He grunted but let the subject drop.
The tall grass shortened into thick, short stalks the farther they trudged, and his hooves began to stick in the muck. Each moment the land pulled at them from below as if hungry for their energy, and his unease built with every step. Aldora’s gasping pants grew labored as he pushed them forward, but she kept up and remained at his side with no complaint to accompany them. Her determination was equal to his own.
Prayer had the means to cure a human but it also had the means to further curse them. It depended entirely on what its protector demanded of them. He had little on himself to offer for payment. But the longer he listened to his female laboring at his side, he knew that whatever the hag asked of him, he would give it.
Aldora had been forced to sacrifice her life to end up by his side, and if the human could do that—without once giving up—he could do more.
I will do whatever I can to get her to my brothers alive.He wouldn’t have been hunting along the border if it weren’t for his tribe. For the longevity and the future that he and his brothers were so determined to have. It had been years since he had last seen the bulls of his father’s tribe, years since he felt the comfort of stability.
He looked up at where the mist shrouded the horizon and pictured the mountains looming just beyond his sight. They were not far from where the Bathyr waited, and once they made their way out of the bog, it would only be a matter of days before he had delivered his breeder safely to their camp.
The mountain pass and crevasses would be guarded by a thousand traps and watched over by his brothers Dezetus, Hinekur, and Thyrius. Nothing had been able to traverse it since they claimed the land, and nothing ever will now that they had a human to protect.
After they had abandoned the old tribe, he and his brothers had left the dead lands—the lands far from all human civilization—and made their way back to the barrier lands, where true power was tested. It was dangerous to live so close to the human world of Savadon but it was the only way for him and his brothers to survive and build their own tribe. Humans did not appear randomly deep within the world, and fresh blood was a perpetual need.
My offspring will be strong.Aldora’s hair breezed across his arm and his tail lashed impatiently.
Suddenly, a dull green light flashed at the edge of their bubble, extinguishing the tension that threatened to burst from his bones. Vedikus approached the gaseous light.About time.
“What is that?” The female wheezed, breathless at his side.
“That is our pathway into Prayer.”
“Vedikus!”
He didn’t hear the whiz of the spear until it was too late.
Chapter Thirteen
***
Aldora saw the outlineof a dozen centaurs as she caught sight of the green light. One moment there had been nothing but mist, and in the next, it was broken up to reveal a pack of them with weapons poised. She screamed Vedikus’s name as they raised their weapons to attack.
Several spears sliced the air, cutting through the swirling, ethereal fog.
Her heart stopped as a spray of blood splattered the grass, accompanied by a howl. Vedikus dropped to his knees and she ran forward to reach him, her eyes trained on nothing but him and the burst of red gushing from his wounds. Her fingers found his when something caught her from behind, lifting her away.
