"Hee-hihn, ihihihn!"
"Dammit...!"
Ella reared her forelegs high again.
I barely slipped past the whipcrack drop and sprinted toward where Margon lay.
"Margon, stay with me. You can’t black out now."
"Khk... kuh-hek, urk...."
I snatched the short knife off the ground and tore open Margon’s upper garment.
His corded torso was mapped with old scars. There were several fresh-looking burn marks as well.
I clenched my teeth at the unmistakable traces of torture. Treat it later.
I gave my head a quick shake, then cupped Margon’s chest wall. I spread my palm and set it flat over the whole area.
"Try breathing slow. Pain?"
"Sss, urk... ah, it hurts."
"Exactly where. Does it feel like a stab?"
"That’s... no, urgh...."
Even short breaths made him wince. His sun-darkened skin went so white it looked bloodless, cold sweat sheeting his face.
I poured every nerve into my fingertips and palpated along the ribs.
No step-offs. With inhalation and exhalation, the whole rib cage moved together.
"You’re okay. Thankfully I don’t think anything’s broken."
"Kh... that’s... a relief...."
Relief pried a slit in the pressure for a breath or two.
If Margon’s ribs were fractured on top of this, we’d really be out of options.
"Ffrrhhn, frrruhh."
The real problem stood behind us.
Tense to the limit, I looked back. Ella had her red-lit crystal horn aimed straight at us.
"E-Ella... what’s wrong. It’s me, Kallen...."
Kallen couldn’t accept that Ella had attacked her. She shook her head, denying the reality.
She tried to stand on shaking legs, and I caught her and sat her back down.
"There’s something wrong with Ella. It’s dangerous—don’t go near her."
"Something wrong? What kind of...."
Ella kept snorting, breath huffing with threat.
The gentle one who went phrrng at everything was terrifying as an enemy.
Elfera is the strongest monster in the forest if you don’t count a dragon.
"Snf, uh-huk... Ceryl, Ella... please do something about Ella...."
Tears pattered off Kallen’s chin as she grabbed my hand.
A gesture steeped in desperation, like praying to a god.
"Margon, did Theo tell you anything?"
"Khk, ah, n-no. He only said Elfera, urk... came in. Haa...."
"He said they’d been experimenting on monsters. Do you know what kind?"
"No, he didn’t... tell me... anything specific...."
The questioning got us nowhere.
All we could do was glare up at that stupidly tall tower.
Should’ve killed him on the spot.
Make that one more gray head I’d like to grind to paste.
"Ihihihn!"
Ella cried high and raised her forelegs.
Kallen and I were the only ones who knew what that sign meant; we screwed our eyes shut and turned our faces away.
But seconds passed and nothing happened.
Panting through the tension, I looked back at Ella.
"Frrng, frrrng...."
The crystal horn glowed a threatening red.
From the cry and the preparatory stance, it was exactly when she should be using telekinesis, and yet Ella didn’t attack us.
"Why—why isn’t she using magic? Maybe she r-recognizes us?"
I didn’t answer Kallen’s hopeful whisper.
Her posture was still purely aggressive; it didn’t look like she recognized companions she’d lived with and worked beside.
It wasn’t that she wouldn’t use magic. She couldn’t.
As if furious that nothing would obey her will, Ella raked the ground with a forehoof. Her killing-lit eyes stayed locked on the target.
Facing Ella, who could launch at any moment, I rose slowly to my feet.
"Kallen, up. Get Margon under your arm."
"Wh-what about E-Ella?"
"We don’t even know what they injected and we don’t have a method right now. We need to run from Ella."
"N... no. How can... how can we run away leaving Ella...."
She clung to my arm and let her words trail off. On a normal day I would have soothed her, but the situation wouldn’t allow it.
With an S-grade monster trying to kill us, soothing a child was a luxury.
"Frrrng, frrng."
Ella’s ears, fully aroused, flicked forward and back in quick beats. The muscles along her crest stood rigid.
Clop, clop. She rocked her forehooves, and her white, splendid tail lashed.
She was poised to spring this instant.
"Right now, think only about getting out alive."
I said it to Kallen, and at the same time repeated it to myself.
Think. Think.
Ella—no, any monster in a state of extreme arousal—how do you run?
The instant we turned and ran, the monster would charge. At a human pace, we wouldn’t last a few seconds before a horse ran us down.
...Right. Ella is a horse.
"Kallen, get Margon up."
"But...."
"Listen, damn it! You can save Ella or not after we survive!"
Only after I barked did Kallen swipe away the tears brimming to her lids.
She rose and slung Margon’s left arm over her shoulder.
She was still hiccuping through it, but her wits seemed to be back.
"When I give the signal, turn and run."
"What about you, Ceryl?"
Margon cut in, worry packed into his already pale face.
I shot him a glance over my shoulder.
"I’ll take the monster. I’ll buy the time—go."
One arm gone, a limp in his legs, and he’d just been hit by a horse hard enough to break a man—and still there was nothing dead in the flash of his eyes.
Not the moment for it, but it made me snort.
I shook my head lightly and picked up the short knife and the decorative shield from the ground.
Neither weighed enough to count, and yet my shoulders felt heavy.
"Enough. I’m done with the view of your occiput."
The back I’d watched, standing alone against Dragon Hunters, didn’t fade with time.
Nor did the face that shielded me and died with an arrow in his neck.
"Leobin is enough."
I’m done with idiots dying to protect me.
Kallen and Margon stared at what I was doing, lost.
"Ceryl, you can’t take on Elfera with those."
"I know. The second you run I’ll be right behind you. Don’t worry."
Even with Kallen propping him, the injured Margon wasn’t going to sprint fast.
This time it was my turn to stay and buy time.
Sweat ran in streams from the tension. I didn’t take my eyes off the S-grade monster.
And looking at her like that....
My pretty girl. Eyes blazing red, but beauty doesn’t go anywhere, does it.
"C-Ceryl. You’re not... you’re not going to kill Ella, right?"
I couldn’t help turning my head back at the absurdity.
"Do you think I would?"
"Snf... y-you mustn’t kill her. Please... I’m begging you."
It was impossible to begin with, so there was nothing to beg for.
I had neither the intent nor the ability to kill Ella.
"Don’t waste breath. Get back. Get ready to run."
Confused as they were, Margon and Kallen did as told and backed off.
I clenched both hands tight and raised the short knife and the shield.
"Ella, thanks to you I take a lot of little trips down memory lane."
I whispered words she wouldn’t hear.
Back when I worked at the racing association, there was a training that sent the handlers to the infirmary again and again.
Starting gate training. Getting racehorses not to spook at the starting gun.
It was the most important—and the most dangerous—training.
Horses not habituated to noise go wild.
KANG! KANG! KANG! KANG! KANG!
I hammered the blade against the decorative shield toward Ella. The shrill metal screamed like it would tear eardrums.
"Now! Run!"
At the thunderclap racket, both of them hunched their shoulders. Then they started a slow run for the forest.
"Ihihihn! Ihihihn!!"
Unaccustomed to the metallic clamor, Ella flinched violently. She reared and scrambled a step back.
I kept smashing knife to shield. The skull-rattling noise was brutal to me too, but I just clenched my face and worked my hands.
KANG! KANG! KANG! KANG!
"Ihhn, ihihihn!"
As I advanced, clashing the weapons, Ella thrashed her head side to side.
Her ears folded all the way back. Her pupils pulsed tight and wide. Signs of a horse thoroughly panicked.
Unable to collect herself, she backed away as I approached.
I drove her like that, herding her toward the opposite treeline.
"Go! You run too, Ella!"
I couldn’t take her with me, but I could at least keep her from staying {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} here.
Who knew what that gray bastard would try next on a monster.
"Go! If you want to live, run!!"
Eyes squeezed shut, I shouted with everything I had.
Ella kept retreating, then, unable to bear the knife-on-shield shriek, she turned her head.
And she bolted at full tilt the other way and vanished.
Clop, clop. The beloved hoofbeats dwindled into distance.
"Ha... hah... Ella...."
Watching her back vanish in an instant, I lowered both hands. The weapons in them felt viciously heavy.
I’d just chewed Kallen out for acting weak.
I couldn’t stop the surge of tears.
"Kh... we have to survive. I’ll... I’ll find you...."
"There! Over there!!"
The rasping shout cut into the bleak sentiment.
The jury-rigged tear gas must have worn off; Dragon Hunters had already come outside.
"Grab that bastard!"
Right. I’d only thought about driving Ella off.
The merry little lark-beat I’d made had given away my position.
"Ah, for—enough already!"
Sick of these pricks.
But numbers rule.
Kicking up dust, I tore off in the direction Kallen and Margon had gone, dodging the Hunters thundering across the yard.
