The Shadow

Chapter 11

Kai jumped off his horse, ripping another piece of cloth from his shirt. He worked quickly, cleaning and bandaging the man's wound—a wound that Kai himself had inflicted—before remounting his horse. They had left the army camp less than half an hour ago and were still far too close for comfort, but the man needed to be treated if he was to make it to Aria alive for questioning.

"They have hounds chasing us." Harper panted to his side, nodding her head toward where the army camp lay, miles away. "We need to go quickly...we can rest a few miles ahead, once the hounds have tired and fallen back."

Kai simply nodded, too tired to form words as he pushed his stallion onward. Breeze, he had decided to name the gray horse. He would still find Lunar, he told himself, but until then, Breeze would do.

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Kai woke to the muffled sounds of groaning to his side—the soldier had awoken from the unconscious state he had been in since being stabbed.

Lurching upward, Kai cast a glance towards Harper, who sat on a log beside a crackling fire, watching the soldier before them. She had insisted on taking watch for what little was left of last night, and Kai had been too tired to object.

"I heard them last night—the hounds, as well as some men." Harper pinched her hair, eyes roaming the woods in which they had made camp. "They must have been far, and left after a few seconds—I would have woken you if they'd stayed any longer."

"Thank you. For keeping watch all night, I mean. You could have given me a few hours."

She shook her head, smiling. "It's alright, you were tired. Besides, you've been taking my watches for days."

Kai watched as leaves spun from the trees above him to the ground he lay upon, morning light reflecting from them like a thousand little suns. Sighing, he turned back to Harper.

"We had better get a move on if we want to beat the army to Aria... They need to know about this—those giants will leave a dent on the city's walls, no matter how thick they are."

Harper nodded, pulling salted jerky from her pack and tossing it to Kai. "Eat while you ride," she said, taking a bite of her own dried meat.

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The next two days passed by quickly—time and feeling blurred on the back of Breeze. Hills and rivers flew past Kai in a mirage of brown, green and blue. Harper did most of the hunting—he still did not feel entirely comfortable killing animals efficiently—but taught Kai what she could; how to skin, season and cook rabbits as well as how to properly defeather birds. The soldier he had captured kept quiet—he didn't seem eager to die.

By the time Aria's walls came into view, Kai had grown used to sleeping on pebbles and twigs.

His eyes widened in awe as he took in the sight that lay before him. The city's walls were massive, stretching more than ten meters into the air; stone and mortar melding together into a fortification stronger than any Kai had seen before. Towers rose above the walls every hundred or so meters, parapets jutting forward like a shield against whatever darkness would dare attempt to break Aria's defenses.