Page 24 of The Book that Broke the World

Navigating Social Seas, by Captain Elias Root

CHAPTER 12

Evar

The pursuit hadn’t started immediately and for some miles Evar had thought that maybe the skeer alarm cry had been some general warning broadcast at the mountains. The direction they chose to head in was chosen mostly by the slopes. The valley aimed them at a dusty plain. Clovis refined the choice, aiming them at what looked to be a distant plateau. Always take the high ground, or at least, when you surrender the mountains, pick a hill.

They jogged down the last rocky inclines, dodging the occasional hardy bush, and followed Clovis onto the plain. At first the ground was a mixture of hard-packed dry earth, grit, sharp stones, and serrated ridges of bedrock slicing up through everything else. After some miles it settled to a surface of baked mud riven by deep cracks and covered with half an inch of fine dust that recorded their trail in a drifting cloud at their heels.

When Evar first spotted the skeer tumbling from the mouths of half a dozen narrow gorges high on the southern slopes, he and his siblings had a lead of perhaps three miles.

“How many?” Kerrol asked, still having difficulty spotting the foe.

“Lots.” Evar couldn’t make out individuals. He’d seen them only because the fact of their numbers made a white carpet, catching the last embers of sunset.

They began to run then. Evar was thankful that the terrain was at least level and even. On the mountain their unfamiliarity with slopes and rocks would have given a huge advantage to the skeer. Even so, before the darkness swallowed the dust wall raised behind their enemies, Evar was able to gain a sense of their swiftness, and the lead that had seemed substantial had already halved.

They ran on in the dark, the chase somehow more worrying now that they couldn’t see the gap closing. Evar imagined the white horde suddenly clattering out of the blackness to engulf them with only a moment’s warning.

The first of the moons rose to find Kerrol struggling with the pace. Evar and Clovis habitually ran the eight-mile circumference of the chamber. Kerrol disdained physical activity in the main and now had only his natural aptitude and long legs to rely on. Evar slowed to run beside his brother, trying to somehow pull him along by force of will.

Another dusty mile passed beneath their feet.

Clovis ran close to Evar. “There’s a light.”

Evar saw it, twinkling on the heights of the plateau. Without discussion, they both altered course. The light belonged either to someone strong or someone stupid. The skeer were going to catch them by daybreak and they wouldn’t defeat them alone.

The light vanished as they approached the base of the slope to the plateau, hidden behind a series of tumbling cliffs. Evar led the way. He wasn’t much of a climber, but he’d trained with Starval. Clovis helped him haul their exhausted brother up the steepest parts.

“Leave me,” Kerrol gasped.

“If you wanted us to leave you, you’d say something that made it happen.” Evar heaved him over a rough stone ledge with a grunt of effort, and Kerrol let himself be dragged, panting, up the slope.

The fire that had drawn them came back into view as Evar gained the plateau. Now less striking, bathed in the light of two moons, it was small and smoky. A handful of figures could be seen gathered around it, but it was still too far off to tell much else about them other than they weren’t skeer.

“Nearly there! Come on!” Evar waited for the others then began to run.

He had to hope that there were more of the strangers ahead than just those glimpsed around their signal. A lot more. If not, then the skeer would roll over them in moments.

“Watch the skies!” A shout from Clovis.

Evar skidded to a halt and turned in time to see strangely skinny skeer plummeting towards them from the moonlit sky, iridescent wings trailing behind them, offering little resistance to their dive. White-armoured like those Evar had fought in the library, these creatures were clearly cousins to the ground-based skeer, but all legs and blades rather than bulk and strength.

At the last moment the skeer opened their wings to avoid smashing into the ground. The next moment was an explosion of action on all sides. Evar pushed Kerrol clear of a stabbing limb longer than a spear before being wholly occupied with dodging a forest of jabbing appendages. He lashed out with his knife but never had time to tell if he did any damage.

The frantic dodging and weaving continued. Kerrol cried out, pinned to the ground through one shoulder. Evar rolled, sliced, jumped to his feet, and launched himself to deflect the killing blow. He ended up sprawled beside his brother, expecting to be slashed open. Instead, a spray of warm ichor splattered across his face and chest and the skeer’s twitching body collapsed on him.

“We have to move.” Clovis grabbed his hand, yanking him to his feet. “The runners are nearly here.”

Evar bent and pulled Kerrol’s good arm over his shoulder. “Coming.” He lifted Kerrol, straining to support him while he tried to hold his own weight.

Clovis muttered an oath and together they half walked, half carried their brother towards the signal fire.

—

The fire turned out to be smoking embers in a crude bowl balanced on a ruined wall. The figures were human. They weren’t even armed.

Evar abandoned Kerrol to Clovis, mainly to encumber her, and strode towards the humans, arms raised in question. “What the hell are you doing?” He snarled at them to set them going. “Run!”

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