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CHAPTER 14

Sped by Thea's Sovereign spell, Lira finally understood how Shari felt when she let loose and ran.

It took her a few minutes to adjust. Every step took her the distance of three, and they were fast. More than a few times, she miscalculated where the next step would take her and tripped, but with every mistake, her muscles learned. They adapted to the speed, and it wasn't long before Lira was flying through the Wilds beside Shari, golden mist trailing in their wake.

Arin flew overhead, well above the canopy. Though Lira couldn't see him, she knew he could see her. He kept watch over Thea and Anya who trailed behind, occasionally swooping down through the tree branches to give Lira an update on Arden's direction.

They left the Wild lands behind quickly. The dream-like colours of purples and blues gave way to dull browns and lush greens, the calls of birds and sounds of smaller animals scurrying away becoming more frequent. With less plants clogging up the undergrowth, Lira began to see signs of a larger group passing by. Partial footprints in the mud. Broken branches, vines that had been sliced clean through, and finally, blood.

Lira stopped by a stone that jutted out of the ground to touch a larger spatter of blood. It was yet to completely dry, partially coming away on her fingertip. There wasn't much, but there was enough to show a struggle. Enough to mark that there'd been a fight--that maybe Arden or the others had tried to escape.

"Arin!" she called, just loud enough that she knew the spirit hawk would hear. He descended through the canopy, fluttering to land on her spirit arm. "Scout forward, see if you can spot the group. We're close. I need to know how far until the tunnels."

He screeched and took off, vanishing through the trees once more.

As Lira was about to take off, a shout echoed from somewhere behind her--Thea's voice screaming one word that was barely loud enough to carry through the forest.

"Lira!"

Lira looked to Shari, jerked her head to the side to tell her bond partner to go around, and took off back towards Thea's voice.

It took her maybe a minute to find them. Three poachers, no doubt scouts who'd been hanging behind, anticipating potential backup intending to rescue Arden. Thea hadn't frozen--she'd shielded both herself and Anya in a tight shield of blue spirit energy. The poachers hacked away at it with their knives, but instead of shattering, her shield shrank with every hit.

A few more hits, and the shield was going to crush them.

Lira whistled, giving the poachers just enough time to look up and see her fire the arrow at the one standing to the side of Thea's shield.

He dropped with an arrow in his throat. Lira drew another arrow and held it, aiming straight at the two remaining poachers. She couldn't risk firing. If she missed, she'd hit the shield and leave the two girls open to being hostages.

"Demon," muttered one of them, adjusting his grip on the knife in his hand.

"Guilty," said Lira, a feral smile lifting her lips. "Which one of you wants to die first?"

The poachers glanced behind them. They knew why she was hesitating. "You hit the shield, and we'll make sure we kill your little friends over here before we die."

Lira lowered her arrow. "Well, I guess you've bested me."

They frowned, knives still up, their attention still focused on her position--completely oblivious to the silent stalker that was emerging from the bushes beside them.

"Too bad for you though," Lira continued. She let her gaze slide to the left, just enough for them to notice. "I don't work alone."

They realised their mistake too late, turning towards where she'd looked, right as Shari pounced from behind.

Shari slammed into their backs, and from then, it was over quickly. She took care of the first one quickly, swatting a paw the same size as his head across his temple to snap his neck. The other one screamed as Shari's claws sank into his neck, rolled him over, and silenced him the same way as the first.

Lira stepped closer, retrieving her arrow from the first one. "Unusually clean for you, Shari."

Shari rumbled and glanced at Thea, who was clinging to her staff, her eyes shut and the shield still in place. Anya was crouched beneath her, knife drawn, Ryn still clutched to her chest.

Lira placed a hand on the shield. "You can let go now, Thea."

The spirit mage lifted her eyes to the canopy above, deliberately avoiding looking at the bodies on the ground as she released the shield. Anya kept her knife out, her eyes glued to the poachers, almost like she was hoping for them to move so she could strike.

"Put it away before you hurt yourself," said Lira, giving the knife a brief glance. Anya pouted and lowered the knife, but refused to sheathe it. "You'll just slice your own fingers off holding it like that. Let's move."

"At least I did something," muttered Anya, shooting Thea a dirty look as they started running.

"She saved your life," said Lira, keeping pace with the girls. They were still moving faster than typically possible, boosted by the Sovereign spell, but the golden flecks at her feet weren't as vibrant as they'd been earlier. "She did exactly as she was told."

"She also could have just blasted them--"

"You have any idea how spirit magic works, kid?" said Lira, cutting her off. "Because she just maintained a shield while also still channeling a Sovereign spell. Not many mages who can do that."

"Even more reason she should have just killed them. If it were me--"

"I literally don't care about whatever snarky comment you're about to make," said Lira as above, Arin appeared.

She stopped, letting Arin settle on her arm. Through his eyes, she saw the forest ahead, the group of ten poachers that were moving far quicker than before towards the spirit tunnels. There'd been seventeen in the main group before, she'd just killed three--some were still missing. Arin responded to her question by showing her another, slightly later memory of at least five poachers backtracking and setting up an ambush.

She'd been right about there being scouts away from the main group--fourteen and five was way more than seventeen. Arin's vision was fantastic, but even he wasn't infallible. It was far too likely they'd run into an ambush, especially at high speed.

"It's like they know where we are," said Lira, clicking her tongue. "Where is the spirit tunnel?" Arin zoomed out, showing her the mental top-down map. Lira bit down on her lip. "Thea, if we needed to cross another ravine, if slightly wider, would you be able to make a platform for us to cross like the last one?"

"I think so," said Thea.

"Fantastic," said Lira, blinking out of Arin's memories. "Then we're taking a detour and getting ahead of them."

*+*+*+*

"I thought you said it was slightly wider," hissed Thea, crouched down in a bush beside Lira, staring at the ravine that was at least three times the width of the other one and a whole lot deeper.

"It's hard to gauge distance from a hawk's perspective," said Lira. "Can you do it or not?"

Thea pressed her lips together. "I can try."

"You know what spirit tunnels look like?" Thea nodded. "Good. When we get across, I want you and Anya to follow Arin to the entrance. If any of the poachers try to take Arden or the others through, you block the entrance with a shield. Buy me time."

Thea took a deep breath and nodded.

Lira nudged Anya with the end of her bow. "Are you paying attention?"

"What, that you want me to sit there with her and hope I don't die?" said Anya. "Sure. Got it."

Lira rolled her eyes. "Sorry for wanting to keep you and your dying spirit out of immediate danger. Maybe I'll die and you'll have your chance to stab them all instead."

"I don't--"

"We're wasting time," said Lira, giving the other side of the ravine one last scan and finding it clear. She gestured to Thea. "Thea, platform. I'll go first."

Thea stood up, staff clutched between both hands. She walked to the edge slowly, testing the ground and stopping half a metre from the edge when flecks of stone began to scatter over the edge.

"Sovereign, help me," murmured Thea, pressing her forehead to the jewel in her staff.

Lira half expected the golden light of a Sovereign spell, but instead, Thea just reached out, holding her staff over the ravine. Regular, blue spirit energy flooded out from her staff, creating the same, shimmering, solid blue platform of her other shields. It hadn't been a spell, just a request.

Thea stayed at the edge of the ravine. Shari went first. The last of the Sovereign's speed blessing was still with them, but Shari was fast in her own right, crossing the bridge in the span of a second or two and dashing into the trees on the other side.

Lira went next. Despite the overhanging trees, she still felt far too exposed. The bridge was narrow, maybe a little over half a metre wide at best. The bottom of the ravine lurked below her, nothing but a thin stream of water and a whole lot of rocks.

She was two-thirds of the way across when an arrow whizzed past her face.

Lira dove, throwing herself forward into an awkward roll that got her the rest of the way across the bridge and onto the rock on the other side. She righted herself and nocked an arrow as soon as she was on her feet, but there was no need. The archer who'd fired at her was tumbling into the ravine with a terrified scream that echoed off the rocky walls, courtesy of Shari who stood at the edge, watching him fall.

When his body broke on the rocks below and silenced his screams, Lira caught wind of something else. Voices, coming from the same direction she knew the group would be in.

At least she knew that they'd managed to beat them to the spirit tunnels, even if their element of surprise had died with the archer in the ravine.

"Move!" yelled Lira, motioning for Anya and Thea to follow. The girls ran across, shooting nervous glances in the direction of the archer. Once they were across, Lira motioned for Arin to go with them. "Take them to the tunnels. Screech like the cursed isles themselves are breaking open if someone is trying to get through Thea's shields. I'll get your idiot of a spirit hunter out as alive as I can."

Arin screeched and took off, looping around the two girls a few times before taking off.

Shari bounded over to where Lira stood, having taken a small amount of cover beside a leafy bush. Alone for the first time in two days, Lira pressed her head to her bond mate's forehead and ran her fingers along the underside of Shari's jaw.

"Okay, Shari," murmured Lira. "There's at least ten of them around, so we'll have to take out a few from close quarters. We don't want them to use the others as hostages. I'm thinking we spook them, you lure them somewhere over there, I take out anyone who stays behind and try to get Arden's behind out of there before they realise." She looked up at Shari. "Sound good?"

Shari rumbled her approval and bared her teeth.

Lira replied with a grin of her own. "Let's go."

Though she couldn't yet see them, the voices of the poachers echoed through the forest. They didn't seem to care about any kind of stealth, though she didn't doubt for a second that it was the main group making noise, trying to cover for the silent scouts that likely lurked nearby.

Lira hauled herself into one of the trees with plenty of cover and settled down, bow lightly laid against her knee to minimise any future movement, arrow nocked but not yet drawn with her finger against the spike on her bow.

She waited.

The first poacher, a scout, passed right beneath her branch, silent as she'd expected. She let him pass. A minute or so later, the main group came into sight. Almost instinctively, Lira tried to sink deeper into her cloak, but that was on Anya's back. Her leathers blended into the tree fine, but the weight on her shoulders had always helped to settle her.

Ready to move in a heartbeat if any of them spotted her, Lira remained perfectly still, barely breathing when the group of twelve poachers passed maybe five metres from the base of her tree.

Arden was at the centre of the group, blindfolded and bound to the other three in his party with what looked like spiritsteel cord. All four of them were bleeding, though only Arden was staggering, awkwardly helped along by the map-guy behind him. A rough, leaking bandage was wrapped around Arden's thigh. Probably couldn't run, but at least the idiot was alive.

Lira moved her attention to the poachers, shifting nothing but her eyes.

She tried to pick out the leader first. Mercenaries broke quickly when their head was severed. Though a stout, burly man seemed to lead the group, it was the woman beside him that he deferred to for an opinion. The woman's cloak hid everything except her long, red hair that swept like fire out of her cowl. Lira couldn't pick the leader between them.

The rest of the poachers weren't anything special. They were close enough that she could hear them, mark their faces, see their weapons. A few had bows, the majority had swords or daggers. One unfortunate soul pulled the cart filled with spiritsteel traps that, despite the uneven ground, moved smoothly enough that Lira wasn't surprised to see the ruby glow of a blood seal on the front. Arden's group's weapons were haphazardly stuffed down the sides of the cart.

"There's no way the demon spirit gets to us before we reach the tunnel," the burly man said to the woman beside him, hand on the hilt of his sword. "She likely took down the scout from the other side of the ravine."

"If this demon spirit of yours does attack, I'll deal with her," replied the woman. "Preferably, we capture her alive. I'm intrigued as to what has you all terrified. She could be useful."

From her place in the tree, Lira pressed her thumb into the spike jutting out from her bow, long enough to draw a bead of blood. Slowly, she swiped her thumb across the head of her arrow, activating the blood seal on one side, then spun the arrow to activate a second seal on the other side.

When the majority of the poachers had passed by her, Lira slowly lifted her bow, drew her arrow, and fired.

The arrow was silent as it zipped through the air and struck the base of a larger tree, some fifty metres on the opposite side of the poachers to where she stood. Thick, dark mist began to erupt from the arrow as the first blood seal activated, quickly creating a space where sunlight struggled to breach. Thunder rumbled from within, accompanied by infrequent flashes of blue-ish lightning.

A few of the poachers noticed quickly, pointing and shouting even before Shari's low, dangerous growl echoed through the darkening forest.

Then her second blood seal activated.

A humanoid silhouette appeared through the mist. It strode right to the edge before it stopped, perfectly positioned where its outline was visible, but its features remained obscured. The figure was dark, a void in the mist with the exception of an arm that gleamed with white-blue spirit energy, and the dark red eyes that pierced through the forest, drilling straight into the centre of your soul.

"She found us," muttered one of the poachers, nervously drawing his knife. "The damned demon spirit found us. I told you she was hunting us--I told you--"

Shari emerged from the mist, more like a ghost than any kind of spirit, bared her fangs, and roared.

Shari's challenge broke the tension and shoved the poachers out of their daze and into action. Some looked like they wanted to run, but a roar from their leader cut that decision short.

The burly man drew his sword and pointed it towards the mist. "Capture the spirits! I want their damn heads in a spirit spike trap before the day is over!"

The woman beside him was the first one to move, breaking into an elegant run, which was all the others needed to find their courage and charge. Shari snarled again and darted deeper into the mist, and a few seconds later, the silhouette followed her, vanishing into the mist with a dry, empty echo of a laugh.

Lira took half a second to assess the poachers they'd left behind: two to guard their prisoners and the man in charge of the cart, then dropped down out of the tree.

With their attention fixated on the mist, it was far too easy for Lira to draw her hunting knife and get behind them. She covered the first guard's mouth and slashed her knife across his throat, dropping him a few seconds later and throwing his body aside. The second guard turned just in time to see her take her final step and drive her knife into his chest, shoving it through the ribs and up into his heart with one clean strike.

"What's going on?" muttered the map-guy.

"Shut up and stay down," said the spirit mage. "Hope that whatever it is leaves us alone."

The man on the cart stared at her in horror, desperately trying to nock an arrow. She was faster, and he went down with her arrow in his neck, his own half-drawn arrow falling to the forest floor.

Lira slung her bow over her back with half a thought and turned back to Arden's group. Blindfolded and awkwardly hobbled together, they hadn't been able to run. Instead, they'd crouched low, the four of them turning their backs inward in some kind of attempted defensive circle.

Lira grabbed Arden's blindfold and pulled it off, staying down beside him. He flinched away from her, blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the light as she pulled off the blindfold off the spirit mage.

"Lira?" said Arden, voice hoarse. "How did you--"

"Swap stories after you're out," she said, cutting through the spiritsteel cord between his hands and giving him one of her smaller knives to finish the rest as she moved on to the spirit mage. "Shari's distracting them for now, but they'll realise soon. There's still at least ten poachers left. Your weapons are in the cart, hope you lot can still fight."

"What's going--" began the map guy, trying to lift his head enough to see under his blindfold.

"We're being rescued," murmured the spirit mage, giving Lira a grateful nod as she cut the cord between his hands. "Is Thea safe?"

"About as safe as any of us right now," said Lira, sparing a glance to check her rescue attempt hadn't been noticed yet. The poachers were still trying to surround the mist, not yet realising that Shari had likely picked up the arrow and moved. "She's at the spirit tunnel with another girl and Arin."

"We need to get out of here," said Arden, starting on the fighter's bonds. "They kept talking about a demon spirit hunting them. From the sounds of it, we're not in any condition to fight it."

Lira smirked. "Wouldn't worry. Arin would peck my eyes out if I hurt you."

Arden frowned at her. "What does Arin--" It clicked. His eyes flicked to her arm. "You mean you're--"

"Like I said, swap stories later." Lira freed the mage from the last of his bonds. She gave him another of her smaller knives to free the map guy. "I'll get your weapons."

Lira unslung her bow, keeping it gripped in one hand as she bolted for the cart.

The mist from her distraction was beginning to fade. She could hear screams, no doubt as Shari found her chance to take down a poacher who got too cocky, but they were also closing in. The longer Lira took, the more risk Shari was taking, trying to stay away from a group whose livelihood depended on their ability to trap spirits.

Lira grabbed the spirit mage's staff from the front of the cart, swearing when she realised Arden's weapons were on the far side of the cart--the side closest to the poachers that'd put her in a far too exposed position, but she didn't have a choice. Shari needed her.

She tossed the spirit mage's staff on the ground and darted around the side of the cart, keeping her eyes on the poachers and tried to pull Arden's bow out. It remained stuck. With yet another curse, Lira took her eyes off the forest for maybe a few seconds, trying to yank the bow free of whatever it was stuck on.

"Looking for something?"

Lira whirled around, Arden's bow in hand to find the woman with the fiery red hair standing a few metres away from her, watching her with a delicately curved smile.

*+*+*+*