In Love and War

Chapter 11 - The Chase

The creature would have resembled a wolf, if it weren't for the fact it was so huge it had to look down on her. Strangely, instead of fur, tiny grey feathers covered it from head to swishing tail. Feathered wings sprouted from its muscled back, looming over her, half extended. It took a step closer, and Arya could see saliva glistening off huge, white fangs.

The creature took another step forward, and Arya took a slow step backward. She slid a hand into her sleeve and grasped the hilt of a knife. It snarled softly.

She took another step backward and the wolf-monster shadowed her. They began a tense dance--Arya would back away, and it would follow her, growling softly.

Until her back hit a tree. The creature pounced. Arya dropped and rolled, but not before a huge claw sliced through her sleeve and bit into her arm. There was a boom as the creature slammed into the tree.

Arya was already sprinting through the trees as it gave a ear-splitting roar and crashed after her. Blood dripped down her arm as she ran, sending bolts of pain up her muscle.

It was fast--too fast. Arya chanced once glance back to see it gaining on her, long bounds eating up the ground between them, those huge wings helping it along with lazy beats. She swore filthily.

She darted in between two intertwined trees and bolted deeper into the forest. The creature was on her heels now, and she could hear every rasped breath getting louder with every step. She had seconds--seconds--before it would catch her in those huge teeth. There was a snap of jaws behind her. An ancient, wide tree loomed, and she sprung off it, using her momentum to slingshot herself in another direction. The creature skidded on the loose leaves as it scrabbled to follow her, a howl building in its throat.

Her legs were burning, her throat scraping with every breath. She glanced behind her again, and the creature was catching her again, eyes fixed on her with rage. She doubted it expected she'd put up much of a fight. She smiled grimly. Turned out, fighting was the one thing she was good at.

She willed her legs faster. She leaped over a fallen tree, zigzagged through a patch of dense trees, but still it gained, its movements smooth as it hurtled through the forest, a predator on the hunt. She was the prey.

Her mind spun. A plan--she needed a plan. Her only advantage over the creature was her intellect, she needed to use it. But how? Her legs were growing clumsy, the adrenaline making her head fuzzy and her legs clumsy.

She burst out of the forest and gaped up at a huge rock wall. Moss trailed from miniscule cracks in the rock, but there was nothing for her to use to climb, nothing... Her foot caught on a root and she went flying, crashing to the ground. She scrambled up again, throwing herself forward, but she was too slow, and there was a snap as it sunk its teeth in--

She was thrown through the air as it shook its head, and her skirt ripped with a hiss. She tumbled to a stop against the cliff wall.

It advanced on her now, eyes fixed on her with almost human intelligence. Part of her skirt trailed from its huge teeth. Impaled on those sharp teeth. She pushed herself up with exhausted arms, but her head was shrieking, her lungs aching.

The creature growled a warning when she moved, stalking closer. She pressed back, mind whirling muddily, and bits of sand fell from beneath her back. Sandstone... sandstone. The rock was sandstone.

Arya moved her hands behind her back and into her sleeves, wrapping sweaty fingers around her knifes. She shifted, gathering her feet beneath her. The creature prowled closer. It was toying with her. She could see her reflection in its eyes now, huddled pitifully against a wall.

Closer, closer, closer... and when its teeth were mere handspans from her face, she sprang.

It was not expecting her to move, and it jerked back snarling as she leapt not away but at it.

She whipped her knives around her body and slashed at its face. It twisted away, but she managed to open a cut above its eyes. Blood began to flow. And Arya began to sprint.

The creature's roar shook the forest floor. Back into the forest Arya ran, her head pounding and her feet flying. She slammed her knives back into their sheath and looked back. The creature bounded after her, shaking blood from its eyes, rage in every step. If she didn't kill it, it would kill her.

Arya leapt over a fallen tree, ducked under a branch, and darted to her right, tattered remains of her dress streaming behind her. Even injured and half-blind, somehow, it gained on her. She slid under a low branch, and darted to her right. Scrambled on a patch of wet leaves. It grew closer, wings spreading as it prepared to help itself along. Its mouth was twisted in a snarl, teeth gleaming. Arya bolted for her life. Her feet flew over the forest floor, faster than she'd ever run before. Just a little farther.

She burst out of forest again at a full tilt and ran for her life. The beast followed blindly, not noticing that she'd run in a circle. As that rock wall grew nearer, she gritted her teeth.

When she reached the rock wall at a sprint, Arya leapt, brought her knees up, and shoved off the wall in a move she'd seen one of Nightshades fighters use off the wall of the Arena. Arya flipped over the blinded beast as it followed her scent, eyes widening as the wall finally cleared in its bloody vision. It twisted, but it was going too fast to stop.

Arya crashed into a roll across the ground and her ankle screamed as it twisted until something snapped. But she was already throwing herself away from the wall, arms over her head.

The wolf-creature slammed into the wall with all of its considerable momentum. The wall cracked, the sandstone splitting so easily, as those spiderweb cracks that the moss clung to widened and finally split. Boulders began to slide down the wall, a mini avalanche of rock.

A few seconds was all it took, and all was silent.

Arya shook sand and bits of rock out of her hair and stood on unsteady feet. Her head had hit the ground in the clumsy fall, and pain was pounding against her skull. Her ankle throbbed and she had to lean on her thighs to catch her breath and deal with the pain. Her heart slowed, her breathing evened out.

When she was sure she wasn't going to throw up, she stood and limped over to the lump underneath the rubble. The creature's head had escaped the rock, but the rest of it was pinned. Probably crushed.

As she picked her way over to it, something stirred in the rubble, and Arya froze. She stepped over to the beast's head. A yellow eye stared up at her from the wreckage. It tried to move again, struggling against gravity. Rocks scraped and tumbled, but it was too weak.

Arya drew a knife. She should kill the creature before it escaped and killed her. It would serve as sorely needed food if she could make a fire to cook the meat. But as she held the knife to the creature's neck, it went still. Its clever eye, golden in the light, brilliant as a human, stared up at her. Slowly, it closed its eyes and bared its neck. A breath escaped its battered body. Goodbye, it seemed to say.

Arya sheathed her knife and stared down at it. It opened its eye, clouded with pain.

"You owe me a life," she growled down at it, pointing to it, then touching her chest. Its eye flicked to her hand, then back up to her face, and she thought she saw understanding pass over its eye. She glanced over at its body, pinned beneath the huge rocks. It would escape eventually. And if it could bear to struggle, nothing could be broken too badly. It would escape, and it would survive.

Arya left it there. Using strips cut from her dress, she bound her ankle as best she could, and continued to walk.

North, Nightshade had said. North to find the warrior to bring your enemy to his knees.

So Arya walked north.

* * * * *

Good evening,

I updated finally. 

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