Iryana tensed, summoning her bow to join them, when Vaneshta grabbed her shoulder, holding her still.
“Guard the supplies,” Vaneshta ordered Iryana and the soldier leading the horse.
Then Iryana was left beside the cart with a few other soldiers, watching Vaneshta’s braid whipping behind her as they disappeared into the trees.
With a frustrated huff, Iryana half-drew her bow, turning in a circle. Each shadow held the promise of monsters, but they all turned out to be nothing. Until Iryana saw a flicker of silver-blue fur out of the corner of her eye.
Her heart raced, and adrenaline flooded her veins. The dakya had slipped past them, running toward the fort. She was supposed to stay and guard the supplies, not go off on her own, but it was only one and the dakya could be a danger to the 18th, she assured herself. And it was her duty to protect the fort.
“I’ll go check it out.” She didn’t even spare a glance at the other soldiers before running into the trees.
That part of the forest was dense with spindly pines and bright white-spotted birches. It took only a moment to pick up the trail of the dakya. She rushed to catch up, weaving through the trees, until she could hear it running ahead of her. She smiled in triumph until she heard the others.
Iryana almost faltered. She could take out a lone dakya, but could she take down multiple? Even with her metal-forgings she wasn’t sure. Still, she chased them.
It wasn’t hard to follow the sounds of the dakii at first; she could hear the soft pounding of their paws and the occasional snap of things broken beneath their weight. Iryana had to push herself faster, realizing they weren’t trying to be stealthy; they were charging on the fortress.
Heart pounding, braids flying behind her, Iryana stepped sideways down a steep hill. A wide path carpeted in low-growing cypress opened before her, andshe took it. Iryana had to be getting closer to them; they couldn’t squeeze through the trees in as direct a path as she. But she couldn’t hear them over the crunching and rustling from her own running.
She slowed to a near-stop, head tilted as she strained to pick up the dakii. She couldn’t have lost them.
A soft crack came from up ahead, and Iryana crouched, finally making out their shadows through the trees ahead. They had stopped. Why? Iryana formed and half-drew an arrow and snuck closer.
The hem of her skirt tugged against the twiggy branches of a pea-shrub, producing a soft rustling as the small green leaves brushed against each other. Iryana stilled.
One of the dakii, tall with two long sets of horns and a smaller pair just growing in, turned toward her. The creature’s eyes were so black they reminded her of looking down a deep hole on a moonless night.
She had wanted the advantage of surprise, to take out one or two before they had time to rush her. Iryana cursed her luck and drew her arrow-forging the rest of the way, and let it fly.
It smacked the dakya above its left eye, sending it stumbling back a few steps. Iryana let the arrow dematerialize, and a trickle of inky black blood dripped out of the now-empty hole in the beast’s head. The creature made a sound that was half-growl, half-whimper, sending chills up her back. Two more dakii peered at her through the trees.
How many were there?
Iryana loosed two more arrows. They shot between the trees, glistening silver in the beams of sunlight streaming down.
She saw the other dakii tense, their muscles coiling and readying to spring. Iryana had injured their pack leader, and now they seemed even more desperate to kill her.
Iryana turned and bolted, heading away from the fortress and toward the densest bit of trees. She panted, slipping between the birches and pines. Their low-branches and bark pulled at the armor on her shoulders, the sides of her skirt. She ducked to narrowly avoid a thick branch, but it caught on her black-dyed scarf, which now clung to her braids as she ran on.
She could hear the dakii behind her, trying to weave through the trees but slowed by their size. The trees creaked and groaned as dakii slammed into them.
Iryana risked a glance behind her as the trees thinned slightly and sent two more arrows toward her chasers.
As the forest continued to thin, the dakii drew closer, spreading out to flank her on both sides. Iryana fired a few more times, but didn’t think she had taken any down. There were at least five still chasing her, and she had no idea how she had missed their numbers before.
She was a fool to go after so many alone.
Had the soldiers guarding the supplies realized so many dakii raced after her? Surely they heard the commotion. But they wouldn’t abandon the supplies, and the others were likely too absorbed in their own fight to come after her. She couldn’t count on anyone coming to help her.
Then she saw a bath of morning light ahead, a break where there were no more trees. Panic clutched her, and Iryana gasped, fighting her desire to turn another way. But there were dakii to either side, dakii behind her. She could do nothing but run straight forward, or else they would be on her. Once the forest opened up, and the dakii could reach their full speeds, she couldn’t outrun them either.
“Curse you all,” Iryana screamed as she released her bow and formed her long spear instead. She would not be chased down like a hare; she would go down fighting.
Iryana prepared to turn and hold her ground as the clearing drew close. Then she got a clear look at it.
With a strangled cry, Iryana tried to stop, throwing herself into the last tree of the forest as the ground opened up before her.
It was a cliff.
