Page 209 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sam

S omething is wrong. It’s obvious from the furtive way the raskarrans dart glances at the trees.

Oh, and because three of them have gone off into the forest and not returned.

I hear Walset’s name thrown round a lot - first in the argument between Mean Face and the leader of the group, then in whispers passed between the rest of them as they run. Are Walset and his brothers chasing after them? Picking them off one by one?

It doesn’t make much sense. Walset has numbers on his side. He could probably surround the group and beat them into submission. Unless they were hurt during the initial fight, too many of them too injured to risk another full on battle.

I don’t know. There are too many possibilities, and none of it is something I can control.

I watch the trees. From my place in Jestaw’s arms, I get a good view all around me, so I search for signs of movement, of someone following.

Every so often, I fancy I see the shadow of something large moving through the canopy, but the sun is beginning its slow descent across the sky, and the shadows are already grown long and confusing.

It could be anything I’m seeing, or nothing at all.

A muffled cry comes from behind us. The raskarrans all slow, turning to look. I can’t quite see through the crush of bodies, but I think I glimpse a raskarran face down on the ground, an arrow sticking out of the back of his neck.

The little group of hunters that sit with Mean Face immediately cluster, drawing their bows and aiming outwards, each one guarding the backs of the others. The rest are less coordinated. Some of them draw knives and bows. Others start staggering backwards, eyes on the canopy overhead.

Mean Face barks something, but it’s too late.

Panic has set in, and five or so of the raskarrans peel away from the main group and run.

A flurry of words passes between Mean Face and the leader, and then we are moving again, running with abandon through the trees.

I jostle in Jestaw’s arms as we flee, my head bouncing around so much it makes my eyes water, my temple throbbing painfully again.

I close my eyes against it, and, impossibly, I must fall asleep. The next thing I know it’s dark and I’ve been set down on the floor again, the group huddled close together above me, talking in sharp whispers.

I count the sets of feet. There are only nine of them now, their number almost halved. I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face.

I smother it quickly, though. Better for me if I appear sweet and pliable to them. Frightened and not very clever. People have a way of overlooking you if they think you haven’t got much going on upstairs. I played my share of matrons this way, my share of supervisors, too.

Whatever the raskarrans are talking about, a decision is obviously made, and they shoulder their packs once more.

I’m hauled to my feet, the vines around my feet cut, and made to walk at the centre of them, their big bodies surrounding me.

We walk and walk and walk, the moons dancing across the sky overhead, before slipping beneath the canopies, the sun rising again in their place.

I’m exhausted. My feet hurt and my head hurts, but if I falter, if I slow even a little, Mean Face is there with a stick to whip at the backs of my legs. I get the message and keep moving. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.

One problem at a time.

Some time in the morning, the rain starts.

Not the usual sharp, explosive showers I’m used to getting caught out in.

This rain starts every bit as suddenly, but it doesn’t stop.

Just keeps coming and coming. It doesn’t take long before I’m soaked through, and though the rain isn’t cold in the same way it used to get back home, it still saps the little warmth I have out of me, leaving me shivering.

The raskarrans are clearly unhappy as well, grumbling up at the clouds as if they could persuade the rain to stop. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t even slow. Not in all the hours we walk. The big rains have arrived.

No one else is picked off after the rains start.

Whoever is coming after us, they must not have the numbers to take on the group as long as they stick together.

Which is a problem, because they don’t show any signs of breaking apart.

The fear that made them scatter earlier holds them tight and close now.

But maybe there’s something I can do about that.

I stagger my steps a little, faltering more, swaying like I’m exhausted. It’s really not a stretch. I’m just letting my body do what it wants to do, what it would naturally be doing if I let go of the tight mental control I’ve held over myself to force me to keep going.

I go limp, floppy. And then, when I happen to move between Jestaw and the raskarran next to him, I drop to the floor.

I land with a thud that echoes in every place in me that already hurts, my body sinking into the floor.

It’s already muddy, the water flowing over the surface in tiny little rivers.

The cold, already pretty intense, envelops my whole body until my teeth chatter, but I hold still, as if I’m passed out.

Jestaw notices and staggers over me, careful not to step on me. The other raskarran, less observant, trips on my leg and goes sprawling into the dirt himself. I bite my tongue to stop myself from crying out at the sharp pain that goes through my leg and keep myself limp, unmoving.

Jestaw drops down to check on me, but Mean Face barks something. The raskarran who tripped on my leg scrambles upright, his rapid motion propelling him backwards away from the group. I hear a whistle, a thunk, and then he’s dropping again, an arrow sticking out of his chest.

An uproar sounds, and I’m in danger of being trampled by all the raskarrans moving around me. Then a hand grips the back of my nightgown, dragging me upwards. At first, I think it’s Jestaw looking out for me, but then I’m hauled against a very different body, a hand closing around my neck.

Mean Face shouts something, pressing a blade to my neck.

Immediately, silence falls. The startled group recover themselves and huddle close.

I spot that the leader guy has an arrow in his arm, another bleeds bright red through his top.

They all look frazzled and frightened. Except Mean Face, who presses his face close to mine as he calls something out to the trees.

Using me as a shield, dissuading whoever is following from attacking again.

But one more of them is dead. One more problem solved.

Jestaw carries me again as the group breaks into another run.

The heat of his chest doesn’t bleed into me quite as much with the constant rainfall, and cradled in his arms as I am, the water collects on me in little pools.

It’s miserable, and I’m not the only one who’s suffering.

All the remaining raskarrans wear matching grumpy expressions - part fear, part discomfort.

But they keep moving, keep running. And when nightfall comes, they don’t stop.

I must sleep a little, the time passing in strange leaps I can measure only by the changing quality of the light. But I don’t dream. Haven’t dreamed once since the night Maldek woke me to the attack taking place.

It must be the cold, I think, or the way my sleep is disturbed all the time by Jestaw’s jostling. I hate it, because there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing I can change to make the dreamspace form.

My thoughts wander to Dazzik. I’m certain now that these raskarrans can’t be his tribe.

I never hear his name spoken when they talk, something I’m sure they would do if Dazzik were their chief.

So my gorgeous mate is out there under the trees thinking I’ve moved out of dreaming range before we could finish our conversation.

Before I could tell him where to find me.

By the next sunrise, the cold has seeped into my bones. Every part of me aches, and when Mean Face insists I walk again, I’m staggering and swaying from the get go.

Worse, I can feel my chest starting to grow tight, my breath beginning to rattle.

It’s a feeling that frightens me almost more than the raskarrans around me, and I try to massage some heat into my skin around my chest and neck, try to keep my breathing slow and even.

But Mean Face has set a fast pace. I’m breathing hard, each breath crackling a little more, like something is filling up my lungs from the inside.

By nightfall, I’m coughing. Jestaw scoops me into his arms again when it becomes clear that I’m not able to take more than a few steps before needing to cough and splutter for air again. I shiver in his arms, his warmth not even touching the chill I’m feeling now.

By morning, my lips are dry, despite the constant rainfall.

I suck in what drips I can as they run down my face, but it doesn’t touch the dryness in the back of my throat, nor soothe the ache that all my coughing has created.

I barely even notice my head anymore, all these other louder hurts drowning out that persistent throbbing that has been my companion for the last few days.

Worse, I start to dream again.

I missed it before, when I thought my dreams would be of Dazzik, but now it’s memories I slip back into. Memories of Dad and the rumbling cough he just couldn’t shift.

“It’s nothing, kiddo,” he said to me when I worried over it, smoothing his hand over my shiny scalp.

His own head was shaved bare, too. He worked in the butchers, taking the great carcasses that came out of the slaughterhouse and turning them into cuts of meat for the unit I ended up working for to cook.

He had big, strong arms from swinging a meat cleaver around all day, hacking through flesh and gristle and bone.

I used to think he was the strongest man in the universe, that there wasn’t anything that could bring him down.