapons!" I hissed, because that had been what I was really asking.
He lifted a krael. "Ayla, I don't own a bow."
So I shoved mine at him. "Then use this and stay behind me," I told him, passing over my quiver next before lifting the gun to my shoulder. "Holly, find Tobias. Pepper, guard!"
We didn't have time to dawdle out here. The Moles knew where our forces had stopped, which meant that was where we didn't want to be. So, the two of us headed off to the left, making a wide arc. Everyone else seemed to be going to the right, but I trusted my dog.
Just as the battle cries started, the horses began to move - and then I heard the thing I hated most: gunshots.
The pops were almost too soft. They never sounded as terrifying as the damage they did, but they were definitely too fast. Once, I heard a dog yelp, but since I could see mine, I tried to tell myself it was from surprise, not a wound.
"Where are we going?" Rymar asked when our path curved north again.
"I think we're flanking around the back," I told him.
"Don't like this," he grumbled. "Ayla, I'm a walking banner of color out here, and you people can see it in the dark!"
"Then duck," I told him, reaching back for his hand. "Trust me, Ry."
"I do," he swore, tangling his fingers in mine as we hurried to keep Holly in our sights.
Around trees, past boulders, we sloshed through newly fallen leaves and old ones.
From the sounds of it, the fight was moving away from us, but that was a good thing.
When a stick tripped me, Rymar's hand kept me from falling, but mine kept him from losing sight of my dog.
Her brindle coloration blended into the night, even for me!
Then a man cried out in English, "I saw someone over here!"
Rymar jerked his hand back, I lifted the gun, and a man rushed out from between some trees. Immediately, an arrow slammed into his chest, fired by Rymar. A moment later, Pepper did - and this time she didn't hold back.
The snarls were low and feral as she sank her teeth up to the gums and thrashed. It was so fast I didn't have time to see the man's face before his body was slung to the ground and Pepper was on him. Sadly, he hadn't been alone.
"We've been - " a young man cried, making the mistake of looking back.
I squeezed the trigger, putting a couple bullets in him. I'd been aiming for his chest, but hit his throat, then his shoulder. I was pretty sure the Mole was dead before he hit the ground.
His friend wasn't.
The Mole roared as he grabbed the trigger and held on.
I heard the stream of bullets heading toward me just as something big slammed into my back - and then I got a face full of leaves.
A glimpse of yellow and red made it clear Rymar had pulled me out of the way, but he was up before I even had my bearings.
He didn't yell.
He didn't grunt, or pant.
Rymar was as silent as death when he tackled the last Mole in this group, slamming the pair of them back down into the dirt. I heard the Mole cry out, but Rymar's tail was already lashing, stabbing the man repeatedly.
"Move," I ordered, talking to both him and my dogs. "Pepper!"
And again, we ran. Once, Holly barked. Twice more, Rymar spotted Moles, managing to get an arrow into them before we were seen. Then, without warning, Holly put on a burst of speed. I couldn't keep up, but she had her command and was likely obeying it.
"This way!" I told Rymar, heading away from the fight a bit.
The pair of us slid behind an outcropping of rocks and gasped for air. That much running made my chest hurt with the effort, and Rymar's mouth was hanging open. And yet, when leaves rustled, he was on his knees with his tail up before Holly came back into sight. Tobias was right behind her.
"Ayla!" he gasped, throwing up his hands and looking at Rymar as he said it.
"You're fine," I said, waving Rymar down. "He's fine. Everyone's fine. Girls, guard!"
That was when Tobias saw Pepper. "There's two?" he asked.
"I buy her nother dog," Rymar said in his almost understandable English. "You Tobias?"
"Yeah..." he said.
"That's Rymar," I explained. "His English isn't the best, but we need to know what's going on."
Tobias glanced back even though he couldn't see anything but a boulder, then scrubbed at his face. "I don't know. We heard you chasing us, so we picked 'good ground.' Well, Gideon did. They think you're going to fight like Dragons, but... Ayla, there's a lot of animals."
"Dogs. Horses," Rymar said.
"Yeah," Tobias agreed, reaching into his shirt.
But Rymar grabbed a knife from his belt and his tail whipped up. "I will kill," he growled.
"It's okay!" I assured him.
"Callah's letter," Tobias explained even as he slowly removed the paper from inside his shirt. "Ayla, we were told about this last night. We left just as the lights came on this morning. Same as last time."
"And the meat?" I begged.
"So, you did do that?" he asked.
I nodded. "We hoped it would keep you from attacking the camp again."
Tobias shifted so he was sitting on his ass, clearly relaxing. "I don't think that's why we're hunting."
Beside me, Rymar was holding out his hand to Pepper. "Come," he whispered in Vestrian as if trying not to interrupt.
I ignored him and asked Tobias, "What do you mean?"
"You gave us more meat than the elders know what to do with," he explained. "Ayla, they're freezing it. We haven't been able to do that in..." He blew out a breath. "I don't even know how long. Never in my memory. So if we have that much meat, why are we hunting?"
"What they say?" Rymar asked. "You olders."
"Elders," I corrected without thinking about it, but he had a point.
"They said the demons are knocking at our door now," Tobias explained.
"They said we must destroy the evil at its source.
When Gideon gave us the orders, he said we will go where the enemy isn't waiting, because this isn't a battle evil can win, God called upon us to do this, and those sorts of things.
" Then he paused to lick his lips. "And they want us to bring back women. "
Rymar cursed under his breath, clearly understanding all of that. "And they go to Lorsa?" he asked.
"This time, yes," Tobias said. "Most of the hunters are boys. Not even twenty! They graduate at eighteen now, just like the girls, and Gideon said they need to learn where the food's at. Ayla, I can't be sure, but I don't think this is about hunting anymore. We don't need meat right now!"
"Then what is it about?" I asked, having a few thoughts of my own.
"I think this is war," he breathed. "I'm not sure of that, but the more you push back, the thinner their excuses become. We need to save the women. We cannot let the Devil win. We must reclaim the world…" And he lifted a brow.
"Which sounds like that's the real goal," I told him. "If no one is up here to fight back, no one will be up here to offer a better option."