Hierarchy of the Unseen by B. Pigeon

Author:B. Pigeon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B. Pigeon LLC

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

On the day of their escape, it quickly became clear to Kor that Mitzli was going to be more of a burden than a tool.

Several hours after they’d interrogated him—and worked out a theory of Mant’s grand plan—Kor heard their shuffling footsteps behind him come to a sudden halt, followed by a thunk. He spun around to find them sitting on a log, their face in their hands.

“Why’d you stop?” he demanded. The two of them were still practically within spitting distance of the portal!

“Can’t…”

“What?”

“I can’t keep going.”

At Mitzli’s speed, they’d barely been going anywhere at all. Kor’s momentary elation at having escaped had long since faded, and this swung him solidly back into panic. They were going to get caught.

He tried encouraging them, of course, admirably keeping his temper at bay—and when that didn’t work, he ordered them to continue. But the instant he got them to their feet, they swayed where they stood and then fell back on their ass, hanging their head between their knees.

It made his skin crawl with the certainty of their demise, but there was nothing he could do; he begrudged them their early stop, after they’d barely begun. Mitzli fished what they could salvage of their wet rations out of their bag, ate them in silence, and then lay down where they were and fell asleep.

That left Kor to guard them, fidgeting and furious, while they slept for over twelve hours. He sat there for an eternity with his senses trained on the forest around them, rubbing at his wrist, convinced they would be found.

The pain, which had at first resonated through the whole joint, had begun to sharpen and resolve at a single point below his pinky. That this was some sort of punishment for breaking his bonds was obvious, but he worried it had a greater significance. Without the periapt as a medium, had Mant’s tracking spell sunk into his flesh? Or did it signify something more ominous—the beginnings of a slow and torturous death, fit for the traitor that he was?

Sometime in the thick of night, he decided he could no longer stand the paranoid speculations looping through his head, the sounds of wildlife he interpreted as Mant’s approach, and resolved to wake the human. He nudged them gently—whispered in their ear—shook them, perhaps too violently. Even then, they wouldn’t rouse for more than a few seconds, their eyelids fluttering before they slid back into unconsciousness.

It wasn’t until after he’d given up, and was seriously contemplating leaving them behind, that he remembered they’d just spent days being tortured by Yez; no wonder they were exhausted. That, and they couldn’t see in the dark, so they wouldn’t be going anywhere at night, regardless.

Darkness preserve him, this was going to take forever.

He took the form of a bird and flitted into the tree above his companion, telling himself he would fly away at the first sign of trouble. Until then, he would hold out—if he wanted to live any kind of life in Lu-nevet he needed to make sure Mant and Yez’s stupid apocalyptic plan was put to a stop.

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