Page 110 of The Mortal Trials

We circle up the way we did when we ran out to face Daedalus, this time with Hazi next to me. I glance over at him. I don’t understand why he’s suddenly helping us or why he threatened his ally for mine.

“Who is that?” Elias squints, looking ahead and raising his sharpened branch.

An unchampioned woman with shoulder-length, midnight hair limps toward us from out of the mist.

“Look at her mouth,” Hazi warns.

Blood-tinged froth thickens in the corners.

“You have to help me,” she weakly begs. Foam spittle flies with every word. “Don’t leave me here.”

“Will the gods heal her?” Elias asks.

“Even Susanoo wouldn’t save Akira yesterday, and this woman isn’t championed,” Hazi bites. “What god would bother?”

She hobbles closer. The fog swirls, revealing more of her form. The hem of her rolled pant leg sags heavily with blood that pours from a deep puncture wound on the outside of her calf. The woman trips, falling in a tangle of root and moss. She tries to stand back up and can’t.

Hazi’s words about boars and teeth keep repeating in my mind.

I start toward her.

Hazi holds his spear out to block my path. “No. You can’t risk it.”

A frantic male yell comes from deeper within the forest, followed by feral squeals. Then anguished screams.

Elias curses. “It got someone else.”

Helpless, we listen to the man’s repeated cries for help.

“Is anyone here?” Niall.

I can’t see him through the fog.

“Get to a tree!” Hazi shouts.

“What?” Niall asks. “Why?”

“Run toward my voice!” I yell.

If he’s running, I can’t tell.

“Run to me, Niall!” I scream.

“I am!” he grumps, but now I hear his steps in the cadence of his voice.

Snorting. A tight squeal.

“What is that?” he shrills. Closer. “Where are you?”

A guttural shriek, closer to him.

“Here! I’m right here! Here, Niall!” I keep yelling so he’ll find us.

Separating from our cluster, August, Elias, Hazi, and I move in place to strike the wild beast from both sides.

When Niall bursts through the trees with the boar on his heels, the four of us lunge. August drives the broad spearhead through its side and into the ground with a gritty roar.

The creature tries to free itself. Squealing and grunting. Twisting and thrashing. Its hooves peel the moss from the forest floor, flinging it all around. The earth under it scorches and chars.