Thalia Thornbreak's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

The rider was gone, but his warning stayed. Half a day. Then more men would come. Thalia stood in the doorway with her aching arm and knew she could not just run. Running proved nothing. She needed a deed the court could not ignore. Marcus swung his pack onto his shoulder. "We move," he said. "They'll rest their horses. We won't have that luxury." They pushed into the deep woods. By afternoon Thalia's legs shook. Her eyes burned. She stumbled on a root and caught herself on a wisteria trunk, breathing hard. "We have to stop," she said. "Just for an hour." Marcus shook his head. "Stop now, tired like this, and we won't hear them coming. Or worse." He pointed. Ahead, blossoms hung torn from their branches. Deep gouges scarred the bark. Something had passed through, and it was not a horse. A smell reached her, wet wood and rot. Then the thing rose from the brush. It stood taller than Marcus, built of gnarled bark and green moss, with antlers like dead branches and two eyes that burned yellow. It moved on all fours, then reared. Claws like split roots spread wide. Marcus drew his knife. "Behind me." "No." Thalia stepped level with him. Her exhaustion was real. So was her chance. A proven deed. Here it stood. "This is what I came for." The creature charged. Thalia did not reach for it. She held her ground the way Marcus had drilled. Feet apart. Weight down. She let it come. It swung a clawed arm. She turned her shoulder and slid past, and the jeweled blade caught the light as she drove it into the soft moss beneath its foreleg. The monster shrieked and twisted. Its tail smashed her ribs and threw her into the dirt. Pain flared white. She rolled, gasping. Marcus darted in, cut the back of its knee, and drew it away from her. "Up!" he shouted. "It's slow when it turns!" She forced herself up. The beast wheeled toward Marcus, exposing its flank. Thalia set her feet a last time. She waited one breath. Then she lunged and buried the amethyst blade deep behind its shoulder. The monster staggered. Its yellow eyes dimmed. It crashed down among the broken blossoms and went still. Silence returned to the wood. Thalia knelt beside it, holding her cracked ribs, her sword slick. Marcus stared at the fallen thing. "That," he said, "is worth catching." He almost smiled. "The court will believe that." Thalia touched an antler. Proof. Real proof, at last. But she could barely stand, and her ribs screamed at every breath. She had the deed. Now she had to carry it home before her father's riders reached her, wounded and slow, with a half day already spent.