“They might have but we can not assume.”
Krellix gives me the end of his tailtip to hold again before going back to clearing out a path for me to follow. One, I hopefully don’t keep tripping over.
Wanting to ask him why he changed his mind, I keep my lips shut even as the minutes bleed together and we distance ourselves ever farther from Zaku’s.He asked me to be quiet, so I’ll be quiet.Though I have questions. I’m curious because before tonight, one of the reasons I wasn’t allowed to leave was because they feared I’d give up information on everyone’s whereabouts.
A gust of wind courses swiftly past me and I turn away from it as it blows my hair forward. When it stops and I start walking again, Krellix is facing me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Even in the gloomy moonlight, I can see the flare of his nostrils.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
He studies me for a long moment before turning away.
Confused, I watch him until his tailtip tugs my grip, pulling me after him.
For the next several hours, his over attentiveness doesn’t lessen. He diligently watches and listens and makes sure I take my time traversing the darkened path. But as my feet slip for the third time, and his frustrated hissing fills my ears, I become agitated myself. “We could have waited for morning,” I whisper harshly.
“And be sssseen? No.”
“We could be seen at any time!” I whisper-shout louder.
“We are less likely to be in the dark.”
“I thought nagas hunted at night as well as during the day.”
“Some do but most do not. Hussssh. There is a place up ahead where you can take a break.”
My lips flatten as he leads me off the path and into a patch of forest climbing up the mountainside. As the world darkens further under the deeper shadows of the trees, we follow the rocky mountain until we come to a cluster of large boulders. Crawling between two of them, we enter a smaller, tighter space that’s surrounded by other large rocks. With the cliffside as one of the walls, there’s only one way in or out, and that’s the same way we came in by.
With the night sky above me and the branches of a few large pines hanging over, I peer around the closed-off spot with approval.
Krellix backs out of the nook as I turn to face him.
“Stay here while I make certain we are not being followed. There are a lot of noises, and some of which I can not discern so easily. Do not move until I return. You will be safe here.”
“Are you sure? I can help. I hear things too.” And I have… not just the usual sounds of critters in the forest, scattering at our passage, but very distant explosions and even what I think was gunfire.
“There is little you can do in the dark, female.”
Hence, why we should have waited until morning.“I can still watch your back.”
“Not tonight.” He shakes his head. “There is too much activity. As much as that activity covers the noise we are making, it also increases our chances of running into additional danger. Stay here and I will be back shortly. If Sada is behind us, I will know soon.”
Sada?I step back until my spine hits the mountain face, bringing my rifle forward. Krellix says nothing else as he turns and vanishes around the boulders.
I slide down to the ground and rest my weapon on my knees.
Sinking down into my soldier’s uniform, now smaller in form than when I was active in it over six months ago, I look up at the moon, listening to the same distant noises Krellix and I were just speaking of.
Wondering, if not for the first time, what the fuck happened toThe Dreadnaut.
NINE
BURNT TREES AND PROMISES
Julia
