The Hunter and The Healer

Chapter 3: The Traitor

Alani pov
"Climb up!" I told Cora. She obeyed instantly and swiftly shimmied up the tree with one last worried glance at me. I didn't meet her gaze. I threw my backpack at the edge of the tree and turned back toward the guards. They had gathered behind one another, blocking our path. Our best chance was to fight our way out.

Harmon was frozen in place, his back to me. I unbuckled my sword and threw it to him. It landed at his feet, but he made no move to pick it up. I preferred short swords to long ones. The blades I took from the guards always seemed imbalanced in my hand. I grabbed the hilt of my knife and hurled it at the closest one.

I perfected knife throwing in the last year. It went right through the eye slit. The guard dropped to the ground. He didn't get up after that. I had three more to deal with.

Harmon still hadn't moved. The sword still lay at his feet, and a guard was coming toward him. I learned that the guards didn't attack together. It was as if they took turns trying to kill us. When one died, another would replace him. That was one of the reasons we had survived this long.

I swore, then palmed two daggers and whirled on him. I wasn't good at hand to hand fights, so I focused on throwing from a distance. The first dagger found its mark in the chest of one of the guards. I kept the other in my hand as I stepped in front of Harmon. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him a couple times.

My expression must have been scarier than I thought, because he snapped out of his shock and picked up the sword.  I had no choice but to turn my back to him and face the guard. I could only hope that he wouldn't stab me.

But he didn't. He only stepped up to my side, holding the sword awkwardly in both hands. I decided to trust him. For now. If he didn't slip and stab himself by accident.

There were two of them left, and two of us. I flipped my last dagger in my hand as one of them approached, but Harmon beat me to the guard. He wasn't as inexperienced as I thought. He blocked and parried, but movement caught my eye. I turned to see the other guard sneaking behind me, to where Cora perched on the tree.

My dagger was flying before I could blink. It planted itself in the guard's back, and he fell forward at the foot of the tree. When I was sure he wasn't going to get up, I turned back to help Harmon, but he didn't need any. I found him standing over the masked guard, the sword in his hand, a deep stab wound in the guard's chest.

I froze at the sight. Bile rose in my throat. That was the exact position I found my parents in. My breaths turned heavy  and my chest constricted. But then a small hand tapped my shoulder.

I tore my eyes from the guard and turned to find Cora watching me anxiously. She looked at Harmon, whose gaze was fixed on us, calculating. There was clearly more to his story than what he told me, and I intended to find out what he kept from me. No one could match the guards in swordplay. They were trained to fight their whole lives; their swords were almost extensions of their arms.

I had only seen one person defeat them before, and he was like nothing I'd ever seen. I couldn't picture Harmon in the same position, with his sluggishness and lack of balance. I pushed all those thoughts aside. I would think about them later.

Harmon was still watching us, and it bothered me that I couldn't read his expression. He strode toward us, and I took a half-step in front of Cora. He noticed that too. He stopped before me and held my daggers out. He had cleaned them, it seemed, and gotten me new ones from the guards.

I strapped them to my belt, and realized that he kept the sword strapped to his. I decided to leave it with him. I would take it when he was asleep. Cora peered from behind me. I knew she hated it when I was this protective, but I took no chances when it came to her safety.