The Hunters of Sian

Flags and Figures

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Chapter Seventeen

Flags and Figures

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'This fresh meat is easier to track than a herd of water buffalo,' Curt growled with distaste.

Vlam snorted. 'In their defence, they were not told to move with stealth, only to get to the top of the mountain,' he reminded his companion.

The other demon offered a half shrug. 'Most of them are fodder. Doubt many will make it through to the second year,' Curt added disdainfully. Vlam hummed. They had tracked the last two boys relatively easily. They were the wild cards in this year group, both from peasant backgrounds. There was something to be said for how well the two boys had done. They had covered a lot of ground and had apparently been able to ride without difficulty.

'Cadric said Sallos' boy was the best rider in the class,' Vlam murmured, slowing as they reached the little campsite.

'The scraggily kid with the purple eyes?'

'Aye, that's him.' They crouched down in the thick scrub, downwind of the little clearing. The apprentices had chosen a good spot, protected from the wind with a good view down the side of the rocky slope. Their beasts were resting by a stream. It was just cresting dawn. The demons watched as the boys roused and began to pack up the small camp, dousing the last of the coals and saddling up the beasts.

To the demons' collective surprise, the smaller of the boys, the one with purple eyes froze mid step. The boy looked around him uneasily. The taller didn't take any notice, struggling to get his unhappy drackina back into her riding tack. The purple-eyed boy looked slowly from one patch of shadows to the other. He carefully untied his drack and coaxed him away from the stream. The juvenile drack was a good-looking beast with sharp intelligent eyes and well-built legs. The animal growled low.

The boy continued to look around into the forest and then back at his beast. He was apparently gauging to see if his mount had picked up on anything unusual. The drack did look around, its jaws open as it tasted the air but then it dropped its head, apparently bored. The boy relaxed a little.

'He's got good instincts, that one,' Curt said with barest a whisper. Vlam nodded.

'What's up?' the older boy called out. The apprentice jumped.

'Nothing, just an odd feeling.' With that, he bustled to saddle up.

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Nell tried to ignore the almost constant prickling in the back of his neck. He looked back often or watched Thorn's head as he swayed slightly with his stride, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The dracks were grumpy but relatively relaxed. Nell rubbed at his eyes and sighed. He was tired. His shoulders and back ached a little from sleeping on the hard rock. No other scream had woken them, and nothing had moved to the forest except for the occasional rodent or bat.

Nell reasoned with himself that the scream could very well have been from one of the other students being attacked by their drack. It wasn't an unlikely scenario. He just hoped it hadn't been Marshall. Both Jeremy and Nell were far too tired to talk much as they started off. Nell's stomach rumbled with hunger, but he ignored it. They were pretty close to the top already and going down the mountain would be faster than climbing it.

The feeling of being watching seemed to follow them as they rode up the side of the mountain but even though Nell looked back and around many times, he never once saw anything suspicious.

'There!' Jeremy shout was so sudden, Nell nearly fell out of the saddle.

'Don't do that!' he gasped, his heart thumping painfully in his chest. His gaze followed Jeremy's pointing finger to a ridge of rock. There, on top, was a flag.