Grimmer (Sequel to Kailin)

Chapter 22: Sides To Be Taken

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Ana

***

The sun was setting on my third night alone.

I'd slept the first one, having been allowed relative silence without real fear of attack.

I had to have been on the far west borders of the forest, which ran up Kail in similar trail to the east, except that the woods ended well enough with the flat plateaus that marked... something else. Most maps ended there, so I guessed it was Sheer, from what Zanek had told me.

With a forearm propped over my eyes, I didn't really notice the shifting light until Jade snorted playfully in my hair. I wasn't entirely inclined to be stepped on by his increasingly impatient hooves on the dirt. I sat up for the first time all day.

There was a dead leaf in my hair that he had fun pushing out by the quick back-and-forth of his rough upper lip.

"Fine," I huffed, lurching to my feet. In a smooth move I threw my legs over his bare back, gathered the reins, and clicked. Jade eagerly jumped into a less-than-gentle trot for me. I squeezed his sides until he extended it.

Once he ducked out of the darker shadows of the forest, he transitioned to a composed lope. I dropped the reins to look around.

I didn't know where I was going. But I was south, and I was west.

Of course, the smell hit me first.

Heavy smoke drifted through the still air that came before new winds. Jade had sensed it first, and his inhale grew deeper, the sound of his nostrils widening and the air traveling through his hollow throat reminding me of a storm of its own. He tossed his blue-dappled neck.

With a suddenness, he slowed from a near-gallop to a hopping piaffe. I slid from his back before he could stop completely.

The moon was just a quarter full, and offered little help behind the clouds as I searched for the source. In every direction to horizon seemed to fade into the same greying color.

But soon enough, the muffled roars alerted me.

I leapt back onto Jade because I wasn't in a hurry. He continued into his soft three-beat in that direction, not phased by the sound and smell of danger.

I only realized about halfway to the dark shapes of a town that I was armed only with Sireth and possibly my teeth, if needed. Jade had a couple sharp shoes, though. Those could be put to use.

It wasn't until a slimmer figure darted through the shadow of a burned building that I thought of searching for elves. I probably should have known. They told me others would be out here.

It appeared to be some sort of ambush, in favor of the sleek shadows that slipped and jumped through the dancing darkness cast by embers from a long-burnt fire. I didn't really want to get involved with them, but I wasn't about to let them fight alone.

Jade knew what to do, which didn't surprise me, though I'd thought it would. He'd never seemed one to ride through battle.

Just when I thought that maybe I'd been wrong all this time, he squealed, rearing with wide eyes not one length from jumping over a grimmer that had been kneeling, as if to catch its breath.

In the same moment I snarled at the sudden move, I leapt over Jade's falling neck and ripped into a shift, bringing my black jaws around the neck of the grimmer to finish it.

Jade, frightened by the sudden commotion that allowed him no exit, burst forward, stomping and kicking at anything near in his attempt to flee. I barely saw him kick out the jaw of a grimmer before I was running forward myself, eyes locked on a new target.