Earthwitch

14. Anele

Hunger and sleep are terrible friends, and they steal from each other in the night. Anele stomped it down even as she slept, shoving the sharp pang under a restless dream. It was easy to ignore the things that didn't go away; the other option took more energy. No one thought about breathing, they just did it because it had to be done.

Something else woke her up. 

In the wild, you learned to open your eyes without moving. Her whole body tingled, and not from the sand chaffing her side. The sun burned against her back, casting her shadow far out in front. A second one loomed over it.

The mandrill slammed into the mound of sand Anele had been resting her head on. By the time it swiped again, she'd backed out of range...

...of a paw.

Silver light flashed past her face, and a hot tear ran down her cheek.

In the beat that separated one moment from the next, the world explained itself.

Same mandrill, same calculating eyes, same nauseating mist leaking over its teeth in yellow wisps. Even crouching it was twice her height, flared mane blocked out the sun. A drop of Poison aura fell from its lip and hit the sand with a sizzle.

Then the knife in its fist caught her eye. Clear glass, except for a red stain on the tip. Anele's blood disappeared into glass, clouding the blade.

She put out a hand. "Thanks for returning it, friend."

The mandrill swiped at her wrist and caught air. 

With the element of surprise gone, the game changed, so it kept low and crept forward slowly. There was no weight in its glare this time, that would have given away the ambush, but it was a face off now, so why mask its soul?

The Pettygod.

Neither of them could outrun it in the open or fend it off in a fight. They'd gotten away the first time because the thing had been too busy gorging on the boar. And the other mandrill, probably.

Anele's stomach turned.

Fending off a pack of wild dogs would've been easier. They could think their way to a kill too, but they didn't think like people.

"Killing me won't help you escape that monster," she said, "it'll help me. And seeing as you're faster on all fours, you're better off swapping that knife for a head start."

This time, when she held out an open palm, Anele waited.

Leathery fingers swallowed her arm in a vice grip, and yanked with enough force to tear a limb off a tree -- but not roots from the earth. An open maw met a closed fist, and another. Anele stepped under a swinging knife, set her feet, and twisted into a shot that lifted two tons off the ground.

You didn't need a soul to feel a liver strike. If anything, it made it worse.

The mandrill landed on two limbs, heaved, fell to three. The bubble of aura around its spirit burst with a thunderous pop, scattering waves of sand in every direction. By the time the echo faded, they were standing on a flat island in a swirling desert.

Well, one of them was standing.

"You can't hide your soul, I don't have one to hide." Anele took the knife back with no resistance. "Crawl if you can't run."

A glint of light caught her eye. Too late.

Slowly, slowly, she followed it back to the horizon. The full-body tingle that could hear danger coming around the corner crawled out of her bones, and then she met his gaze, and it fled back to safety.

He stood on a dune miles away, but the weight of his attention dragged the sky so low it grazed the scalp. Realization hit Anele hard, bounced off a wall of disbelief, then began to burrow.

The Pettygod was only honed in on her.