dull pewter.
Suddenly all the voices in my head, the ones who’d stayed and those that had just returned, screamed,
I opened my eyes, not even realizing I’d closed them until I saw Vayl’s face hovering over mine, eyes wide, jaw tight with suppressed panic. I blinked. Nodded.
“They are coming,” he said. “We must lead them up this hill to the path.”
“Why?”
“Cole and Kyphas are waiting among the trees, perhaps fifty yards up.”
“
Vayl’s lips tightened. “It was largely an act to mislead Brude. I made a separate deal with her, when you—and he—could not hear. She has agreed to fight with us.”
“Because it’s in her best interests to!”
“She has also vowed to do no violence to any within our Trust.”
“Trust. That word bites on so many levels,” I muttered as we struggled up the slope, both of us now armored in such thick coatings of ice that when the first shots hit us we barely noticed them. In fact, some of them actually sounded pleasant, like Jack barking, that’s how wishful my thinking had become.
“Faster,” Vayl urged.
I grunted to let him know I was moving as quick as my creaking outer skin would allow. But when I felt the impact of a gnome slug slam into my back, I paused. Did a slow-motion spin. Raised Grief and commanded my finger to pull the trigger. The extra three seconds it took helped my aim. The guard crumpled, a hole in the socket where his eye had once been.
I glanced at my gun and felt glad I’d been holding it when Vayl had covered me. Because its grip had frozen to my palm, and if I hadn’t had my finger inside the trigger guard when the icing had gone down, I’d be cruising the woods for a club right now.
I backed up, took out another pursuer who was so sure of his future success that he’d stepped out from behind a grass tree to shoot. His buddy, sitting in the lower branches of the tree next door, dropped to the ground to check on him. I took him out, as well as another guard who was moving toward us from the same small hide.
“Come, Jasmine, run!”
Turning back, I forced my legs into a slow lope, my inner fire warming my muscles as the adrenaline boosts from all the shards flying off my body boosted me to even greater speed. Vayl led me straight uphill to a spot where a gravel path crossed ours. We turned sharply right to follow it. The trail would’ve been a cinch in any other conditions. Rising gently upward toward the skirts of Mount Eliza, its width allowed us to jog shoulder to shoulder. In places planked bridges gave us easy access to the opposite sides of shallow gullies. To our right, the trees grew closer together, giving us better cover than we’d had since beginning the chase. To our left large rocks had begun to take the place of trees, jutting from the side of the hill like giant, fleshy mushrooms.
“Do you see the bend in the path ahead of us?” Vayl asked.
“Yeah.”
“That is our goal.”
I’d turned to shoot again when I heard the sound of gunfire coming from behind us. We’d passed Cole.
I’d seen the flash from his muzzle. Heard the death-scream of a pursuer. Swift movement from Astral’s feed caught my eye. Kyphas, flinging her boomerang, laughed with delight as she watched it crush the throat of a careless Ufranite before it flipped back into her hand.
I pushed forward, making the bend just in time to dodge a shot that cracked into the rock behind my left shoulder. I’d escaped a bad blow. Plus the shadow trotting at my feet assured me Astral had come through the firefight unharmed. But I had no time to celebrate. Something punched me in the chest, taking me to my butt. I looked down. The ice had shattered, leaving a hole the size of a pool ball.
Astral sat beside me, her head cocked. “Hello!” she said.
I said, “Shit! They’re ahead of us, Vayl!”
We rolled into the brush, taking shelter behind a pile of nearly leafless branches. Vayl slammed his hand against the trunk of a nearby tree. The ice encasing it shattered, giving him the flexibility he needed to access his sword.
Astral leaped onto my lap, lost her grip, and skidded down my legs like a ski jumper. She hopped clear when she reached my ankles, sat at my feet and stared at me reproachfully.
“See what you get for behaving like a cat?” I told her. “R2-D2 never would’ve pulled such an embarrassing stunt.”
She turned her back to me, licking little frozen shards off one pitch-black paw. Every time she opened her mouth I could hear Foreigner singing, “You’re as cold as ice.”
“Smartass,” I muttered. I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, I saw what hadn’t been clear before. Movement under a bridge that lay the length of a football field ahead of us. Which put us within range of their weapons. But we’d have to get a damn sight closer before we could strike with ours.
They were a group of chasers who’d circled around and set themselves up under the bridge’s wood-planked shelter. The path continued beyond them, and I studied it with a sense of urgency so deep it made me twitch. We had to get past these goons fast, before Ruvin became infant formula. But how?
Trees continued beyond their position along our side of the hill, so we could approach from that direction. But we wouldn’t have them pinned. Because it looked like a gap in the rocks by the bridge led to another trail.
