Page 86 of Shadow Wings
“Druman,” Tyrrik said, his obsidian eyes hardening. “Closing infast.”
He kicked dirt on the fire, extinguishing theflames.
I watched Tyrrik move, but my mind was fixated on the memory of Jotun’s cruelty. I blinked but otherwise remained frozen, my breath tripping in my chest.Flee.We needed to get out of here. They were going to catch us again. Tyrrik, Dyter, me. They’d use Tyrrik and Dyter against me. I wouldn’t be able to getfree.
I sucked in a breath and gagged on the stench of unwashed Druman, a mixture of body odor and dust and sun-baked leather hide. They were here. They were here for me. I couldn’t goback.
“Ryn,” Dyter said, pulling me after him. “We need to go, girl. They’re coming down the mountain, so we should slip away while we stillcan.”
My feet moved, but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. “Why are we running? Why not go Drae and kill them? We can do that,right?”
“As soon as they die, the emperor will know,” Tyrrik said, scanning the clearing. “He’ll feel them die. If the Druman have to waste time reporting to the emperor, we’ll be inside Gemond before he even knows it. If he feels his Druman die, he’ll investigate, and he could interceptus.”
I nodded. “We need to get in theair.”
No one answered, but Tyrrik jerked his head toward the edge of our campsite. His features hardened, and his lips thinned into a grimline.
“Be careful,” he said to Dyter. “The drop issteep.”
I peered over the edge of the mountaintop—calling this dropsteepwas like calling night day. “You’re not suggesting we walk down the side of the cliff . . . areyou?”
Dyter sat down on the ledge and then pushed his body off anddisappeared.
I yelped, and my muscles coiled to leap afterhim.
“Shh.” Tyrrik intercepted my spring, covering my mouth, and whispering, “There’s a path below. He’ll befine.”
I glared, and he removed his hand from my face only to grab my wrist and tug me after him. “I thought you said we weren’t going to walkdown—”
“We’renot.”
The tension in my body eased a fraction until Tyrrik stood where Dyter had been a momentbefore.
“I’d rather avoid detection if at all possible,” Tyrrik said, not meeting myeyes.
I heard what he didn’t want to say: Tyrrik wasn’t sure he could shift and fight them off. He didn’t want to admit he wasweak.
“We won’t walk,” he continued. “We’ll need torun.”
I felt like someone had kicked the backs of my knees. Tyrrik grabbed my waist and lifted me over the side. I dangled for a second until he lowered me fromabove.
A moment later, I hugged the rocky wall of a narrow ledge. The path curved around the cliff face before reaching the wide expanse of a steep slope covered in a sparse thicket of low trees. I inched my way along, turning back in time to see Tyrrik drop to safety where I’d been standing secondsbefore.
He tilted his chin again, and I took the hint, side stepping along the ledge until I was able to scurry into thewoods.
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The smellof Druman was growing, and so was the cold sweat on my forehead and palms. We edged down the almost-vertical pass as quickly as Dyter could quietly move. Dyter couldn’t contain his labored breathing as the ground began to flatten out, and we sprinted and jumped over rocks and hidden gaps in the roughterrain.
Soon, Tyrrik’s breathing was labored, too. This run shouldn’t have been tiring me, but my chest was tight, and my breath wouldn’t completely fill my lungs. I kept seeing my dungeon cell with its solitary drip of water, the sharp rocky ground, the danksmell.
Believing that the scent of Druman was truly lessening took a long time, at least until the ascent of the next mountain. Eventually, even I had to admit their smell haddisappeared.
Tyrrik kept us in the foliage as much as possible. Our pace slowed as the ground sloped upward oncemore.
Dyter held up his hand for a stop and pulled out the now stone-cold roasted rabbit and the waterskin.
“You guys need to eat, too,” I puffed, hands on my knees. I felt absolutely wrung out. Like I’d been sprinting fordays.