Yerin’s breath was hot on his collar, her eyes closed and her voice shaky. “Things as…they are…I’d contend…we shouldn’t stay here.”
Through the trees, two bright green shapes scuttled after them.
Chapter 3
Life in Sacred Valley hadn’t been easy as an Unsouled, but it had at least been comfortable. He had his own home, all the food he could eat, a cozy bed…and a safe place to stay, which he’d once taken for granted. He was embarrassed by his own ignorance. If he had known how frightening the wilderness was, he’d have blessed the Shi family every night for the roof over his head.
After running from the venomous Remnants, he slid down a sloping hill on the Thousand-Mile Cloud until he’d run out of every drop of madra. Exhausting his spirit left him with a dull ache inside of him, an emptiness, as though he were made less by its absence. And no madra to circulate in his limbs meant that he ran out of strength quickly, hauling his pack over one shoulder and Yerin over the other.
Worse, the piping whistles of the Remnants followed them as they made it down the hill and into the black, blighted trees. Their constant presence pressed down on his mind, keeping him perched on the edge of terror. In hours, he felt as though a fire had passed through his spirit, leaving only a burnt-out husk.
When he could move no longer, he found a tree with a thick trunk and a gnarled hollow at its base. He dumped Yerin into it, too tired to be gentle. She made no sound of complaint, only curled up among the roots with her eyes closed and breathing even. Probably cycling to improve her wounds.
Now that he thought of it, she had an Iron body. He might not have even hurt her by dumping her there. Her steel arm hung limp on her shoulder, blade dangling next to her cheek.
Lindon only wanted to collapse next to her, but the distant whistles continued. He forced his legs to carry him forward, scratching script into the dirt with the end of a stick. He extended the script all the way around the tree until Yerin was in the center of a warding circle at least fifteen feet across. Only then did he fall into the hollow next to her, digging into his pack for a stoppered clay bottle of water.
Yerin didn’t open her eyes to take a drink, she simply plucked the bottle from his hand, guzzled half of its contents, and handed it back. By the time they had both drunk, only a few drops sloshed around at the bottom.
He’d resolved to find a source of fresh water when sleep took him. Even with Yerin’s elbow shoving into his ribs on one side and a half-buried rock on the other, his body simply couldn’t stay awake anymore.
When he woke, three rotten dogs snarled at the edge of his circle.
He jerked back against the tree, swallowing a scream. It took him a few breaths to realize that he wasn’t trapped in a nightmare.
The skin of the dogs was raw, bloody red with spots of diseased black. It was stretched tight over a visible rack of ribs, and their stench soaked the air. Their eyes were scarlet as swollen blisters, and they bared shredded lips in snarls that revealed blood-caked teeth.
Like a child seeking the protection of his mother, Lindon shook Yerin’s shoulder. One eye snapped open immediately, though she had to scrape dried blood away from the other with her fingernails.
Once she could fully see, she surveyed the dogs. “I called Heaven’s Glory a pack of rotten dogs, but I’d never conceived they’d be quite that ugly.”
As though they understood the insult, the dogs hissed through teeth, lunging over the warding circle. Fear stabbed Lindon’s heart and he cycled madra on instinct, for whatever good it would do them.
They stopped with only their front paws over the circle, yowling and shuffling backwards. They lifted their claws to avoid stepping on any of the symbols. They didn’t make the whimpering sounds of an injured dog; their howls seemed to contain rage and resentment, as though the pain infuriated them.
Lindon shivered, staring at the dirt just in front of their paws. The script was written on nothing more solid than loose forest soil, and though the dogs were avoiding direct contact with the script, it wouldn’t hold long. The dogs didn’t have to touch the symbols to scrape dirt over them, and even the dirt might obscure the script before long.
Besides, the warding circle was meant to protect against Remnants. Since the script had affected them more like a screen than a fence, they must be sacred beasts…though they looked hideous and diseased, unlike any sacred beasts Lindon had ever heard of. Based on everything he’d been taught, sacred beasts refined vital aura into madra inside their bodies, and the advancement process perfected their bodies. It made them stronger, smarter, more beautiful.
Whatever aura these beasts cultivated had corrupted them, and he had no doubt that they would tear him to pieces. Even if he could use his Empty Palm, he had no idea where a canine’s core was located.
“I don’t want to rush you,” Lindon said, eyeing the spearheads these creatures had for teeth, “but have you recovered at all?”
She cracked one eye. “Not gonna bleed out, but scrubbing out a couple of pups might get…sticky.”
“Sticky? What makes it so sticky?” He was trying to stay calm—the last thing he needed was to irritate the Gold at his side—but these rotting dogs were prowling around the tree now, and he was sure they were looking for a weak point in the script. If he’d spaced one rune too far out, they’d rush in and pull him apart.
“You scowl when you’re fearful,” she observed. “Makes you look like you’re gearing up for a fight.”
He took deep breaths, trying to slow his heart and keep his voice from leaping up an octave. “I’d fight them if I could, but can you?” Despite his preparation, his voice still broke on the last word.
“Well, I’d observed that sacred beasts have been a little light on the ground the last handful of days. Spied a couple of Remnants, but nothing else. Weak and wounded as we were, we should have been hip-deep in predators before we took two steps out of the valley.”
One of the dogs swept a claw at the air over the script as thought scraping at something invisible. Through his Copper sight, Lindon saw the aura the script had gathered: a circle formed from thin, tall rectangles that reminded him of paper doors. When he looked at the aura, he thought of force, impact, solidity…but rigid and thin, as though ready to break at any second. It was a pathetically thin protection against the beasts dripping blood-tinged saliva only a few feet away.
“Why weren’t we, do you think?” Lindon asked, holding his tone steady.
“If we were with my master, I’d say they were scared off by his presence. But these things see me as prey for a pack. You’re more like a bite they’d feed to their pups.”
Lindon cleared his throat, unsure how to respond.
“Point is, they weren’t scared off by us. Something drew them away.”
Something impacted the tree behind them with a meaty thud, and the tree shook like a thick drum. A dog howled, but blackened leaves drifted down on top of them.
“They were drawn away,” Lindon repeated, trying to focus on Yerin’s words instead of the monstrous fangs. “Does that mean you can’t kill them?”
She pointed with her finger and her sword-arm together. “It means they’re all bunched up.”