Page 33 of Because the Gods Left

He ground his jaw, still leaning forward to stand. “I don’t like the way they’re talking about you.”

She shrugged. “They’re going to talk. After what happened with your brother… well, they’re going to talk. And making a scene of it would only make things worse.”

He looked at her carefully, his eyes trailing over her skin and somehow leaving a tingling path in their wake.

“You don’t deserve it,” he grumbled, sitting back more comfortably on the log.

She only shrugged again. “We’ll ride it out. A few rumors are harmless.”

He didn’t look like he was convinced, so Iryana asked about the maps he was looking through. Pyetar had barely started explaining when the whispers grew on the other side of camp.

Iryana leaned back to see what was causing the ruckus. One of her charges and one of Sergeant Soshya’s soldiers stood nose to nose, glaring at each other.

Then Edvar climbed out of his makeshift tent, looking ready to come to blows.

“I need to deal with that,” she announced as she stood, trying to calm her frustration. “They apparently need constant supervision.”

Pyetar nodded before she rushed off to stop the impending fight.

When they camped the next night, tucked into an empty cave they’d found, Iryana was feeling more optimistic. Her cousins and the soldiers had moved past sly comments and glares to just ignoring each other. Mezhimar had even asked her cousin about his air bow. It was… progress.

Edvar and Levek had mostly whispered with her over whether it was strange to have not run into any of the dakii, leading her to have Pyetar show them how they tracked the paths. It felt like a step in the right direction, and she’d seen agreement in Pyetar’s gaze when their eyes met over the small fire.

When they took up their march the next day, Iryana hung back with the other archers and Edvar, hoping she could get them talking. But after a few failed attempts to start a conversation between Edvar, Mezhimar, and the archers, Iryana gave up for the morning. At least the lack of conversation and the awkward silence meant it was easy to keep an ear out.

When the dakii charged, they all heard it.

They were quiet creatures, despite their massive size, but they were running so fast that the pounding of their paws against the earth echoed through the trees. There hadn’t even been time to hear the forest animals fall silent first; the beasts were moving too quickly. They were blurs of blue-gray fur and flashes of sharp, curving black horns winding through the trees.

It wasn’t a large pack, but there were enough beasts with multiple sets of horns to encourage Iryana to abandon the idea of not using her forgings. She wouldn’t risk anyone getting killed now just to give herself a little more time.

Her body protested, and she couldn’t stop a grunt as she formed her metal-forged bow and nocked an arrow. The rest of the archers joined her, letting the others get ready behind them. Their arrows soared through the trees and met their targets.

The iron-tipped arrows from her cousin’s air-forged bow agitated the creatures as they hit their target, but those from the metal-forged bows sunk deep, causing some of them to stumble or limp. Her own arrow, dark purple metal magic she strained to force out, dropped a dakya entirely.

The arrow forgings pulled at her as she shot them at the dakii, but even with the strain from her unbalanced magic, she didn’t let the forgings lose their shape until they’d embedded themselves into the beasts. Some passed through the creatures entirely, sinking into the melting mud beneath them.

She saw some of the archers gape at her, and even Mezhimar seemed surprised. Her arrows did more damage than she expected, too.

Three arrows were all she had time to shoot before the archers had to fall back.

Iryana turned to find the formations ready. Sergeant Soshya’s team took the left and Vaneshta’s the right. Shields braced along the front, beast spears and polearms sticking out between the shields, and great hammers and war axes ready to slip forward and finish any dakii that got pinned down. The unforged charges from the settlement huddled together in the back, but Levek had joined the lines, his wood and steel spear braced and ready. There wasn’t an ounce of fear or hesitation on his face.

Slipping through the loose formation, Iryana again nocked an arrow and drew back. The moment a dakya appeared between the shields before her, Iryana loosed her arrow, letting it fly straight into the beast’s head.

It was the strategy she was used to. Those with the great metal-forged beast spears kept the dakii from rushing the group and tried to pin them down. The soldiers with large shields protected them from the dakii pushing in. The great hammers and war axes were ready to swipe at any pinned dakya or those that got too close.

At Iryana’s side, Edvar, Mezhimar, and the other archers were firing arrows through the formation, entirely focused. Edvar’s bow was so much smaller than the others’, but an air bow didn’t need to be large to shoot far or with power.

It was an exciting sight to see them all working together.

At first, they seemed to be making ground against the dakii, but the pack was holding back, waiting for the right moments to attack.

Some of the pack split off from the main group and began weaving through the edges of the clearing to come at them from behind. Iryana watched Pyetar and Vaneshta’s team move to intercept them.

Iryana kept shooting at the dakii still trying to fight their way through Soshya’s team, though she kept a close eye on the fight around her.

Soshya and her team managed to pin a beast, the shield bearer protecting the soldier holding it down as another dakya tried to ram him. But then a third charged in, and the two soldiers had to fall back. Iryana and the archers tried to give them space, but it was hard to fire without risking hitting their own people.