Of Gods and Warriors ✓

Chapter 34

The wind howled and the woods groaned. Trees swayed, reaching out with their gnarled hands to snatch at Farren's hood, spreading out their twisted roots to trip her in the midst of her sprint. The cold sank its silver talons onto her face, frost threatened to bite into her limbs so full of life.

She ran.

Shouts and cries echoed not far, snow crunched beneath thundering hooves. A sorcerous presence was drawing ever closer, and Farren didn't need to turn for a look to know it was the Council Mage.

Farren leapt to one side just in time for a silvery bolt zoom past her face and hit a nearby tree, which went up in flames as though struck by lightning. Another missed her by mere inches, rebounding off a rock.

Try all you want, spellcaster, I ain't getting dragged into torture dungeons no more. One branding was bad enough.

On she scurried, her path drawing a jagged course through the trees. She skittered through the undergrowth and rolled below low-hanging boughs. Every soldier of Kianllen knew these woods as well as they could count the dents upon their shields from every battle ever encountered-- Farren was no exception.

Ego bruised by a mere low-ranking soldier, the mage cared little for the breach of the magical laws-- now he was simply out for vengeance. But he was having trouble leading his horse through the dense woods, and the soldiers tailing him dragged him down with their incessant attacks.

"You cannot escape the law!" he bellowed, getting stuck behind a web of low branches caked with snow.

"Gods, are you mistaken about that, sir," she gasped, muscles aching and breath catching from the exertion, "you've no idea how good I am at running from my problems!"

Snowflakes caught in her coppery mane still frizzling from the mage's missed spells, her legs carried her unerringly to the one place where went the folk of Kinallen when despair struck their miserable, mortal lives. The shrine of the Unnamed at the waterfall.

The decision to flee in this direction was not one Farren had made deliberately. Something buried deep in her subconscious tugged at her strings, like a marionette in a pair of masterful hands.

Although, it was probably the fact that across the stream was a shortcut to the trader track-- easy access to an escape route-- rather than devotion to the deity. He doesn't give a damn about us mortals anyway.

Yet when Farren reached there, she wished she could rely on the lifeless stone statue, like the villagers did in their blind faith-- because her legs could carry her no more.

She sank to her knees on a crest just beyond which rumbled the waterfall. Even the immortal soul, encased within her mortal one, had its limits.

O Unnamed, have mercy. I can't go on any more.

A horse neighed nearby. The mage was gaining on her.

The snowy woods swam in her vision, lungs hurting with every shuddering breath she took. Every joint in her ached with cold and a wave of exhaustion swept forth to douse the flames that had led her through this chase.

Farren dragged herself across the snow to the edge of the crest and peered at the waterfall. A couple dozen feet below ran the stream, thin sheets of ice drifting afloat in the plunge pool.

Her hair stood on end as lightning crackled in the air. The mage was just around the corner--

Even if she did manage to climb down and cross the stream, what then? Would she outrun him on the trader track while he rode on horseback and Farren had but her weary limbs to count on?