Page 40 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Mal

“ T his is the worst,” Surge whined.

I rolled my eyes. “I know you don’t like being carried, but it’s the fastest way through here right now.”

The suns were up and climbing, and so were we. The forest was thicker around the steep base of the mountain, and I was carrying Surge on my back, so with any luck, this would be the most arduous part of my day.

“And at least you don’t have to carry someone,” I teased him.

He huffed in annoyance and adjusted his arms around my shoulders. “I know, I know. I’ve always been the slowest. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but it still irks me.”

I trudged through the brush, my long-legged stride eating up the distance. “When this is all over, we’ll find a planet of ants you can live on so you can be a giant.”

He laughed, trying to stay quiet about it and failing. “Keep that up and you’re going to get us killed.”

“Carrying you is the quickest way, and you know it,” I said. “I don’t want your stumpy legs to be the reason your plan fails.”

He made an indignant sound. “ You’re the one who insisted we take three minutes to help Thyme, and that put us behind.”

I ducked beneath low-hanging branches, making sure they didn’t whack Surge in the process. “And for now, anyway, I’d do it again.”

“Thank the gods it was just some random guard who sewed his lips shut,” Surge said as we approached the hunting ground through the forest.

I silently agreed. “We would have been screwed, had it been the palace magician’s needlework. Do you think you could have broken his spell?”

“Eventually. But it would have taken time we don’t have.” He exhaled, the sound heavy with guilt. “I felt bad about leaving Thyme behind, though. He knew we couldn’t take him. But still…gods only know what they’ll do to him now.”

“They won’t punish him for breaking the threads.

You were smart. You healed the internal damage, not the external wounds.

” I tromped through a muddy puddle in the utility boots I’d changed into.

“To anyone who looks at him, it will seem like he ripped the threads out himself. They won’t check inside his mouth for magician’s work.

He’ll be as fine as he can be, given where he is.

Hell, at least Thyme has a waste bucket. Lucky bastard.”

Surge chuckled again, this time keeping the sound low. “Strange, the things we find ourselves jealous of, eh?”

I struggled to keep my own laugh quiet. “Circumstances are everything.”

A shrill siren split the air ahead of our position, and I froze. I knew what it meant. The hunters had entered the hunting ground.

I swore beneath my breath. “That can’t be right…Justice said she had a twelve-hour head start. If they were fighting over who was to be her handler before you came and got me, that’s not twelve hours—”

“They went with the head start time Justice wanted,” Surge said, cutting me off, his tone furious at the realization. “Not the one you negotiated. It’s only been six hours since she started on the hunting ground. Not twelve. She should have had until the afternoon. Those cheating fucks!” he hissed.

My own rage filled my chest, and I didn’t speak anymore.

I ran toward the hunting ground, still balancing Surge on my back.

Our journey would take a sharp hook to the left shortly, or we would end up at the start of the mountain path in sight of anyone there.

If we turned too early, though, we would be met by a cliff that ran along the backside of the mountain.

In my silence, an unfamiliar voice came from where the siren had sounded. “…as handler, I must sound the siren for the avatar when the hunters enter the hunting ground, Ruler.”

I stepped through the veil of trees, just far enough to see everyone gathered there. The hunters held staffs and leather satchels, while a thin man pursed his lips and glared up at the ruler of Orhon.

“I told you not to sound the alarm, and yet you did it anyway,” Justice said to him. “I am not accustomed to such blatant disregard for my orders, Resaber. I won’t forget this, come next year’s Illiapol. Your daughter has the year to prepare herself.”

The older man gasped. “Sire, please—”

Justice looked down his nose at Resaber.

“Normally, I enjoy a good grovel. But I have places to be. When I catch your daughter next year, I won’t kill her on the hunting ground.

I’ll make sure to do it where you can watch.

” He laughed cruelly at the man’s horrified expression, then turned to the council.

“Come on, boys. We have a human to eviscerate.”

My entire body tensed, ready to leap out into the open and strike.

Surge, sensing my barely contained fury, whispered, “You cannot kill them now. You will seal our fates, if you do.”

I restrained myself and nodded once.

Justice chuckled, as if he hadn’t just threatened another man’s child. “Maybe she’ll try and bribe us with her body first, like the blue-haired girl from Yesanol. Remember that girl? What was it, eight years ago now?”

“Nine, I think,” Craven said. “I didn’t blame her for the attempt. She was awfully skilled in the art of pleasure. I imagine she thought we’d give her a pass after we had our turns with her.”

“Can’t believe you even remember that.” Justice scoffed. “Has sex been so rare for you over the years, that the memory of her sticks out?”

A lewd smile curved Craven’s lips. “Hard to forget a girl flexible enough to bite her own tail when she climaxed.”

The ruler sniggered. “Moons above, you let her climax with you, when she was the one trying to earn our favor? Don’t you know how anything works?”

“What can I say? Women find their pleasure with me,” Craven drawled as they started up the mountain. “Not my fault they don’t find it with you.”

Justice thumped his shoulder with mock offense. “Dick.”

Craven laughed, and the others joined in, laughing and bragging about fucking and eating desperate girls as though it was the funniest thing in the world.

My entire being vibrated with the need for violence. I hated them. Every last one.

Surge leaned in and whispered, “You’re doing good, Mal. Just stay focused on the goal.”

“You don’t need to remind me, Surge. I know we’re not here to kill them.” As much as I wanted to. “Not unless we have to.”

We stayed around a hundred meters from the path to keep them from hearing or noticing us.

The lemon oaks near the base of the mountain gave way to the blue cedar and olden pine as we climbed up.

Closer to the top, there were shimmer woods and beast needles, but the path ended before we would ever see those trees.

Bruneal bush thorns tried to scrape my legs and would have had Surge not given me a Melac bodysuit like his.

“Have I thanked you for the bodysuit enough?” I said to him gratefully.

He chuckled. “Melacs make a good suit. A shame about their planet, though.”

“Which part?” I mused as we kept our distance. “The part where it was overrun by barbed vines or the part where they ran out of water because of those vines?”

“I can still remember when my family vacationed there when I was a boy,” he sighed, but then his wistful tone became a grumble. “Back when my family still had money.”

“You’re doing everything you can to earn more for them, Surge,” I said sympathetically. “Hell, at this point, we all are.”

“You really think Jenny is going to win this, don’t you?”

I couldn’t think any other way. “If we have anything to say about it, yes. And because her odds are so terrible, when we all win our bets, you will have enough money to put the Footwick cousins back into your ancestral home.”

He nudged my ribs with his heels. “Then hurry up.”

I laughed, even as I quickened my pace.

The hunters swaggered up the path, each of them acting as though they had all the time in the world to hunt Jenny.

We were ahead of them in the forest, despite the physical disadvantage of me carrying Surge, but I could still see their movements through the trees.

They had not even bothered to dress to disguise themselves in the forest—they wore purple huntsman clothes—nor had they tried to prevent their voices from carrying.

They spoke as loudly as they normally did, which made it much simpler to know where they were.

They assume this is a massacre. Not a hunt.

We were fifty meters ahead of them, when Surge squeezed my shoulder and pointed at the path. “Longshot has been here.”

There on the path, trees had been felled.

They had resided next to a rocky outcrop, so the choice would be to go left of the outcrop or to the right of the fallen trees.

Left would bring them closer to us in the forest, or right would bring them closer to the path’s continuance.

Left was the rougher path, and right was the easier path.

Whoever had felled the trees wanted them to choose between the hard path or the easy path, and either one could be a trap.

Definitely Longshot’s work.

Fearing they would choose left, I grunted, “We better hurry.”

I dashed up the incline, legs burning, lungs tightening. We spent all this time training Jenny—I should have been training myself, too. Once we were far ahead of the left choice, I wedged us between a thick cluster of trees to watch which way they chose.

Justice laughed at the obvious nature of the blockade. “Think this was the handler or the human?”

“Could have been natural,” Pleon offered, crouching beside the trees. “Look at the bases of the trunks. Looks like bugs ate them.”

“Or, that’s what someone wants you to think.”

Craven scoffed. “I don’t think our little avatar is capable of such a thing.”

“The handler, then,” Justice said, examining his fingernails with dramatic boredom. “I shall have him beaten.”

“He’s just trying to make things interesting,” Craven said with a shrug. “Why beat him for keeping us on our toes?”

“I suppose you’re right.” Justice tilted his head at the group. “Well, hunters. Left or right?”

“Left, obviously,” Boxer said haughtily. “They want us to go right.”

“After you,” Justice said, sweeping an arm in a grand gesture.

Boxer strutted past them and threw a smug look at the others before going left and coming closer to us. Three meters into the forest, he fell through something and screamed as he dropped out of sight. Birds erupted into the sky overhead, startled by the sound.

Two more hunters behind him stumbled, nearly falling in after him, but managed to catch themselves. Craven and Justice peered into the pit, and Justice laughed at what he saw.

Between agonizing howls, Justice shouted down to him, “Those spikes don’t look too comfortable, Boxer.”

“Help!” Boxer cried.

“Your leg shouldn’t bend that way, either.”

“Help me, please!” He begged.

“Arrow, help him,” Justice said.

Arrow Eranu was a quiet member of the council, with a reputation for his achievements in the army during the war. What he lacked in dialogue he made up for in sheer ruthlessness. He bent at the pit and flung his staff down with deadly precision. There were no more screams from Boxer after that.

Justice glanced once more into the gaping hole.

“It seems our avatar is more clever than I had imagined. Since she carved those sticks into spikes and had enough time to dig this shallow pit, we cannot assume she is as ignorant or unskilled as we believed. So, we will split up. We don’t want all of us falling into one of her traps.

Craven and Arrow, you’re with me, we’re going right.

Pleon, Coil, and Lawson, you take left.”

Of course he paired Pleon with Coil and Lawson. He doesn’t like any of them. No one else does, either.

Pleon whined, “But what if there are more traps that way?”

“Then you will find a new life on Halla,” Justice said sharply.

The hunters split up, and with the subpar squad starting in our direction, I ran as hard and quietly as I could, but was not as worried as I would have been had Justice’s group been heading our way.

Surge whispered, “We need to split up, too.”

“What? Why?”

“If we’re going to thwart both groups, then we can’t be together, right?”

“Surge, you can’t go off on your own out here.” I had to slow down to be able to breathe gently enough to whisper. “There are all kinds of beasts out here, literal and political.”

“I can handle myself, Mal,” Surge insisted. “This is the only way we can protect Jenny. Especially since these cowardly shits cheated. She has no idea they started the trial early.”

I hated that he was right. “And what if Pleon and his crew catch you? What will you do?”

He chuckled darkly. “I’ll kill them. After I have some fun, of course.”

I was reluctant to let him go off on his own. “I admire your confidence, Surge, but—”

“Let me off your back, Mal,” he insisted. “You’ll move faster without me anyway.”

We were far enough ahead of both groups to make the switch safely. Still, I hesitated. I knelt down to let him slide off, careful not to jostle him. Then, I pointed at him and warned, “If you die on me, I’m coming to Halla to kick your ghost ass.”

He grinned. “Same here. Keep in mind the only weapons they have are staffs and leather bags, so you can’t use anything else but sticks and whatever is out here on the mountain to kill them, if it comes to that. It has to look like Jenny did it.”

I nodded in understanding. “I know. You too. No deaths by magic.”

Surge saluted me, then turned toward the trees.

I resumed my sprint to find Jenny, and as I ran, I prayed, something I hadn’t done since I was a young boy.

Gods, let me see him again. Let me see all of them again.