Chapter 11
I grasped onto the front of the king’s cloak and looked up at him with panicked eyes. “What are we going to do?!”
He examined the room before his gaze lit upon the hole in the ceiling. “There! We get out there!”
My jaw hit the floor. “But that’s twenty feet up!”
He looped an arm around my waist. “A simple jump for me, but you must hold tight.”
“Wait!” I shouted as I whipped my head around to our crazed host. “What about him?”
The man stood as still as a statue with his arms at his sides. Blood still dripped from his fingers as he stared listlessly at the door. His unblinking eyes stared at the door as the footsteps grew louder.
I held out my hand to him. “Vhulkar! Come with us!”
He spoke in a hollowed-out voice. “No. My life’s work is over, and soon so will be my life.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way!” I pleaded with him as I took a step toward the man and stretched out my hand. “Please!”
He mechanically turned his face in my direction, and confusion reigned. “You would…you would forgive me?”
I wiggled my fingers at him. “If it means you won’t die, then yes!”
Vhulkar swallowed hard before he slowly shook his head. “No. I will…remain here. I will…only slow you down. At least in this way, I will distract them.”
Tears sprang into my eyes. I tried to move closer to him, but Scalyvar tightened his grip on me. His sharp, firm voice cut through the tension. “We must leave.”
I reluctantly stepped back against Scalyvar’s side. My heart was heavy as I felt his body tense.
And then I was screaming as he leaped into the air, carrying me with him. I clutched onto his coat as we flew those twenty feet, and he slammed his empty hand against the dirt-lined wall. His unusually long fingers dug into the soil, causing some to rain down below us.
I followed its descent and watched as Vhulkar slowly moved to the center of the room.
He lifted his chin as the heavy footsteps reached the door.
Shadows filled the room, surrounding him as their low, heavy breathing echoed up the shaft we hung in.
The nethral moved into sight, surrounding him as he stared defiantly at his former servants.
I had to look away as the creatures lunged at him. His horrible cries echoed in my ears.
“Focus!” Scalyvar whispered to me as he drew his hand away from my waist.
I yelped and wrapped my arms around his neck. “What are you doing?!”
“Climbing,” he told me as he shoved his other hand into the dirt. “You have to hold tight to me until we reach the top.”
I shut my eyes and buried my face in his coat.
He pulled us up the short tunnel and soon climbed over the top.
The smoke’s exit turned out to be a patch of open grass in the woods.
A fallen tree hid the location, as did some rocks and a mound of dirt, no doubt placed there by the unfortunate Vhulkar.
I winced as I remembered the man’s final moments. There were some things you never forgot, and I didn’t doubt that would be one of them.
Scalyvar crawled onto the grass as far as his waist and twisted his head around to catch my eye. “Are you able to climb off?”
I rolled off of him and tumbled against the dirt mound. Scalyvar eased his legs out of the hole and turned over, where he dropped his back against the fallen log. He leaned his head backward and closed his eyes.
I couldn’t help but notice that he set one of his hands over his left side. He shifted his coat slightly, and that’s when I saw it: the faint reddish stain on his shirt.
My eyes widened. “You’re hurt!”
He turned his head to and fro without opening his eyes. “It’s merely a flesh wound.”
“But how did you-” My eyes flickered to the plain dirt tunnel out of which he’d climbed. That’s when it hit me, and I whipped my head back to him. “You came all this way with that wound!”
A faint smile creased his lips. “I could do nothing else.”
I scooted on my hands and knees over to his side. “But you need that taken care of!”
“I assure you, the wound is not an issue.”
“Well, your issue is bleeding right through your shirt,” I scolded him as I began unbuttoning his shirt.
He wrapped a hand around one of my wrists and opened his eyes. “We don’t have time for that. The nethral will follow our scent, especially mine.”
Scalyvar eased himself onto his feet, and I scurried up with him to give him some support with my body. I looped an arm around his waist and tried to draw him close to me, but he rebuffed my attempts.
“I am fine,” he insisted as he tried to draw himself out of my hold.
My eyebrows crashed down, and I shoved him against my side. “Of course you’re fine. That’s why you’re bleeding out and can barely stand straight.”
“That won’t be a problem for long,” he assured me as he put two fingers to his mouth.
His shrill whistle broke the calm night, and a loud neigh followed his call.
The king’s horse trotted out of the shadows of the trees and stopped just outside the chimney fortification.
His Highness allowed me to help him around the tree and to the horse, where he grasped the rear of the saddle and turned to me.
“Ladies first,” he invited as he grasped my lower back.
I couldn’t help but turn my head around and give the dark hole one last look. Not a single noise came up through the flume. However, a faint sound came from somewhere deep in the woods to our right.
“We must make haste,” the king advised me.
I was only too willing as I scooted into the front of the saddle, and he slipped in behind me. He took up the reins in both hands and merely gave them a light tug. The horse turned and galloped into the woods in the opposite direction from the sounds I had heard.
I glanced over my shoulder at the small clearing, but nothing could be seen except shadows. My heart thumped loudly in my chest as I looked up at my companion. “Do you think they’ll follow us?”
His grim eyes stared ahead of us. “Undoubtedly.”
“Can we outrun them on your horse?”
“We shall see.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, even as I heard other, far worse sounds. The heavy thump of padded feet broke the silence of the woods. I glanced behind us and beheld thin shadows in pursuit.
And they were gaining.
“Look ahead!” the king shouted as he tightened his grip on the reins.
I snapped to and clutched onto the horn as the horse increased its speed. We flew over ground and fallen logs, and the shadows flickered by like an old movie reel. The horse’s panting was matched by the heavy breathing of our pursuers.
Soon, I didn’t have to look behind us. The nethral hellhounds sidled up to the horse, their tongues lolling out and their wild yellow eyes staring hungrily at us.
The creatures snapped at the horse’s legs and our own.
The steed in turn whinnied and slammed its body into them, knocking our foes into trees and boulders.
The king’s sharp voice captured my attention. “Hold the reins!”
He shoved the ropes into my hands, and I juggled them for a bit before getting a good grasp.
The king slipped his sleeve up just beside me and brushed his other hand up his arm.
My mouth fell open as I beheld for the first time what he was actually doing.
The scales popped out of his own flesh, and he plucked them as one plucks fruit from a tree.
The king used them as he had done before, as weapons that brought down one nethral after another. I couldn’t see their bodies melt to nothing, but their dwindling numbers were proof of his efforts. The horse kicked the last monster, and he finished it off with a quick strike to the head.
I could breathe a sigh of relief, at least for a little while.