The Raven And The Wraith (Completed!)

Chapter 17

The Wraith
Chapter 17

"How do I kill the Shureel? How do I free my friends?"

"Go to The Daughter Of The Wind. You cannot help your friends without her help. I will hold your friends for one day, but once they're free they will hunt you with a fury unlike anything you've yet to experience."

I felt like a mountain of ice had just splashed into my innards, tightening my throat and clamping down on my heart as I considered the cats words. I understood what it was telling me. My friends would try to kill me the moment they saw me.

I heard the concrete truth in its words. I knew I had no choice but to run. Run to Genevieve, free her, and together we could join our powers and free my friends. And then, all of us would pay the Council a nice, little visit. Complete with bloodcurdling screams and all the other assorted parts of such a visit.

I turned and ran, gathering up my knife I had thrown at the Shureel earlier. I darted out into the night, away from the warm firelight. Away from the few I had ever considered friends. It felt sickeningly similar to that night I ran from Crael Crest. Like here was family, here was home, and yet I had to run from it or die. The darkness of night did not blind me, but the tears pooling in my eyes blurred my enhanced vision.

I ran all night. I stopped for water at the little spring that tumbled cheerfully down amongst the massive, misshapen boulders that marked the opening to Donners Pass. It felt strange, to stand there in this place for only the second time but feel a sense of familiarity, followed by a sense of strangeness. Familiar because I had just been here two days ago. Strange because now I was alone. Alone and hunted. Strange because that actually felt familiar.

I felt myself slipping back into that wild side. That animal instinct I had lived by nearly all my life on the streets. It was easy to allow those instincts to take over. Easier than I really wanted to recognize. The question that ever plagued my waking thoughts since meeting the cat insistently raised its inner voice as I considered these instincts. What was I?

I pushed that question down with a low snarl. It was not relevant now. As I leaned back against one of the boulders, drinking deeply from my waterskin, I heard the faintest of sounds. Like dry leather rasping softly on the rocks.

It was an inconspicuous sound. It had me hurling myself forward with as much speed and power as I could. Even as I launched forward, I felt a jarring impact on my back.

My forward roll was not a smooth, rapid motion, instead ending up more like the haphazard flopping of dead fish as the fisherman tossed them down the cliff banks back in the city.

I adapted to the unintended flopping motion, snatching my knives from their sheaths as I tumbled awkwardly, allowing myself to end up on my back, my blades up and ready above me. Ready to greet anything trying to pounce on me with their cutting edges.

The thing that stared at me reminded me of a particularly ugly lizard I remembered seeing in the sewers once. Except this one was much bigger, at roughly the same size as me. And far uglier than the one one in the sewers.

I felt a familiar burning, tingling ache down my back and suspected it had slashed my back when it had leapt at me from atop the boulders behind me. It's eyes were filled with an unnerving hunger, a steady gaze that belied the unparalleled focus of the predator.

I sat up, holding my blades out for it to see, and bared my teeth at it. Showing it I was a predator myself, that it wasn't going to find a bleating, helpless meal in me. That I would fight with fang and claw to the end.

It flicked its long, bright yellow forked tongue at me, its body as motionless as its eyes. I stuck my tongue out back at it. I believed in belittling your opponents as much as possible. Hey, they were your opponents, you might as well have fun at their expense while you thrashed them!