Page 125 of Starside

“What are you doing here?” I try to say, but his hand only tightens over my mouth, choking the words.

It’s no use. They’ve found me. I hear them, tearing through the forest. The swarms, the packs, whatever ancient creature made the mists shudder. All coming right toward us. Raker hears them too.

“Fuck, Aris,” Raker growls, and I can feel the rage coming off him in waves. I deserve it. But if he’s here …

He came through the mist to find me.

It’s for the map. I’m sure of it. But the fact … the fact that he is here, means I will not die alone. I feel just the slightest bit of regret that I’ve dragged Raker into sure death with me.

Because the beasts are here now. The mist has scattered, as if even it is afraid. There’s no time to run. No trees near enough to climb. None of it would make any difference anyway.

I reach back for the hilt of my sword with my non-wielding arm, still not willing to die without a fight. My shoulder is out of its socket. My leg is numb. I really don’t stand a chance.

Raker seems to know that, because as I try to scramble from his grip, to face the beasts, he curls his arm around my waist and pins me to his chest. “You’ll only get in the way,” he spits down into my face, as that same world-shattering scream sounds right behind my spine, sending all the hairs on my neck rising. As those trees tremble with the force of the creatures about to crash through them.

He curses me again. Then, with me still pinned against him, his other hand reaches back for his sword—

And he lunges forward.

I can’t see anything, pressed to his front like this. But I am nearly deafened by the roar of shrieks and howls behind me, louder than anything I’ve heard in my life, a wave of death crashing into us both. I manage to squirm enough to turn my head, cheek pressed against his chest, and all I see from this angle is his blade swinging as he fights the entire throng of beasts with just one arm. He moves so quickly, so expertly, it makes my mouth go dry.

Then I only see blood. Sheets of dark blood all around us as Raker cuts through the horde, his strength never wavering. The creatures never even getting close.

No marks on his armor.

If the rumors are true, then being pressed right against Raker’s chest is the safest place for me to be. I pray his reputation isn’t just rumor, and that he doesn’t just have dozens of breastplates that he switches out, given that I am currently crushed against his. I cling to him, lifting my legs, wrapping around him like a tree, so that I don’t get in his way. His arm remains unyielding as stone across my back. I tremble against his body, with cold, and relief, and pain, and fear.

One claw gets through him, and I’ll be gutted. One bite from those massive fangs, or those shredding teeth, and my spine will be ripped from my body. I’ll just be tatters strewn across this forest.

But absolutely nothing gets past Raker’s sword. He keeps slashing and steadily moving forward, not yielding any ground. He advances like a warrior on the front line of battle. His blade sings as it hits its mark again and again. As Raker wields it with an arm that never seems to tire.

Until the woods go quiet.

I’m panting against his chest. My arms are wrapped around his neck as I cling to him, my ankles locked behind his back.

Then Raker unceremoniously shoves me off him. I manage to land on one leg, but the other gives, and I fall right on my ass.

I look up, baring my teeth—but the words die in my throat.

Raker is dripping blood. It rains from his hood. From his sword. Down every inch of armor. The only part of him that is clean is his front, where he held me, and now that I’m not frozen in terror, I can feel the thick layer of gore on the back of my body.

I can’t see his face, but by his posture … by the way he grips his sword so tightly still, like he’s considering plunging it through my chest and traveling alone—

“You’re angry.”

His growl in response has me swallowing.

I scuttle back on my hands and feet. “The warriors at the inn. They—they followed me, I didn’t—”

“I know,” he says, his tattooed knuckles whiter than usual as he grips his blade tighter.

Right. Of course. He must have seen them. My voice is just a ragged whisper. “You … you went in after me.”

“I went through the mist for that sword,” he snarls. My sword, he means. The one on my back, its blade still covered in saberwolf blood.

So, there it is. The reason he hasn’t already abandoned me. Does he even need the map? Probably not. He wants my sword. Like everyone else.

I keep crawling back, on shaking hands. They almost slip in—blood. It’s blood. Everywhere. It’s creatures, shredded to ribbons, cut with such precise motions that the flesh doesn’t hang off in jagged layers—no, the pieces are all clean and uniform. Like those leaves cleaved in half.