TWENTY-TWO
I MOVED AS quietly as possible, shimmying down the side of the tree opposite from where the glowmen were approaching. My belongings were already in my bag, and I hadn’t unsaddled Ferguson the whole way. If I could get down, tighten the girth, and adjust the bridle without being spotted . . .
My toes breezed over the ground. I felt around for a heartbeat to make sure I didn’t do something stupid like step on a twig and alert the whole wraithland to my presence. But my footing was good, and I lowered myself from the tree and crept around the trunk.
Torchlight silhouetted my horse. Metal clanked on his bridle as he swung his head around to look at me.
“Hush,” I whispered, running my palms over his sweat-dampened neck. Reins snaked around my fingers, alive.
Strangling a gasp, I jerked back my hands and stared hard at the leather straps, but they hung against Ferguson’s withers, inanimate again. Maybe the motion had been my imagination.
Even if it had been real, I had to hurry.
“I heard something!” The crashing of glowmen was louder and nearer.
Quickly, I tightened the bridle and girth, but just as I hooked my bag onto the saddle, enormous hands grabbed me from behind and lifted.
“Got it!” The giant hands squeezed my torso.
Air whooshed from my lungs. I flailed, blindly groping for the saddle, as though I could still pull myself onto the horse, but Ferguson was straining against his tether, fighting to get away from the glowman.
“Hold it still. We want to see.” The rest of the pack crashed through the woods, waving their torch around as though they didn’t care about setting the whole place ablaze.
I kicked backward, but I couldn’t reach him. I was high above my horse—almost as high as I’d been in the tree. These glowmen were bigger than the ones I’d fought in Skyvale, probably from being out here in the wraith so long. Already, dizziness buzzed in my head. The giant’s grip tightened, making my ribs ache.
“It squirms.” His voice was like thunder, vibrating through my bones.
Blackness swarmed in my vision. My breaths were shallow gasps.
The others came nearer and peered at me, their huge, malformed faces gaping. The stink of sour breath rolled over me. I couldn’t reach the weapons at my hip.
“Let me see it.” One of the others grabbed for me. The fingers around my waist loosened and I sucked in a lungful of air as I was passed from one monstrosity to the next. But it wasn’t enough. My ribs ached, making every breath like fire. “It has no face. Only eyes.”
“I want to look.” Another glowman plucked me from the other’s grip, this time by my elbow.
Torchlight burned my eyes as I swung through the air, but finally I could breathe and had one arm free.
With a hacking cough, I drew my sword and sliced open the glowman’s wrist. Blood sprayed and I dropped, my knees and knuckles slamming into the ground. But I kept my grip on my sword. Nothing could make me drop it.
“You’re so stupid!” One of the glowmen shoved the one who’d dropped me. “You have to hold on to them.”
I scrambled to my feet, out of the way of grasping hands, and drove my sword deep into a giant foot.
The glowman yowled and staggered into the others, knocking over some. One reached for me, but I was faster. I stabbed another in the knee. Blood oozed down the length of my sword.
The ground shuddered and brush cracked. The night was chaos: glowmen fighting one another, grabbing for me, and the sudden howling of a beast nearby. It had scented blood.
I swung my blade high once more, slicing knees and calves. The nearest glowman tried to bat me into the woods, but I lifted my sword at the last second; his fingers came off.
The baying of beasts grew closer. I spun and ran for Ferguson. The poor thing shied, but there was nowhere for him to go. Already the rope stretched and creaked.
I heaved myself onto the saddle and cut the tether. We snapped away, galloping at full speed as an enormous, bear-shaped shadow descended on the pack of glowmen. Screams chased us down the road, but I kept myself low over Ferguson’s neck as his body stretched and folded in a panicked run.
We didn’t stop when droplets of horse sweat misted across my face. We didn’t stop when the sounds of the dying glowmen faded into the distance. We didn’t stop when the sun lifted into the violet sky.
Only when Ferguson had run himself out did we slow to a shaky-legged walk while he caught his breath.
I could have died. My horse, too. We could have died, and no one would have known where I’d gone, except Melanie and Black Knife. She had threatened to come after me if I didn’t return on time, and he . . . I didn’t know.
But they’d been right to worry, right to be afraid for me. What happened if I died? What would happen to the Ospreys, especially the ones with secrets they didn’t understand? Or Aecor? I’d been so flip when I told Melanie that Patrick would figure out something to do.
It was midmorning by the time I halted Ferguson at a stream and let him drink. I trembled all over as I freed him from his tack and set about rinsing the blood and sweat that covered both of us. The work steadied my thoughts, if not my body, and by the time we were on the move again, walking toward the setting sun, I knew one thing for sure:
I would do anything to survive out here. Anything to get back to the people I cared about.