Page 69 of Spirit Trials
It’s silent. “Tie him to the tree?” Harper repeats, like I’ve lost my head. And honestly, she’s not that far off. “Will you help get him off me?” I ask. My voice is getting scratchier and scratchier, and the pain is starting to set in. I take a deep breath and then start to heave him off me. Harper helps me. It’s an awkward process made a thousand times more difficult because we’re balancing in a tree branch at least twenty feet off the ground. When we finally get him off me, I untie myself and stand to my feet. I lean over his body and begin the arduous task of tying his body to the tree trunk.
“What now?” Harper asks. “We just wait for him to wake up? Hey, I know, maybe we can all have breakfast together.”
“Ha. You’re hilarious,” I say deadpan. I look down at the guy that I can just start making out in the light of predawn. “It’s the same guy that shattered my wrist.”
“Ezra,” Kinsley says. “I heard somebody else call him that.”
“Well, now we have to find a different set of three trees.” I grab my sack and throw it over my shoulder. “Grab everything and let’s get going before he wakes up. I don’t know that he’ll be out much longer.”
“Farrah, this is ridiculous. Just let me push his body over, and we’ll be rid of him and then we can stay in these trees,” Harper says.
“No.” I put my hand to my throat; it’s really starting to hurt now. “Guys like him are dangerous; he’s just going to keep coming back. And unless we’re ready to kill him, which I’m not, we need to make things as peaceful as possible with him. If we eliminate him, he’s going to come after us at some point and probably won’t rest until we’re dead. I don’t want a threat likethat hanging over my head.” I throw my quiver and bow over my shoulder. “Let’s move. Follow my lead.”
I climb into Kinsley’s tree first. “The key is to find strong branches that overlap from one tree to the other.” I turn to look at both of them. “You don’t have to come with me; I can scout it out first.”
“And be here when psycho wakes up? Yeah, no thanks.” Harper follows me. “Lead on.” I focus completely on the task in front of me, finding just the right trees and branches. None of us speak as we move. Sometimes we have to climb up or down to get to the next tree.
“Look!” Kinsley shouts at one point. “There’s a gold ring in that tree.” I turn to look at what she’s pointing at. Sure enough, there’s a ring glinting in the faint light of the rising sun.
We redirect that way and stop when we’re within touching distance. “You found it; you take it,” I tell Kinsley. She climbs over carefully and snags it.
She smiles. “Got my first ring.” She turns towards us, and a second later an arrow embeds itself into the tree where her shoulder had just been.
I’m already turning. “Get down,” I shout. I look through the trees but can’t see anything. Kinsley moves to another branch and another arrow barely misses her.
“I can’t see anything!” Harper yells.
“I know. We have to move.” We’re blind in this area, and whoever’s shooting at us obviously has a clear view. I race over to the tree next to us and turn, trying to get a good view. I still can’t see anything, and an arrow narrowly misses me. “Move!” I shout. Kinsley’s already moving, and I race over to where she is and take the lead. “Follow me.” I move faster than I normally would in the trees, but somebody has a great view of us. An arrow hits the tree in front of me, and I nearly stumble. I turn and go around the back of the tree and head in a differentdirection. Harper shouts, but I don’t stop. “Are you hit?” I call back.
“No! Keep going!”
I step out onto the next branch and immediately freeze when it bends underneath my weight. “Go back!” I shout. We make it onto another tree, but two more arrows nearly get us.
“How are they all around us?” Harper demands.
I'm trying not to panic. No matter which direction we go, we’re getting hit. “Up. We gotta go up.”
“Up?” Kinsley squeaks. Another arrow hits the front of the trunk where I just was.
I move to the back of the tree. “Let’s go.” I practically push Kinsley up. Harper’s next, and then I follow. I’m kicking myself because I should have gone up first. I fire off two arrows in the direction the last one came from, hoping to buy us a little time. Then I throw my bow over my shoulder and begin to climb. Thankfully, the trees are incredibly tall in this forest. We climb up and up.
“I don’t know if I can go up anymore,” Kinsley calls out from above me. Her voice is breathless.
“It’s okay. Just stay there; let me see if I can get a visual.”
Harper climbs onto the branch right above mine. “There has to be several out there, the way the arrows were coming at us.”
“Yeah. Now comes the hard decision. Do we sit here and wait? Or do we try to keep moving?”
Harper scans the trees around us. “Neither is a good decision.”
“I know. Until we can see the threat, it’s impossible to know what we’re dealing with.”
Kinsley joins our conversation from another branch. “What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know,” Harper says. “I don’t want to run, dodging arrows, but if there’s more than one and they come at us in the trees, I don’t know that we won’t be overpowered.”
“I know.” I look at the trees surrounding us, but even I wouldn’t attempt to pass from tree to tree this high up. It’s way too dangerous, and the branches aren’t as sturdy this far up. “So, we go back down and try to outrun them?” I look between Harper and Kinsley.
