Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Then again, I’m never looking at that compass again. So problem solved.
“Up there,” I order him. “Turn off there.”
Twenty-Eight
A Chilling Husk Presents Itself.
“Get under my surcoat.”
The sharp words rouse me from a doze I’m unaware of having fallen into. As I jerk to attention, I look around. Long gone are any trails or even landscape I might have been familiar with. Now we are on a broad swath of road that cuts through a dense forest, and the shoulders of the packed route have been cleared, as if to prevent kidnapping and the thievery of carriages. There are no more thimbe trees with their autumnal foliage, but rather prickly statchz set in a craggy and sparse undergrowth. The sun is low in the horizon, on the verge of setting—
Hide.
For a moment, I’m confused. The voice in my head doesn’t sound right—
Merc twists in the saddle and hisses, “Duck under, will you. You’ve got to hide.”
The gathering cold flushes out of me, and in what has become a practiced maneuver, I pull up the back of his leather coat and dive beneath the heavy weight. The next breath I take is heaven. All I can smell is him, and as I turn my face to the side and rest my cheek against the valley of his spine, I slip my arms up the rippled flanks of his torso.
The first time I did this, we were approached by a brisk pair of riders dressed in royal garb. When Merc gave the order to go under the surcoat, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. As I fumbled, he solved my problem with an under-the-breath order to just disappear them, he didn’t care where. So I ran my arms up the sides of him, and was shocked by how the thin material of the long shirt he wears hid nothing. And it hides nothing now. I’m just used to fitting myself to him, and feeling his torso.
He’s so warm. And hard all over.
Closing my eyes, I pray to the crescent moon for our safe passage, and realize that’s such a stupid entreaty given we’re going to a place that I’ve heard is more dangerous than the treacherous roads and territory we’ve got to cross to get to it: The Outpost in the Badlands is a savage place. But at least Merc’s authority and control have never wavered yet. Though I bow to the aches and stiffness all over me, though I have flagged and fallen into exhaustion in spite of our precarious situation, he’s remained alert and prepared to fight.
Pride’s the only reason I haven’t asked him how much farther—
Three horses pass us—or at least it sounds like more than a pair. Merc says something to whoever it is, the rumble in his chest transmitting into me, and my panic returns. Word will have spread throughout Prosperitus about what happened at the Fulcrum with those boys—
“All right,” Merc clips.
With reluctance, I release my hold on him and leave the cocoon. When the cold air hits me, I tremble from the temperature change and a curse floats back from him.
“We’ve got to stop before it gets too dark.”
“Here?” I offer. Even though I have no idea where we are.
“Somewhere.”
The blooming of peaches and pinks in the western sky announces the day’s grand finale of illumination, and soon enough, a moody gloaming takes over. With every blink, more light drains, and even though my eyes adjust, there are way too many shadows in those spiky, evil trees on our periphery.
And then the true darkness arrives.
My instincts prickle and my stare scans the borders of the road, seeking sets of glowing red eyes while my ears drown out the sounds of hooves and leather tack, in favor of a growl or a snort.
What do demons sound like—
“Trust the horse,” Merc says. “He’s going to alert before we do.”
I must have spoken that out loud.
We press on because we must, the road seeming to go on forever, the landscape offering us no true shelter or coverage. Time condenses into a focal point of the persistent present, no future ahead of us, no past behind. Only the single heartbeat of each moment repeating to the beat of the horse’s plodding gait.
At least the tension that coils in my gut chases away the chill that’s settled into my bones.
Overhead, the three-quarter moon rises, but offers little illumination to go on, as if it’s determined to remain neutral with regard to our travel and destiny. A strange desperation grips me, unlike anything I’ve felt before: I know the safety I yearn for will not magically appear whenever we find a place to shelter ourselves for the night. We will still be out on our own, and in the best course of things, we’ll only be attacked by robbers or a landowner defending his—