The ground seemed to thud as the heavy men charged in unison.
The one grace was that the Hunters were slow because they were heavy, and my body was fast because it was light.
On top of that, a month of roaming the forest had taught my feet its feel. I vaulted the sunken patches and thick roots as I ran.
With a light body I shook off the able-bodied men. The tightly grown conifers hid me from view.
But before long I caught sight of Margon and Kallen ahead, limping along.
Damn it. I didn’t plan for this.
"Oh—Ceryl!"
"Don’t stop! Keep running!"
My jaw locked and the muscles bit down hard.
I’d thought I’d bought enough time. I was wrong. The two were too slow.
I closed the distance in moments and ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) took position on Margon’s right.
It would have been easier with his right arm. With no choice, I wrapped an arm around his waist and braced him.
Once I joined up, our speed dropped like a stone. Frustration nearly spat a curse out of me.
Sweat-slick and ashen, Margon watched my face and rasped, voice split.
"Ceryl, go on ahead. At this pace—hahk... they’ll catch us."
"If you’ve got breath to yap, run. If they catch us this time we really die."
"Death—urk—doesn’t frighten me. Failing to protect you does."
Even while running I checked his respiratory pattern.
Asymmetric shoulders, and his head listing right with every breath.
I’d only checked for chest pain in the crunch, but it looked like the clavicle was involved.
Impressive he was upright at all like this.
"Don’t you dare die without permission. Leobin’s gone—if you die too, who’s left to guard me."
"Haa... I’m sorry, but I’m... at my limit...."
Margon was only just moving his feet; his double-lidded eyes blinked slow and heavy.
Kallen, who’d been carrying his weight all this time, was flagging too; our pace kept sagging.
A very bad sign. It was time to decide for real.
If it were just Kallen and me, we could shake those men.
But....
"Shut up and run, you stubborn bastard."
I clamped again on Margon’s slipping waist.
He was nearly eyes-closed now, dragging his feet.
"Haa... hak, cough...."
Now Kallen wasn’t doing well either.
The smoke she’d inhaled in the tower and the sobbing over Ella were still taking their toll.
Short of air, she kept giving dry little coughs and still stubbornly held Margon up.
We were running for now, but I knew it. This wasn’t going to work.
We couldn’t flee, and we couldn’t stand and fight. Now what.
...Varen, for god’s sake. Isn’t this where you make your entrance?
"Hiyuung...."
Then a faint sound trembled in my inner pocket. Rami, drunk on anesthetic, was waking up.
Of course a handspan lizard can’t take on a dozen grown men.
But at Rami’s little hiyuung, a bulb clicked on in my head.
All month in the forest, the shadow lizard’s specialty had been finding hidey-holes.
"Kallen, find us a place to hide!"
We still had good distance on the Hunters. This was the golden time to vanish.
"Ugh—cough... y-yes!"
Kallen’s eyes flashed as she scanned the trees.
To me the conifers all looked the same, but to a walking plant encyclopedia they were different.
In moments she pointed with her free hand at a tree.
"A Grimoor tree! Thick, tangled roots—we can wedge in between and hide!"
It was a bit over three hundred meters away. At this pace we could reach it in under a minute.
Having a destination gave me strength I didn’t have.
In the blank despair, that filament of hope left room for nothing else.
We shoved through the undergrowth and aimed for the Grimoor tree.
"Kh...."
"Margon, just a little more! To that tree and—urk!"
But with the hideout right in front of us, Margon finally raised the white flag. His blinking consciousness slipped and he collapsed completely.
When his legs gave out, Kallen and I went down with him.
No time to feel the pain; I sprang up and slapped his cheek.
"Don’t you dare! Eyes open!"
He wouldn’t respond, so I pried his lids up with two fingers. The unfocused gaze told me the worst.
"Urgh—Margon...."
Kallen tried to hoist him onto her back.
Even with her grip strength, a short girl couldn’t carry a two-handspan taller, muscle-bound man.
"Uwooooah! Get them!"
"There they are! Grab them and kill them!"
The Hunters came on, shouting on purpose. Same old line about catching and killing.
Classic rabbit hunt. Make that racket and a panicked rabbit loses its head.
But I’m not a rabbit.
"Kallen, run alone."
"Eh? M-me, alone?"
She turned with a start from trying to piggyback Margon.
A whole day’s fear and despair had ground her amber eyes down.
"Even if they catch me again, they won’t kill me. I’m bait to call a dragon. You two aren’t."
"..."
"You two are the hostages they’ll use to make me talk. And from their point of view, they don’t need two."
To Jed, Kallen and Margon were the same kind of tool.
They’d kept them both alive to weigh which would be the deadlier hostage to me.
Now the three of us had pulled an escape no one planned for; they’d want to cut risk.
And they’d likely decide the one-armed swordsman was more dangerous than the teenage girl.
"If I stay, they’ll kill Margon, won’t they."
"Smart."
Even without a long explanation, she seemed to see the road ahead. Kallen exhaled and closed her eyes.
I gave the little head that fit in my palm one last stroke.
"If you want Margon to live, you have to run. It’s the only way all of us get a chance."
"Ceryl...."
"And their torture doesn’t look like a joke. Margon will hold up better than you."
I hid the truth under a tone with a hint of play.
The first man who came, and the men trading filth on the first floor, all wanted to do vile things to a nineteen-year-old girl.
Even with a blade to my throat, I wasn’t dragging Kallen back to those pricks.
"Why is it that all I can ever do... is run."
Even drowning in self-loathing, Kallen rose.
I gave the shrunken girl a bitter smile. If we had time, I’d have told her that nineteen still needs an adult’s shelter.
"Hurry and go. I’ll be—"
Sssshhhk—
Before I finished, the air ripped.
Reflex took over; I shoved Kallen, and the unready girl went down backward.
An arrow passed through where orange hair had been a heartbeat ago.
With the quarry close, the Dragon Hunters fired warning shots.
"Those crazy bastards...!"
My prediction that they wouldn’t kill me if they recaptured me went wide. It was the complacency I’d wrung out of the hope to live.
If you think about it, they don’t need a live lure to draw Varen.
If they could try to kill a dragon’s hostage without a qualm, we were out of methods. Only the last resort was left.
Flattening to the earth, I shook Rami, dozing in my inner pocket.
"Rami, Rami? Time to wake up?"
"Hiyuung...."
Her still-sleepy little face poked out.
"Go to the dragon and tell him our location and what’s happening."
Rami cocked her head side to side. She didn’t seem to understand the words.
Even while I whispered for her ears alone, trading a few short lines, arrows hissed past.
"Make sure you tell Varen to come in Humanization. Got it?"
"Hiyuung...?"
"Tell him I’m in real danger, that I’m about to die, so come fast."
I tapped her tiny brow twice.
Maybe she didn’t understand, but she memorized it; Rami bobbed her head up and down and slipped back into the pocket.
"Did you call the dragon? It’ll be dangerous for him...."
Kallen, prone beside me, whispered, startled.
Listening to the Hunters closing in, I set my mind.
"There aren’t any mages among them anyway. If they’re just muscle, they’re no match for a dragon."
"But the tower’s packed with crossbows for dragons."
"That’s why he has to come in Humanization."
I didn’t want to draw Varen into this trap if I could help it. But we were three candles guttering in a wind.
If he came in Humanization so the crossbows couldn’t target him, he could subdue the Hunters with telekinesis alone.
He’d probably collapse right after. I could only hope he’d recharged mana at the Eterna Nest.
The Hunters pushed into view and burst into hearty laughter.
"Khahaha! After all that running, the quarry’s sitting here waiting!"
A man who looked like the chief took point. He slapped his thick belly and sniggered.
The men behind him each carried something ugly—longswords, arrows, even rope nooses.
I yanked the corners of my mouth up over a locked jaw and dropped my voice.
"Sorry, Kallen, but this isn’t the time to worry about a dragon."
