Hunting Season (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 4) by Annie Bellet

Author:Annie Bellet [Bellet, Annie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doomed Muse Press
Published: 2014-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

The uneven ground had entered into a conspiracy to slow me down, trip me up, and make me dog food. Swear to the universe. I was never going hiking again. We raced over the ridge and down the other side, Yosemite and Alek leaping and gliding over rocks and brambles toward the line of healthier forest far below and beyond us. All those hours climbing up this ridge to get to the valley, all that effort, and now I had to stumble my way down at breakneck speed. I would have sighed, but I had no breath to spare.

Breakneck speed was an accurate phrase for it. I gave up after the second fall ripped my jeans open at the knees and embedded thistle needles into my palms. I reached for my magic, letting it run through my muscles, strengthening me, lifting me up as I sprang a few feet off the ground and forward, leaping like a long-jumper. Using my magic, I pressed down, willing myself not to land, but to keep going. I’d learned in my AP Physics class in high school that gravity is considered a weak force and I intended to ignore the shit out of it for as long as I could if it meant not face-planting again before reaching those trees.

Even with magic, I could barely keep up with Alek and Yosemite, their long legs eating up the distance, their huge bodies apparently good enough at defying pesky things like air resistance and gravity all on their own.

Behind me, the baying of the Fomoire hounds grew louder, closer. I couldn’t risk a look, but it felt as though they were closing the distance, definitely over the ridge themselves by now. I wanted to turn and tear into them, but memory of our barely won fight at the barn kept me gliding forward, kicking off the ground for another long glide. All I needed was a Hidden Leaf headband or an Anbu mask and I’d be right at home in a Naruto manga.

The healthy forest spread out ahead of me, the leaves looking like they were on fire in the morning sunlight, lit from the side by the rising sun. We were nearly in its shade when the first of the hounds caught up.

Fetid and heavy breathing warned me, and I threw myself sideways, using my magic like a ski pole to shove my gliding body aside as a hound sprang at me from behind. I shouted a warning as I hit the ground, the impact jarring me from ankle to teeth. I managed to keep my feet and spin, lashing out with a beam of purple fire. The hound dodged and went for Alek instead.

Alek shifted and sprang, his huge jaws ripping into flesh with satisfying crunches, paws bigger than my head with claws longer than my fingers tearing the hound to whimpering shreds.

Yosemite had reached the trees, and he turned as well, a thick branch, its length still covered in twigs and leaves, dropping from the trees to his hand.

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