Page 165 of The Last One
I nod—I’m ready.
“Behind us, Phily,” he whispers.
She obliges, but I see her readying her mace.
The man’s face is as withered as the last potato in a pantry. The twitchy but distant look in his eyes tells me that he sees us but…doesn’t. His leather tunic is caked with dried blood—human or animal, I can’t tell. His matted black hair sticks out from beneath a helmet that looks too small for his head.
None of these things originally belonged to him. And that’s a problem.
I can sense the tension in his body, the way his muscles quiver with each breath.
The man smells of death—his own mingled with so many others’. He stares at Philia, the most vulnerable-looking member of our group, and the hairs on my neck stand on end.
I check our surroundings to see if this is a setup and if there are others waiting to ambush us, but there’s no place to hide, for us or for them. The reviving land may have patches of green, but there are still more dusty strips of flat land that offer no cover. The bushes may be fuller than the bushes we’ve passed, but they are still thin and brittle brambles.
The man continues to shuffle in our direction.
And Philia, Jadon, and I continue to walk in his.
There’s silence except for the uneven shuffle of the man’s boots and the quiet padding of our feet against the dirt trail.
His stench blooms—rancid meat, sweat, and excrement of every creature in Vallendor. A dagger sits in his belt. The blade of the sword on his hip matches the blood beneath his nails. Like everything else, these weapons weren’t originally his.
Jadon nods at the stranger as we pass.
I keep my eyes trained on the road ahead. My skin tingles, and my fingers burn—all of me whispers that this wanderer is a threat. I try to hear his thoughts.
Only buzzing.
Strange.
“Just keep walking,” Jadon mumbles.
“Okay,” Philia says.
“Yep,” I say, even though my blood fizzes with worry.Why can’t I hear his thoughts?
The man’s feet scrape the dry earth.
Our feet tap against the dirt path.
My heart pounds, and my hands go hotter.This isn’t right. This—
I turn to look back at the traveler.
“Where’d he go?” I ask.
Jadon keeps walking. “Doesn’t matter. Keep moving.”
I walk backward for a spell, eyes scanning the brush and the tufts of dead, high grass.
No shouts. No scuffling. No amber glow of a skulking man.
I turn south again. “I don’t like this.”
Jadon grunts but says nothing.
I take one last look behind me.
