From Ashes and Snow

Seeker

Unedited. 

Chapter 44 – Seeker.

For three long days and three long nights, I walked. There were moments of rest but I was terrified to close my eyes encase I did not open them again. But no matter how far I pushed my aching body, I still didn't reach the end of the gorge in three days.

The path looked the same, every twist and turn reminded me of the last. I chewed only herbs and tried to pack my open wounds, but they were getting tight and hot, the ends puckering and turning a dark and angry red. I felt useless in their terrain. I was used to hunting in hilly lands, where the snow piled high and I knew where to go to avoid a pack of hunting wolves or an angry bear. I didn't know this canyon, I didn't know it's plants and every distant skitter of stone made me think of a prowling animal, watching me stagger and just waiting for me to fall.

I was lucky though to possess a roughly drawn map, and the Legion left marks of their passing if I looked hard enough. The ash from dead fires. A broken wagon left behind, stripped of its goods. I took sips of my water and that was it, though all I longed for was a river. My throat was parched and my tongue and teeth felt gritty.

"You just need to find Adotlan yourself," I told myself seriously as I staggered forward. "The Captain will have mobilized the Legion. No one is waiting for you."

I didn't reply to myself. A strange little scaled creature watched me with slitted eyes, flicking out a forked tongue as I passed. It froze as I paused, smiling at the curious little thing that was covered in colorful scales. "Do you know the way out of here?"

The little thing scuttled into a crevice and I watched it go, disheartened to lose the only company I had in days. I pushed onward. My knee lasted a surprisingly long time but with the fight with the Insurgent, and the following fall, it soon began to pain me.

Every step became rougher and I had to stop for frequent breaks, becoming more incensed as I watched the sun turn in the skies and I knew I was losing time. The days turned darker as clouds gathered again on the horizon and around me, as the hours crept by and I staggered on, the walls of the canyon began to spread wider and wider.

Then, on a day that seemed like any other, a sound broke the silence of the canyon. It was distant, but it echoed in the wide space. It made me freeze, and I stared ahead at the empty road and waited.

Nothing.

Asha'da, I was hallucinating now.

Wind soothed my feverish brow and I pushed myself forward though my legs shook. I just needed to get out of this canyon and find a river or something I recognised to sustain myself. Another baying sound caught my attention, louder this time.

I slowed again and my heart thundered in my ears. Raising two fingers to my lips, I whistled loud and clear. That sound cut through the canyon and silence chased it.

"You are imagining things, Aviana." I shook my near-empty water skin grimly. "Foolish wo..."

I cut off at the sound of heavy barking. My walking slowed to a crawling pace as two figures appeared in the distance in front of me. A clash of black and grey, they almost seemed like mirages as they bounded towards me. Amber eyes flashed and heavy tongues fell over a sharp row of teeth.

I let out a sob, relief crashing through me as the hounds pounded towards me, the wind catching their fur. Claws scraped on stone as they skittered to a stop in front of me, their massive bodies shaking with the force of their joy. Wet noses sniffed at me and they whined incessantly, lapping at my dusty skin and snuffling.