We run.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Volanna did not lie, it turns out. So we’ve one small thing to be grateful for. As soon as we step down from the alabaster steps of the church, we take off.
The angry mob follows.
I suppose the good news is none of them carry weapons, but faith appears to count for a lot.
I hand the shortsword over to Temra, since she has a knack for it, and keep the spear for myself. Not that I can actually throw the weapon, because then I’d have to go back to retrieve it. But Petrik has no problem throwing the staff as hard as he can, taking out waves of Thersans in the process. They fall down in the road, tripping the others next to them. The staff whizzes back to Petrik’s outstretched hand each time, like a lodestone drawn to iron.
Bit by bit we gain some distance.
Then they start throwing things.
The first rock catches Kellyn in the shoulder. The second, square on his back.
“I see how it is. Aim for the biggest target. That does it.” He plants his feet, refusing to run any longer. The rest of us slow our pace but don’t stop.
“Kellyn!” Temra shouts over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
With the tip of his blade, he draws a line in the dirt road, from one tree line to the next, covering the whole width of it.
He shouts in a voice I’ve never heard from him before, “Anyone who crosses that line is going to have their head separated from their shoulders!”
The city folk come to a halt just before the line, but one large man near the front tosses a rock up in the air and catches it in his hands in an obviously threatening manner.
“Try it,” Kellyn says. He runs through an impressive series of slashes, showing off his sword’s length and speed. He becomes someone I’ve never seen before. A hulking giant with death in his eyes.
“Abomination!” someone in the back of the crowd yells.
“The Goddesses demand blood!”
“Destroy the blight of magic!”
The crowd is tense, toeing that line Kellyn made.
“Oh, the Goddesses will get blood,” Kellyn says. “It’s just up to you whose they get. The first volunteer may step forward.”
I hold my breath, waiting to see how bloody it’s about to get, prepared to shut my eyes against it.
One person at the front of the line retreats, apparently deciding we’re not worth it. I pray the others will follow suit.
And then there’s a ripple in the crowd, as though people in the back are pushing toward the front. Kellyn, with his superior vantage and height, swears.
“City guards!” he calls, and turns tail.
Ah, they will have weapons.
He soon surpasses the rest of us with his impressive leg span, and he veers from the road instantly, plunging into the trees. Quick thinking, since we’ve no guarantee of outdistancing trained guards. Our only hope now is to lose them in the forest.
I hear their shouts behind us as leafy branches scratch my cheeks. My boots sink into the wet earth, slowing me down. Secret Eater throws me off-balance, the weight of my secrets pulling me to the left.
We twist and turn, Temra and I hiking up our skirts to prevent them from getting caught. Petrik has the best of it; his blue robes were replaced by fancy dress pants and a frilly shirt for the morning’s service.
Kellyn turns his head over his shoulder regularly to make sure we’re all still behind him, and I look back to see where the city folk are.
Not nearly far enough away.
As Kellyn returns his attention to what’s in front of him and rounds another tree, he windmills his arms, trying to slow his momentum. “Stop!” he shouts, but it’s too late.
A decline lies ahead.
Barely better than a drop, really.
We tip over the edge and slide downward. I lose my feet, going onto my rump as the mud slicks underneath me.
In fact, part of the earth seems to tumble down with us.
Mudslide.
Petrik is falling end over end to my right, and Temra is on her side, her dress coming up to her hips with the slide.
I think I’m screaming. I know Petrik is. I wait for the solid ground that has to follow, surely, and wonder how bad the impact will be.
Instead, everything disappears.
No ground. No mud. No sliding.
I’m falling.
I hear a waterfall churning somewhere nearby, can barely make sense of the noise over all the sensations coursing through me.
And then my knees buckle as my feet crash into the surface and water fills my mouth. At first I can’t tell up from down. Then my body slams into a rock, orienting me and bruising me at the same time.