Her glare was as sharp and steely as a sword, and her uncovered face revealed just how pissed off she was. Their leader obviously expected Emerie to give up on Ingram and become used to it, and this turn of events was not something she foresaw.
There was betrayal in her eyes, and regret.
“I’ll take care of them,” the woman shouted as she sprinted forwards. “Get him out of here before he succumbs to bloodlust.”
The woman – who she still didn’t know the name of, or why she was here – leapt. Her cloak fluttered, seeming to make her glide through the air. Then she spun, knocking into spears with her feet to shove them away, as she landed in the middle of the soldiers.
Two barely had a chance to react before she’d slit their throats.
Emerie unthreaded her bow from around her torso, obtained an arrow from her quill, then held onto Ingram’s neck reins. She kicked her heels into his side for some stupid reason, treating him like a horse.
“Go, Ingram! Go!”
The door was just past these soldiers. They just needed to get to it.
He, on the other hand, had a different idea.
He turned to the left and made Emerie scream as he jumped and vaulted off the fortress stone gate, so he could reach a jutting ledge in the keep. She nocked her arrow on her string, pulled back, and unleashed it at a bowman aiming at them from below.
She quickly nocked a second, releasing it and grabbing another. There was no time to be hesitant about killing her fellow guildmembers, no space within her racing heart to feel guilt. She couldn’t; they were too close to freeing Ingram.
The woman had most of the attention of the foot soldiers, besides the odd few that tried to toss their spears at Ingram as he scaled the side wall. He was finding his own way out, and she wondered if he had chosen this path because it had the least potential of death on his hands.
Why did the idea of him keeping his promise to this degree touch her so deeply?
Ingram let out a little growl as he backed up over a roof section of the fortress, his sight obviously fixed on the large expanse of space between it and the stone gate. More bow wielders were at the top and already shooting at them.
She didn’t know why her gaze darted down towards the ground. Wren was gone, and her panicked gaze flickered everywhere to find her.
Fuck! Where did she go?!
Ingram bolted, and the closer he got to the ledge, the more her heart tried to detach so it could crawl out her mouth to safety. We won’t make it. It was too far. Nothing could make that distance.
Instead of expressing her fear and sheer panic, she just held onto the rope around his neck and prepared herself for anything.
With dust and loose rocks being kicked off the edge, Ingram leapt. They sailed through the air.
They started to fall.
They crashed against the side of the walls, just short of the top, and his claws ate away at stone like they were made of diamond – strong and unbreakable.
Emerie gasped when she started to slip away and held onto the rope in one hand with all her might. Her inner turmoil urged her to let go of her bow and use both hands, but she stubbornly didn’t want to. What if she needed it? It was the only long-range weapon she had.
She sighed in relief when he didn’t even need to climb. He just launched himself forward with all his strength and they were ascending metres higher than the gate’s wall.
It was in this moment that she fully understood how Duskwalkers destroyed towns. A wall of wooden spikes? What a useless attempt of a barricade.
For a few short seconds, she was floating, then her heart dipped to her stomach. They fell on top of the wall, and a rasp tore through her when she landed hard on him.
Something broke when her entire torso landed against the spikes on his back. Only her pubic bone, saved by her bag that had come between them, was spared. Instead of a scream tearing its way through her at the pain, a pitiful sob did.
Ingram fought against someone who had threaded a whip around his head, tangling it in his horns to stay secure.
Through her watering eyes, she noted people were coming.
Emerie didn’t even think about it. She nocked her arrow and blindly shot while he freed himself.
He took those few steps needed to get to the edge of the wall’s pathway so he could… she didn’t know, maybe leap to freedom?
She blinked the worst of her tears away, and it took her a moment to see Wren there. Even longer to notice the arrow sticking out from her forehead. Her Head Elder sagged to her knees and toppled to the ground on her side.
Shock slapped her into alertness and rendered her immobile. She didn’t even hold onto Ingram for a few brief seconds.
I killed her, Emerie thought, utterly flummoxed, eyes wide and disbelieving. I killed Wren.
She truly hadn’t meant to.
Emerie didn’t take her eyes away from Wren’s corpse, yet her arms moved instinctively, her hands grabbing the rope around Ingram’s neck.
“Emerie!” someone shouted to her left, and her head spun that way.
With her mouth agape in shock at herself, she found the guildmember who’d spoken to her. It was a woman’s voice, likely one of her friends, but she couldn’t make out who. Now she understood why Ingram thought they all looked like a bunch of faceless Demons.
Whether her friend spoke again or not, she was no longer listening. Ingram finally jumped, and she barely realised she was falling.
All she knew was… she’d just given up her life as a Demonslayer for this Duskwalker.
Wheezing, Emerie twisted her torso so she could cup her lower ribs. Okay, I’ve definitely broken something. Or at least fractured something, considering she was breathing fine except for the sharp pain every time she inhaled.
It also didn’t help that Ingram was still sprinting. Each time she bounced, it was like she was being punched. He was putting as much distance between them and the fortress as he possibly could.
The woman who had helped them was nowhere to be seen, and Emerie hoped she was okay.
Her adrenaline was still high, aided by the fact she was going so fucking fast she thought they were two seconds away from flying. The air was cold as it hit her nose, then split around her head and through her hair, causing it to whip wildly behind her. Thankfully he was warm, but she barely registered it through her pain and distress.
So much had happened.
There was too much to consider.
She couldn’t believe she had made it out of there alive.
I killed Wren.
And, in doing so, she had just ensured she would be hunted as a traitor for the rest of her life. Imprisonment was for those who abandoned the guild, but killing the Head Elder? Death awaited her, and her features were easily distinguishable.
She looked behind her, no longer able to see the fortress – or any other remnants of the life she’d just left. Although she had a few friendships, they weren’t particularly deep. It was hard to be attached to people who could easily die the next time they went out for a mission.
“Please,” Emerie pleaded, pulling on the rope around the Duskwalker’s neck. She needed to rest, to figure out what her next plan was. “Please stop. I need a–”
Ingram halted so abruptly that Emerie squealed and kicked her legs as she was tossed forward. A scream burst from her at the pain in her side when she landed, while sticks jabbed into her body when she slid.
Her waning adrenaline restrengthened as she crawled to her knees.