The Sanctuary

CHAPTER TWO

The sun was rising quickly, beating down on my neck. I yearned to pull my heavy brown coat off, but the coat helped me blend in with the woods so I kept it on. 

My eyes were trained on my surroundings, noticing every indentation in the dirt, every bent twig on the path. My feet moved carefully, as to make very little sound, not wanting to alert anyone to my presence. My fingers kept itching to pat my sides, the daggers holstered to my waist, as if they had disappeared in the last few moments.

Kat’s scared eyes had made their way into my mind countless times in the past hour that I had spent searching for her. Fear was making me go nearly insane. Fear for the girl’s life. Even more than my own.

Madame Widow had brought the six-year-old girl into the Sanctuary three weeks ago. Left me in charge of the child for a reason I could not fathom. I was to be her Shadow, train her in the way we do things, in the way the Saiyaran people survive.

I could hardly be bothered. 

And now, as I slowly crept through the Briarwood forest, straining for some sort of sign she had been through these parts, I was cursing my stupidity. I had not predicted that she would run.

A faint nose halted me in my tracks. Pausing, I took a deep breath and listened carefully. The air was cool, the wind barely blowing, but the sound still carried. 

The sound of whizzing arrows. 

Heart in my throat, I broke out into a run. Kat must’ve been following the Riders, hoping their trail would lead her back to the Farsay Kingdom. Back to her home. 

That girl was going to get herself killed!

No longer concerned about the noise I was making, I charged through the forest, running at full speed, leaping over fallen logs and pushing away crowding bushes. My chest began to strain as my lungs screamed for air, but I kept running. 

I finally skidded to a full halt as the sounds of battle came crashing around me. Screams and shouts echoed around the woods. I knelt to the ground, and crept forward, trying to remain inconspicuous, heart pattering in my throat.

I pushed back the last of the bushes before me and could barely keep my jaw from falling.

Dead. Everyone was dead.

Farsay soldiers lay in a heap in the middle of the clearing, bodies piled up on one another. Panicked horses were fleeing, a few steeds fallen in the sea of arrows. Some lucky men were escaping into the woods, but most of them lay in the middle, pierced by more arrows than I could count.

Bile rose quickly to the back of my throat and I pressed my lips together to keep from throwing up. I had never seen so many dead men, their faces frozen in expressions of shock – as if time had stopped, and once it began ticking again, they would get back up and proceed with their lives as normal.

The arrows were endless, flying down from the sky as if sent from the Gods themselves. I looked up, my eyes straining to identify the source. Riders were hidden in the tall trees that surrounded the area, camouflaged so well that it took me more than a few moments to spot them. I could not recognize any of the archers, their faces covered by black hoods.

Sounds of moaning came from the pile of mangled Farsay soldiers. Some of the men were clearly still alive. 

Shoot them, I thought. Leaving them to die in pain seemed to me a fate worse than death.

Then suddenly – a movement from the corner of my eye. A man broke through the trees in a mad sprint. He was so fast, I barely even saw the direction he came in.