It was nerve-racking to say the least. Even though Minotaur seemed to have a handle on which way to go to avoid as many Balataur as possible, I was afraid I’d trip over one of them at any moment. That was the sum of my luck. Just when things seemed to be looking up for me, I’d sneeze at the wrong time and bring everything crashing down.
I glanced to the side and halted in my tracks. About ten feet away, two black, glassy eyes caught a bit of nearby firelight as they stared right at me. My heart lurched and I froze.
The Balataur lifted his head with a huff. Before it could move any further, Minotaur was on him. The same blade that had freed Seanna and I sliced through the beast’s thick hide easily. It severed his throat and vocal cords before it could make any more noise other than that initial huff.
Minotaur crouched over the body. His large head whipped around, but no other Balataur moved. He looked at me, one of his large nostrils twitching before waving us on.
What must have been only twenty minutes felt like that many hours as we picked our way through the camp. Even though I spotted movement throughout, we had no more run-ins with the Balataurs until we reached its edge.
Minotaur found a spot of grass that hadn’t been smashed to muddy hay and dipped into it. “There will be guards ringing the outer edge of the camp and sentries out in the plains,” he muttered in as low a volume as he could manage. “If we spot one and cannot move forward without gaining their notice, we must move swiftly before they can raise the alarm.”
Seanna and I nodded.
Satisfied we understood, he rose from the grass and crept forward. Behind the last of the sleeping Balataur, there was a wide ring of stomped grass, giving us a stretch of being completely in the open. Minotaur didn’t hesitate, moving quickly toward the tall grass still intact about twenty yards away.
At any moment, I expected a loud, guttural shout for us to stop. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. I also had to tell my feet several times to not break into a run. I’m sure that would be disastrous. Not only would it make more noise, I was nearly blind. Outside the ring of camp and its few fires, it was pitch black. It was all I could do to keep Minotaur and Seanna’s dark forms within eyesight.
We moved quickly, but cautiously, my sphincter tightening with every step. But, somehow, we made it without the alarms being raised. We pushed into the grass and I had to restrain myself from letting out the breath I had been holding in one long, loud rush.
Once we were safely concealed in the grass, Minotaur stopped again. “We are not clear of danger yet. There are two additional rings of sentries patrolling around the camp. Keep low and quiet.” His black eyes rolled my way as he said this.
I wasn’t like Seanna who could move as quiet as a butterfly fart. I wanted to tell him I was doing the best I could. Complaining would be the opposite of what we wanted, so I kept quiet and nodded again.
We moved through the grass with as much speed as we could while making as little noise. Minotaur moved quieter than a creature of his size should be able to and Seanna was a butterfly quietly farting. I felt like I made all the noise of a stampeding herd of hippos. Between my footsteps and heavy breathing, I expected the whole camp to crash down on us at any moment.
Our one advantage was the moonless night. Seanna was small enough she was able to disappear in the tall grass but Minotaur and I were too tall to hunch down far enough. I hoped our dark forms would be lost in the night.
Maybe that was how we made it so far without being spotted. After a few minutes of traveling, Minotaur stopped us just long enough to inform Seanna and me that we had made it past the first ring of sentries, but to keep vigilant for the second. It was truly a miracle we made it as far as we had but sometimes miracles have limits.
We traveled another couple minutes before a Balataur appeared out of nowhere in front of us. It was a massive creature, taller and larger than any of the beasts I had seen. His axe was so big it bordered on the edge of being the size of one of those ridiculously large video game weapons.
“Halt,” It growled. “Where are you going, Brother?”
“Lord Lortmore has ordered this prisoner’s execution,” Minotaur replied.
“Out here?” he asked. The Balataur stepped forward. Minotaur—being a different breed than the Balataurs—was comparatively small to begin with, but the sentry absolutely towered over him. “Robbing all of us the joy of witnessing the boy’s death?”
It rolled its eyes at me. They traveled down to my unbound hands holding the escrima in tight fists.
“Why—”
A knife tip erupted from the thing’s thick throat with a gurgle and splash of blood. The sentry dropped his axe and reached to grab his neck. It staggered and turned as if to find his attacker. Seanna clung to his back, desperately trying to pull her dagger free.
The sentry gurgled two more times and tipped over, clutching at his throat like he tried to hold his blood in. Minotaur stepped forward, pushed the Balataur to its stomach with a hoof, and pulled Seanna’s dagger from the back of his neck. He wiped the blade on the thing’s fur while it twitched and handed it back to the Ashling.
I watched Seanna with wide eyes. The blade must have been included in her bag of magical goodies. She had produced it on several occasions, but I had never seen her wield it with such deadly precision. Usually it was just a tool to threaten. It never occurred to me that she had it in her to sneak up behind an enemy and plunge it into their throat.
“We must hurry,” he said. “Sentries check in often. The loss of one will be noticed sooner rather than later.”
We pushed on through the grass. I glanced at the dying Balataur as we passed. Even though I had seen Seanna stand up to deadly creatures on several occasions before she turned on me, she had just shown that she was deadlier than I could have imagined.
23
FLIGHT
We valued speed over stealth for the first hour we ran from the Balataur. We figured trampling a path through the tall grass was worth giving them something to follow if it allowed us to get as far away as possible before our absence was noticed.
After that hour, a distant horn cut through the early morning. It was a low, menacing note that seemed to go on forever as it rolled across the plains toward us. Minotaur, leading the way, stopped and turned to stare in the direction of the camp. The horn blast faded before rising again. He rolled his eyes toward Seanna and nodded his massive head.
Seanna set her jaw and reached into her pouch of wooden trinkets. She pulled one out, but kept it concealed in a tight fist. She held it out to the grass lying flat behind us. Purple magic poured between her fingers, dripping like ink on the ground. The vegetation perked up, lifting itself off the ground and standing tall again.
“The going will be slow from here,” Minotaur growled. “Stealth now rules speed.”
We pushed on, keeping as low as possible and moving slow enough for Seanna to take care of any signs of our passing. All the while, the Balataurs’ horn followed us. As silly as it seemed, the noise felt like it could track us like a drone flying overhead. It was just a horn, though. There was no magic mojo in it…I hoped.
The sun broke the horizon, spreading its light over the plain. It wasn’t welcomed. It felt like a spotlight on us. I stooped a little lower. We ran for about another half hour—my back complaining from hunching to try to stay below the grass. Adrenaline pouring from my pumping heart drowned the sourness out, making it a distant thing. One I knew I’d feel later.
Minotaur pulled up short and rotated his head around. “Trouble,” he grunted.
Seanna and I turned. My heart sunk. In the distance, three dots floated in the sky. Four. Five.
“Come,” Minotaur said, grabbing my coat and pulling me on.
We ran for about fifteen minutes before we found a dip in the ground. The grass there was thicker and taller, trying to not be overshadowed by its fellows on higher ground. Minotaur pushed into the divot and knelt as low as he could. Seanna and I pushed i
n beside him.
I blew out a winded breath and looked up. The newly lit sky stretched bright overhead. “They’ll see us if they fly over,” I said.
Seanna glanced up and waved a hand around us, purple mists hissing from her fingertips. The surrounding grass bent its stalks, forming a dome over us. There were still slits of light cutting through our protection, but it effectively camouflaged us from anything flying above us.
“We can’t just stay here,” I said. I stretched my back as much as I could in the tight confines. “Even if those things don’t spot us, it’s only a matter of time before the army stumbles on us.”
“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Seanna said. “This is the best we have.”
She had a point. If we continued to run it would only be a matter of time before one of those flying dragon machines spotted us in spite of her efforts to cover our tracks. Laying low wasn’t the greatest option, but it was the only one we had.
We settled into more comfortable sitting positions, keeping an eye on the sky through the breaks in the grass dome and an ear out for approaching Balataur. I gripped my escrima at every little sound I imagined. My brain kept screaming at me to run. It expected the beasts to come crashing through the grass at any moment.
Seanna, feeling my tension, put a hand on my fist. I pulled it back reflexively. Her gaze lingered on me before turning to Minotaur.
“What were you doing in the Balataur camp?” she whispered.
“And why are you brown?” I added, thankful for something else to distract me.
Minotaur looked down at his fur, a curl twisting his lips to show his large, square teeth. “I used the root of the koz tree to make a powder that stains fur.”
A rustle from a few yards away brought all three heads around. “Rabbit,” Minotaur said, visibly relaxing.
“Why color your fur?” Seanna insisted. “Why were you in the camp?”
“After our last meeting I went home, my pride swollen from the number of Balataurs I had removed from this world. I expected to celebrate with my brothers.” His floppy ears twitched around like two radars as he spoke. “My homecoming was less than joyous, though. My city had been attacked.”
Seanna turned to the great creature, interested but her face unreadable.
“Oh, no,” I breathed.
“Yes,” he said.
“Who attacked you?”
He waved a furry hand in the general direction of the Balataur camp. My throat constricted. I’d had seen the damage just a few Balataur could do when they attacked Seanna’s tree city looking for me. I couldn’t imagine what they could do as a full army—what Delicia would soon face.
“Isn’t your city in a mountain?” Seanna asked.
“Partially,” he grumbled. “My kind does not breed like rabbits, so our numbers are not as great as those dull, simple bovines.”
I blinked at the insult. It was surprising considering Minotaur had once threatened to rip me apart with his bare hands for calling him a cow. True, he denied any relation to the Balataur, but there had to be some kind of connection. Two nearly identical races didn’t just spring up independently.
“Fortunately, we are a strong and mighty race,” he said. “My brothers used our superior intelligence, fighting skills, and our system of tunnels within the mountain to repel the attack.”
“So…” My voice trailed off, unwilling to put words to the question.
“Loss of life was minimal,” he said, correctly guessing my question. “My brothers were able to keep the women and children safe.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m glad.”
“It could have been worse had they chose to send a larger force. Only a small number from this army attacked,” he said. “We believe they only wished to send a message.”
“What message?” Seanna asked.
“Stay out of their way,” he replied. “We were not their target, only a minor obstacle along the way.”
“Delicia,” I said.
He nodded. “Some of my brothers argued for revenge for this slight, but I arrived and offered a different form of retribution.”
“You were going after Lortmore,” I guessed.
“We do not know how he controls the Balataur, but I argued that we should cut off the head so the entire beast would die. Balataur have many colors, but black is not one of them. Only the Minotaur grow black fur.” He puffed up his chest like he was proud of that fact.
“I travelled for two days with that army,” he went on, “but never got close enough to the man to plunge my axe into his tiny skull.”
“You ruined your mission to save us?” I asked.
He shrugged, muscles twitching under his fur with the movement. “Something draws me to you, Gatekeeper. I felt it the first two times our paths crossed. I feel your importance overshadows my brothers’ recompense.”
“I’m just a guy only here to try to save his friend,” I insisted.
“Hm,” he grunted.
“Shh,” Seanna hissed.
I followed her gaze through the grass. A dragon passed high overhead. Then another.
We pushed ourselves lower to the ground, trying to be as small as possible while the magical creatures circled above us.
***
Time moved with agonizing slowness. There was only so much a heart could take of it. Mine pounded against my ribs for the better part of ten minutes. I thought the metal dragons would move on if they didn’t spot us, but they kept circling.
“Do they see us?” I whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Seanna said. “Not yet. I think they believe we’re in the area, though.”
“We fight,” Minotaur growled, shifting his axe into both hands and disturbing the grass around us.
Seanna laid a restraining hand on his. I bet it would take three of her hands to encompass his wrist.
“Not yet,” she said. “There is still the chance they won’t spot us.”
“If they do not, the Balataurs won’t be far behind,” he argued. “Surely they will find us with their numbers. While I would enjoy removing as many Balataur from this world before they take me down, I wish to fight a few of those cursed creatures instead of an entire army. There is a greater chance of surviving.”
I didn’t point out how minuscule those chances were with either one. I shifted to get a better look into the sky.
“I’d rather to my chances on being able to slip away.” Seanna hefted her pouch. “I still have a few tricks available.”
“I think my time of running has come to an end,” he said.
“Then by all means, stay and fight which ever you like,” she said. “Just don’t bring us into it.”
“Guys,” I said.
“What?” Seanna snapped, trying to keep her voice as low as possible while still projecting her irritation.
“They’re leaving.”
“What?” Her tone changed from irritation to confusion in a hurry. She moved to look where I pointed. “They’re flying back towards the camp.”
“It has to be a trick or something,” I said. “Maybe the Balataur are on the way.”
“I do not hear them,” Minotaur said.
“Or smell them,” Seanna added. “That doesn’t make sense.” She stood, pushing through the dome of grass and gazed at the retreating metal dragons in the sky.
I stood, too, wincing at my aching back. “I don’t see the Balataur. They’re so tall, surely they wouldn’t be able to hide in the grass.”
“I believe I have discovered why they left,” Minotaur said.
“Why?” I asked. Seanna and I turned to look where he pointed. “Oh.”
Thick clouds as black as night rolled like boiling water on the horizon. It loomed like a creature made of pure evil as lightning crashed down to the ground. I could see the light, but the storm was still too far away to make out the thunder. That wouldn’t be true for much longer. The massive storm was coming straight for us.
***
W
e ran. Minotaur’s big, long strides eating up the ground faster than I could have imagined. Seanna’s light, quick steps kept her right behind him, letting the beast’s bulk plow through the grass. Surprisingly I didn’t lag behind.
From the moment we started, we knew trying to outrun the storm was pointless. It was like trying to run through the ocean to get away from a wave. And like an ocean wave, the storm seemed to pull on me. It sucked on the air, yanking it inside itself. It grew bigger feeding on that air.
It moved with frightening speed. It began as a dark blotch on the horizon and in moments was a behemoth bearing down on us.
“We need shelter,” Seanna yelled over a peel of thunder following a lightning flash.
Of course, we did, but where? The plains were almost completely flat and barren. There weren’t even any trees to huddle under and pray. While impressively tall, the grass would provide no protection against the storm
Lightning struck the ground closer to us with more frequency. The booms that followed rattled me to the bone. A curtain of rain rushed toward us. The world around us darkened like twilight settling in about twelve hours too early. Only the occasional slashes of the lightning highlighted the plains.
Cold wind blew at my back. I risked a glance over my shoulder at the storm rising like a skyscraper. It’d be on us in a few minutes. Our only hope was to lie flat and hope we didn’t get struck by lightning.
I turned to yell up to the others only to find the ground pulled out from underneath me. My foot landed with a jarring impact a few inches lower than I was expecting. My knee buckled painfully. I pitched forward and tumbled down to the bottom of a dip. It was similar to the one we had huddled in to hide from the dragons, only deeper and wider.
Seanna turned and came back to where I knelt. “Come on.”
“No,” I said, grabbing her arm to keep her there. “We need to stay here.”
Minotaur appeared in the grass above the dip. “Move.”
I waved him down. “We need to get as low as possible.”
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 72
