Page 19 of The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures #2)

Run

She darted for the trees: she was fast, faster than she had ever been before, and her familiarity with the forest was in her favor, but they were grown men and she was a child. They gained on her. The stocky soldier reached out and grabbed at her flying hair.

She turned on him in desperate rage and swung the sword upward and round.

She could have sliced at his hand but instead she brought it down in a lightning arc and cut ten inches of her plait clean off.

He flinched back, and as he did, there was a high cry from the air, a bird scream of love and fury, and suddenly the sky was full of feathers—black feathers, silver claws, golden beaks—and the soldier turned to swing his sword at the flock of twenty gaganas that surrounded him, summoned by Gallia.

“Go!” cried Gallia. “I will follow!”

Anya saw the soldier fall to his knees and ran on.

Samvel, clad in leather armor, was faster and angrier, gloved and helmeted and swift.

She could hear his footsteps barely three feet behind her.

She would not have made it if the forest hadn’t been on her side.

Anya had lived among its creatures, scented it with her skin and breath.

She cried out, and the forest heard her call.

As Anya ran, a small herd of al-mirajes, golden-horned hares, looked up from their sleep.

The hares were gentle, but their horns were sharp.

With high animal screams, they charged Samvel, horns lowered like spears. He turned to dodge them, pulling his sword. It gave her time.

The trees grew most thickly here: Should she hide?

Run? There was a tree to the left of her, with branches low and welcoming.

She dropped the sword and threw herself upward into it, scrabbling for purchase in the dawn light, cursing her hair as it fell in her face, pulling herself upward and upward, until she was in the very highest top of the canopy.

Down below, the al-mirajes fell back, and Samvel hissed and began to climb after her.

“You’re trapped, Princess. Slow down. We can make a deal.”

She could not go down; she could go no higher; but she could go across.

Each tree spread out branches to the next, each entwined with its neighbor, and Anya threw herself out over the gap between trees and into the next, her arms fastening on the trunk, her breath coming in gasps.

The bark tore at the skin of her palms, but she had no time to wipe away the blood.

She launched again, into the arms of the next tree, and the next; and then there were none close enough, and she swung down the branches, dropped the last eight feet, and ran again.

Samvel, still among the treetops, cursed and made to follow.

She sprinted out of the forest, heading toward the great lake, and beyond it the castle, feet pounding after her. If she could get close enough to scream, if she could summon witnesses, they wouldn’t dare hurt her.

She reached the lake, iced solid at the edges. To her horror, she heard Samvel burst from the trees behind her.

She turned and saw the glint of daybreak on metal as Samvel pulled his sword. Roegan came after him, bleeding from the face, panting with fury. He carried his crossbow.

And then, just as she was sure that it was over: something new. Something was flying in over the lake.

It was tawny yellow, an engine of power and muscle. Anya’s first delirious thought was of a winged storm cloud. But then she saw it clearly.

A sphinx. A sphinx, with wings as wide as a ship’s sail and claws like scythes.

And on her back a boy. His face lit in triumph as he saw her.

The sphinx landed on the snow-thick grass beside the lake and faced her.