Red Rider (The Sworn Saga Book 1) by Kate Avery Ellison

Author:Kate Avery Ellison [Ellison, Kate Avery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-05T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

AFTER MAKING MY plan and going over it a dozen times in my head until I knew perfectly the order of what I was going to do—and what I would do should I encounter any treecrawlers—I slid off the rock that had kept me safe in the river all night and splashed across the shallows to the bank. I clutched Vixor’s knife in both of my hands as if it were a sword. The book I left on the rock.

I scanned the trees above before I ascended the bank, my heart in my throat.

No sign of the treecrawlers.

It was safer in the daylight anyway. The treecrawlers spent the sunlight hours sleeping, soaking up energy from the sun to photosynthesize. If disturbed, they were lethargic and more easily fought off.

Still, I was trembling as I climbed the bank and retraced my steps toward the carriage’s resting place.

Along the way, I passed the bodies that I’d killed—if you could call what I did killing, for they were already dead—lying on the forest floor. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help seeing their twisted limbs splayed like dolls that had been thrown across a room, their remnants of human faces. Nausea rose in my throat, and for a moment, I wanted to turn around and run back to my rock in the river where I felt safe, but I pressed on.

I was stronger than that.

When I reached the clearing where the carriage lay, all was deathly still. The carriage was on its side. The horses were still in their harnesses where they lay on their sides, dead, and I felt a sudden, intense stab of sorrow for them. They were innocent, trapped amid this violence that they had nothing to do with. How cruel. How unfair.

I counted the horse bodies and realized that no, someone had cut the line. The first four of the horses had escaped.

The thought made me smile, but that smile was fleeting as I turned to view the rest of the carnage.

Corpses of treecrawlers lay everywhere, most torn apart to the point of all recognition, all of them with wounds where their heart would be, where the spore that animated their bodies had been. I checked each and every one to make sure that it was truly laid to rest, and not merely regenerating in the morning sun that was seeping through the trees. My heart thundered in my chest, and my hands shook as I turned over the bodies that were crumpled in a way that made me unable to tell at first glance whether they’d been safely rendered inert.

They felt knobby, like tree trunks. The parts of them that were still human-looking were smooth, like polished wood. Nothing about them felt human at all.

That didn’t make me feel better. It somehow made me feel worse.

After I’d determined the outside area was safe, I turned to the carriage.

Within it lay everything I needed to survive. I couldn’t leave until I’d gotten what I came for.

My stomach clenched at the thought of what I was about to do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.