I hear them now.
She twitched to run, to slink into the fog and escape. She saw herself, breathless, sprinting through the grasses, drenched in sweat and gray water, searching for Vedikus. But there was nothing except the sound of pursuit. The panic, the racing of her blood, and the ache of her body going toward nowhere with only a breathy prayer on her lips. It flashed in her head, her boots weighed down with mud and water. The decision totrywavered.
Would they leave Vedikus behind to bleed out, or capture him like they captured her? Would they take her to Prayer?
Do they know I’m sick?There was no place to hide.
The centaur reached out his hand to help her straighten from where she crouched. She eyed the outstretched hand, pale and rough with long fingers and thick knuckles, partially hidden by worn leather stretched across its back. So human, so normal.
Aldora swallowed and refused it, rising on her own to face him.
She lowered her weapon as he dropped his hand, regarding her with an expression she couldn’t read. The centaur whistled again, and within the next moment, she was surrounded by a group of horsemen that towered over her from every side. She hugged herself and searched for Vedikus among them—hoping they had taken him prisoner—but he was not there. She kept looking.
“You’re safe now, female,” said a new speaker, a centaur with blood-stained bandages draped across his naked chest. He stepped forward. Her gaze dragged over him for a moment but continued on past him to look at the mist beyond, waiting for Vedikus to spring forward.
He did not.
Vedikus.
The thought of his name gave her strength.
***
Aldora.
His eyes snapped open.
Vedikus groaned, staring up at the sky. It was duller than before, and he could no longer see the tiny dot of the sun. He had lost consciousness and was weaker than he was before, but heard the splash of hooves moving farther away.
Where is she?Nothing but pearly mist met him in every direction. It had all happened so quickly—the ambush—and he had been too distracted to see the signs.
The centaurs had left him alive, if barely, but he knew if he rested until his wounds closed, he would be dead long before midnight.
He sucked in a shuddering breath.
Vedikus pulled himself upright and peered down at the damage that had been done to him.
His chest and gut had been stabbed through several times, and there were gashes on his arms along with several smaller ones on his legs. Blood leaked from each of them to the ground below where it was diluted by the tepid water. He placed his weight on his palms and straightened his upper half out of the muck.A red boil, burst open. A pool of my own waste.
Not just mine.There were two dead centaurs a short distance from him. Their bodies added to the stench of gore that permeated around him. He’d been so focused on Aldora that he had let them surround him, had given them the advantage.
He gritted his teeth as another wave of agony coursed through him.
The green light that heralded the entrance to Prayer twinkled in his peripheral vision, barely discernible without Aldora’s blood clearing the way. He’d grown used to it as he stared at the glimmer; the clarity, the colors, the extra light reaching through from overhead. She was better than any magic or drug.
He immediately missed her comforting presence, her smell, her defiance, and her submission. Knowing she may well still be alive was enough to bear the pain. She was his. HIS. If they touched her, he would make sure every last centaur in the land died horribly. They had already taken her from him and that was enough to solidify their deaths.
Vedikus surged to his hooves. Blood and water poured from his wounds. When nothing attacked him, he waited several minutes in silence and took in his surroundings.
The grasses had all been trampled upon, and those that weren’t were splattered with gore. The corpses nearby had been looted of their weapons but nothing else. He looked for his own but could not find them, feeling the loss of their weight at once.
Vedikus pressed his hand over the wound in his gut but knew it would do little to help. It was deep, and he knew it to be beyond his ability to heal with the supplies he had on hand.
Vengeance would strengthen him.
He made his way over to one of the corpses. He kneeled before one, wondering why the rest of the pack had left their dead behind.
The Bathyr honored their dead.
