Chapter 2

The enemy was closing in, and fast. She tried to count the silhouettes that flitted between the rocks, and gave up when she realized they were outnumbered. By how much, they would find out soon enough.

The bones of ancient mountains crowded them on either side, their shadows receding beneath the rays of the crimson sun. Those ridges had helped to shield her, Azhar, and Cedran from the worst of the storm, but now they’d turned against her, forming the perfect perch from which to mount an ambush.

She couldn’t let their enemies get the drop on her.

She knelt to steady herself and drew the bowstring, nocking an arrow and choosing her quarry. A lithe lizard-like creature sprinted toward them on two legs, bone dagger drawn, screeching a frenzied battle cry.

Silt runners. Like ssurran, but smaller, stupider, and with a taste for elf flesh. She’d fought them before. They were easy enough to kill, but made up for their individual weakness with sheer numbers.

She aimed between its eyes.

It trilled in anticipation in the moments before the arrow found its mark, piercing through the top of its long snout. The silt runner lost its footing, crashing into the dusty ground below, hopefully for good.

Without her needing to speak a word, Azhar bounded over to the fallen silt runner, tongue dangling from between his wicked-sharp fangs, as he closed in for the kill.

The remaining enemies prepared to attack, drawing blowguns no doubt tipped with poison.

Erenil didn’t waste a breath as she dashed toward the boulder that could provide cover from the imminent volley. She counted five enemies now that they’d downed one. Still not great odds, but better than before.

Cedran would have to prove whether he could back up his claim with action.

The stout, bald dwarf let out a shout, "Come and get some, you scaly pieces of shit!" He brandished his knives, the sun glinting off the sharpened obsidian edges. He ran toward them with a threatening roar.

The silt runners ignored him, too intent on their elven prey, or too daft to understand his words. They raised their blowguns to what amounted to their lips, the hollowed-out bones cleverly designed to fit their reptilian snouts.

Their darts reached Erenil before she could reach the boulder. A handful buried themselves in the fur of her kirre cloak, but one caught her at the perfect angle, piercing the thin leather armor. There was a delay between the moment of impact and the burning sting that followed.

Erenil gritted her teeth but couldn’t let the pain slow her. Without cover, she’d soon be as spikey as a prickly pear.

She slid into position behind the sand-scoured stone and drew another arrow from her quiver, drawing a sharp breath.

Azhar finished tearing out the silt runner’s throat, his maw dark and wet with blood. His eagerness to join the hunt surged through their psychic bond, and his howl rang in Erenil’s mind as well as her ears. She had no doubt he was a terrifying sight, and for a moment she wondered whether Cedran would lose his nerve fighting alongside a barely leashed maneater.

For now, he seemed to be keeping his cool. Close enough to throw a dagger, he lifted the black blade above and behind his head, flicking it with terrifying speed and a grunt of exertion.

The dagger sailed through the air to plunge deep into the leader’s chest. Unbeliving, the silt runner looked down at the weapon. In what would prove his undoing, he pulled out the blade, and his lifeblood flowed out after it. In mere seconds, his knees quavered, and he fell to the bloody ground with a thud.

So you can fight, Erenil thought. Then we might just make it out of here alive.

The silt runners barely seemed to register the dramatic loss of their leader, but their instincts told them that Cedran was the more imminent threat, and they diverted their attention from Erenil to eliminate him.

Another round of blowgun darts shot forth, and a ruddy stone careened out of the slingshot. Though the dwarf wore no armor, none of the darts hit their target. The stone pelted him in the face, though, leaving a red welt and breaking skin.

Erenil held her breath to line up her next shot, seeking a weak point between their scales. She loosed her arrow. It flew toward one of the silt runners, but missed as it dropped its blowgun in favor of a bone dagger. Instead, the arrow sprouted from the leg of the unlucky silt runner standing behind her original target.

The creature was still standing, but not for long if luck was on her side.

She lost sight of Azhar as he stalked between the red rocks of the narrow basin, but Cedran was still shouting a string of insults, drawing his second dagger to attempt a repeat of his first throw. This time, the dagger sped toward the injured silt runner, burying itself deep in the vulnerable flesh between the creature’s neck and shoulder.

With another of them near death, she hoped the remainder of the foolish creatures weren’t too brainless to flee.

They seemed to hesitate. She used their pause to pull the bone dart out of her side, appraising the greenish residue that coated its shaft. She lifted it to her nose and, smelling it, sighed in relief. The weak toxin was familiar to her, and her clan’s healers had exposed her to it enough times to make her immune to small doses.

Azhar lunged out from behind a battered and half-buried caravan crate, and the silt runners finally turned tail. They fled whence they came—to the north, Erenil noted by the position of the sun.

That was good. She and Cedran would be making their way south and west, picking up the road again after they’d put some distance between them and any possible pursuers, should the silt runners meet up with others from their band.

Azhar, to me, she commanded, and emerged from her hiding spot to walk toward Cedran. He was recovering his daggers from both targets, wiping the blood off the obsidian.

"You’ve proven yourself," she acknowledged. "I would be glad to have your blades at my side, and not at my back."

"I’m glad I could be of some meager assistance," he said wryly. "Now, I presume we’re not going to be able to rest in the shade until well after noon?"

"You’d be right. We have to get moving. Make sure you have everything you need, and nothing more."

"Very well." He pulled his heavy pack around his shoulders. "Lead on."