Already sensing the dulling of my mind from the poison in the air, I slipped out my knife and slashed mine too. We worked rapidly to cover our mouths and noses, and at the same time, backed up.
The basilisks weren’t known for attacking outright. Instead, if the creatures felt threatened, their hissing expelled more venom. They waited for their victims to fall unconscious from their deadly vapors, then closed in and administered a lethal bite.
As we crept away, the basilisk darted toward a hole in a blackened stump. Only then did I see what it had been standing upon. A human body.
I held out a hand and stopped Jorg. “Wait. Someone’s there.”
A brawny man lay facedown in the leaves and windfall within the basilisk’s burned-out territory. Though I couldn’t see much of his body, I glimpsed an axe attached to his belt.
A fellow woodcutter?
“We need to get him.” I began to loosen the straps on my shoulders. “He might still be alive.”
“If he is, he won’t be for long.”
I lowered my bundles of wood to the ground. Then before I changed my mind, I darted forward.
“No!” Jorg’s fingers grasped at my tunic, but I wrenched away.
With my axe and knife both at the ready and my eyes on the basilisk burrow, I did nothing to conceal my approach. Speed was more important in this instance than stealth, and as I reached the body, I dropped to one knee and rolled him over.
Immediately, I recoiled. ’Twas the young woodcutter who’d guided us when we first arrived at Inglewood Forest. His blue, bloated face was hardly recognizable. The bruising and swelling continued down his neck to his torso and limbs. His fingers were so distended they were double their normal size.
“He’s dead.” Jorg spoke from beside me. “Now let’s go.”
I sheathed my weapons. “We cannot leave him here for the basilisk to feast upon.” Grabbing hold of the man’s arms, I tried to lift him, but a wave of dizziness hit me, and I wavered on my feet.
Jorg’s brow creased, his worried eyes trained upon the basilisk’s lair. But as I dragged the woodcutter backward several paces, he took hold of one arm, and I kept a grasp on the other. Together we stumbled to put as much distance between ourselves and the basilisk as possible.
With every passing second, my mind turned fuzzier and my vision blurred. Fatigue overwhelmed me, making me want to lie down and go to sleep. When I fell to my knees a moment later, Jorg shook his head curtly and motioned for me to keep going.
Only when we reached a point far beyond where we’d dropped our wood did we release the woodcutter. Jorg and I collapsed to the ground, tore off the coverings over our mouths and noses, and gasped in the clean air.
When our minds cleared and we regained our strength, we hastened to retrieve our wood and finished the hike into Birchwood. After delivering our paltry cuttings to Walter, we went back for the woodcutter, then brought him to town so Walter could inform his family of his death.
This week, even with Walter’s invitation to stay for a meal, I had no desire to linger. After purchasing a few supplies, we returned to our territory and attempted to hunt but to no avail. As the afternoon waned, Jorg suggested we use the remainder of daylight hours to provision ourselves with fish for the week. At the prospect of facing hunger in the week ahead, I acquiesced.
Initially, I didn’t want to go back to the ravine area. After two days since last seeing Rory, I was still too consumed with thoughts of her and had no wish to stir up my heartache by returning to the spot where I would only think of her more. But we needed to fish, and the river near the ravine never failed to give us what we needed without the threat of basilisks.
After lowering our net into the rapids and securing the lines, I scavenged along the shore in the tall grass for duck nests, hoping fortune would smile upon me and reward me with eggs to fry with the fish.
I found myself wandering downriver in the direction of the secret passageway, and the closer I drew, the more I wanted to throw caution away and hike back to the clearing. Rory wouldn’t be there at so late an hour—she wouldn’t be there at any hour. Yet, I longed to go anyway, simply to revel in the memories of our short week together.
“Aha!” At a glimpse of greenish-gray lumps in the shadows, I parted the weeds to find four eggs partially covered in dried grass.
“I’ve found gold!” I shouted over my shoulder toward Jorg on the opposite bank, grinning for the first time since leaving Rory.
“What?” he called above the rushing water of the rapids.
I picked up two eggs and lifted them for him to see.
He started to grin, but then his eyes widened. He had his axe out in an instant, but before he could throw it or I could make sense of what was happening, something sharp sliced into my thigh, plunging deeply like a knife.
At an enraged squeal, I realized a knife wasn’t digging into my flesh. It was the razor-sharp tusk of a boar.
With a swiftness Jorg had drilled into me, I swung my axe, knowing I needed to cut off the tusk before the creature ripped off my leg. The difficult chop required every ounce of my concentration and fortitude. I brought the weapon in from the side, twisting just slightly, and in the process put pressure on my thigh.
Pain like fire raced up and down my leg. But I gritted my teeth and pounded the blade down on the tusk at the boar’s skull. Though I aimed the strike as far from the entry point as possible, the blow set the boar free but left the tusk in my thigh, driving it deeper, tearing my flesh in the process.
Agony barreled through me, sending blackness over me like a veil. I released a cry and fought against the enfolding darkness, pivoting around in time to block another charge from the boar. Missing one tusk and bleeding from where my axe had grazed its forehead, the boar was more infuriated than before. It lowered its head and came at me again.
Weak and stunned, I couldn’t move fast enough. The boar’s remaining tusk sliced into my leg just above my knee. Though it stung and drew blood, it was just a flesh wound.
The boar thrashed with rage and plunged toward me again.
I swung my axe and aimed for its broadside, making contact but unable to knock it down. At each jarring step, I feared it would be my last before I fell unconscious.
“Jump to the left!” Jorg’s shout drew nearer, and from the corner of my eye, I could see him sprinting through the river toward me, his axe raised and ready to throw.
I tried to obey him but only managed an awkward tilt. It was enough for Jorg. An instant later, his axe whistled in the air past me. The blade embedded into the boar’s head, dropping and silencing the creature instantly.
Was it the same boar that had chased me last week? I couldn’t be sure, but part of me wondered if it lived near the secret passageway as a sort of guard, to keep intruders away.
Seconds later, Jorg was at my side. He sliced the boar’s neck with his knife, ensuring it didn’t try to attack again. Then he spun and caught me just as my knees buckled.
He draped my arm across his shoulder while he assessed my wound.
I closed my eyes and fought down the bile that had begun to rise. My pain was beyond endurance.
“If I pull out the tusk, it’s possible you’ll bleed to death.” Jorg braced me higher, taking the weight off my injured leg.
“If you leave it in, it’ll do more damage.”
Jorg examined it more closely. “It’s at an odd angle. If I remove it, I’ll tear your flesh irreparably.”