"Everyone up! We have to follow! Ella, take Leobin!"
Ella snorted and swept her long neck. Leobin, who had been sprawled on the ground, rose weightlessly and settled onto Ella’s back.
As her telekinesis changed targets, the arrows hanging in midair shook violently. I still couldn’t tell where they’d come from, but their aim was the same.
"Сe—Ceryl... Ceryl...."
Time was bleeding out and Kallen had gone chalk-white, her whole body trembling. Her gaze unfocused and drool ran from her lips.
I seized Kallen’s wrist and shook hard. Dropping my height, I met the small girl’s eyes straight on.
"Kallen, if you don’t want to die, run."
"U-uh... uh...."
"You have to go see your siblings."
The word siblings hit like a stimulant; the orange eyes snapped back into place. She bobbed a big nod, bit her lips tight, and started to run.
With Leobin steady on her back, Ella broke into the lead. She followed Serif’s trajectory and pointed the way.
"Go!"
And Varen and I, without either of us saying who started it, grabbed each other’s hands. We sprinted blind, and when I glanced sideways I saw a face steeped in /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ bewilderment.
Tududududuk. Arrows fell limply where we’d been standing a moment ago. They dropped well after leaving their bowstrings and were no threat at all.
At the sound of falling shafts, Varen looked back. The instant a glint passed through his blue eyes, I yanked the hand I was holding.
"Don’t!"
I cut him off a step before he could use a dragon’s strength.
There were roughly a hundred arrows. Even if one person had loosed several, at minimum dozens of hunters were on our tail.
If he transformed, he could deal with them easily—but the vicious hunters wouldn’t miss that moment.
Besides, Varen was pouring everything into maintaining Humanization. If he bled mana to fight dozens of humans, he would black out on the spot.
If it were anyone else, we could throw them over a shoulder and run somehow, but if Varen went down, we had no answer. The last card had to be saved; right now, flight was best.
"Run!"
"But...."
"Listen to me!"
Varen grimaced, frustrated. Even so, he stopped insisting and matched my pace.
With Ella at the front, we tore through the forest. The conifers, thick as spears, cast shadows darker than usual today.
"KyAaa!"
Sure enough, arrows came in from directions we couldn’t read. They stuck from the front, the sides, even from overhead.
"Damn it, where are they shooting from!"
We were at least running fast; the arrows didn’t land. They shaved past us by a hair and slammed into earth we’d stepped on a heartbeat ago.
Leading the charge, Ella blinked her crystal horn on and off. Each time, incoming arrows bent against their inertia and veered another way.
Ssshhhkk—
With a noisy wind, a barrage poured down. They thudded into the path’s right-hand side.
My breath climbed to my throat. My heart hammered to the point of pain. I still didn’t slow, sprinting toward the side opposite the rain of arrows.
"Jjaaaaaeek!!!"
Up in the sky, Serif cried in desperate trills. Its wings were short for its body; it flapped in a fuss and circled the same spot.
Serif was sending a warning. When the guide-bird warns, it means the route is wrong.
I steadied my head and looked the way Ella was running. By monster instinct she was bolting toward where humans were sparse, away from human threat.
The path we pounded now was a conifer-choked trail. And the direction Ella took rose into high hills on both left and right.
"No, Ella! Not that way!"
At my frantic shout, Ella tried to turn at once, but arrows planted where her hooves would land. It wasn’t for the kill; it was to warn and steer.
"Ihihihing!"
Startled, Ella reared and cried. An excited horse loses its sense of direction; she panicked and stumbled, not knowing where to go.
"Ella! Stay with us!"
Kallen, eyes only for her friend, went after the monster. It was already too late to catch her.
Knowing full well it was a trap, we entered the path walled by hills.
And as if they’d been waiting, humans with bows showed themselves on the hilltops. Their clothes were all different, but the same emblem was painted on their armbands.
Why are the moments on the knife-edge of life and death so crisp? Our speed stayed the same, yet time seemed to slow.
The bowmen’s faces came into focus one by one. One had a bushy mustache; another had a thick scar on his cheek.
I heard their tight breaths. Power gathered in solid forearm muscles; even the sound of bowstrings drawing long came sharp.
Four on the left, five on the right. And two straight ahead.
Who knew how many more Dragon Hunters were hiding beyond this? Ella was at her limit, and the dragon was the last resort. In that case—
"Rami!"
At her name, the shadow lizard burst from the pocket where she’d been tucked.
"Hiyung!"
The handspan-long lizard rode the unusually thick conifer shadows and jumped by shadow. Darkness outran light. Rami moved at a speed the eye couldn’t track.
Squish, squish—like tiny feet treading mud, that was the only sign telling me her direction.
"Aaagh!"
"I can’t see! What is this!!"
All eleven men clutched at their eyes and dropped at once. A sidelong look showed every last one of them was smeared, eyes and lids, with sticky black fluid.
"Nice, Rami! My baby’s the best!"
Dopamine spiking, the lizard didn’t return to my pocket. Instead she perched on top of my head and clamped my hair in her dainty forepaws.
"Hiyuuuuung!!"
She didn’t forget a good, loud victory cry.
Where else would you find a monster this cute and brilliant. My heart swelled.
"My baby, I’ll catch you a hundred crickets! No—a thousand!"
Of course, Rami hunted just fine on her own.
The flanking hills were ending. I could see a wide clearing at the end of the trail.
"Are there humans over there too?"
"No."
Varen cut it short and shut his mouth. He was drenched in cold sweat.
No wonder the shadows seemed to deepen; the sun had gone down while we ran.
I clenched my teeth and squeezed Varen’s hand tight. I was too winded to speak, but I poured warmth into my grip to say: just a little longer.
We ran ourselves senseless and finally burst out between the hills. Knee-high field-grass spread thick before us. The open space let my lungs open by reflex.
With the view changed, I swept our surroundings fast. The conifers circling the clearing felt ominous.
This ambush had slipped past Varen, Ella, and Serif alike. It had to be the work of a deft mage the Spirit had warned of.
Then where do we run. Which way is safe. Even as I pushed for more speed I kept darting glances, hunting a direction.
Because of that, I didn’t look down. After all that nagging at Varen to watch his footing.
Clank.
With a hair-raising bite of metal, pain flared like fire.
"Aaaagh!"
I folded as if the earth sucked me down. The trap had my left ankle, but it felt like the whole leg was being minced.
Before I could even process it, tears burst on reflex. I clutched both hands to my shin and writhed.
"Ceryl!"
Without a blink, Varen seized the trap and forced it open.
The rough, violent release tore the steel teeth from my ankle, rending muscle as they came out. The pain was so vicious it felt like my guts were burning.
"Aaah!!—unh...."
My shredded ankle was a bloody mess in an instant. Blood from my body pooled on the dirt and made a small puddle.
A sudden flood of blood out of me brought a wave of anemia. My vision flashed white; my consciousness flickered.
No. Get a grip. I can’t collapse now.
"Ceryl!"
Kallen, who’d been ahead, ran back at once.
Ella, who’d been going straight, fought to slow and turn. Even as she came toward me she snorted, guarding the perimeter. The light of the crystal horn was fully out now.
"Haa... ha...."
"I’m going to treat it. Don’t move."
"N-no... wait...."
Varen was hauling my ankle up toward his mouth without thought. I lifted a shaking hand to stop him, and he looked at me with eyes filling with water.
Not the time to be thinking this, but he really has had too much to cry about.
"Hun—hunters... coming...."
"What? From where?"
It wasn’t that I was using mana like a monster to sense presences. My sight was dim. Varen’s face right in front of me was a blur.
Even so, I could tell. No—in losing sight, I could hear better.
I heard everything in this world. The panting breaths of excited men, the dry click of swallowing, the sound of short grass crushed underfoot.
"From... every... direction... ha... they’re c-coming...."
The noise at my ear was closing from north, south, east, and west alike.
I clung by a thread to my thinning consciousness. Ella couldn’t spend another ounce of strength, and there were too many for Rami alone.
With life on the line now, I didn’t want to think about the aftermath. It was time to play the last card.
I grabbed Varen’s collar and gave the final order.
"Ha... think...."
"Think? You mean think once more before killing?"
In the crisis his face turned feral. I don’t know why the growl looked cute, but I snorted and tapped his angry cheek.
"No. Don’t... think...."
The twist in Varen’s brow slowly smoothed. His blue eyes settled into a cold no thermometer could read.
My gaze followed him as he nodded and rose. Even then, it felt like a waste that I’d touched that handsome face with a bloodied hand.
"Good work, Ceryl. You can rest now."
At those words I let go of the last taut string I’d been holding. The world went to blackout.
And in my sharpened ear, fireworks popped—puh-puh-pung—from every direction: north, south, east, and west.
