There was a stillness in the air. The woods had been humming softly with the sound of insects, but now it was unnaturally silent. It was as if the woods held its breath.
They found a path, wide and unusually straight, but it only seemed to be used by wild pigs. Their tracks were everywhere, following in lines. There must be a lot of boars roaming in bands in the woods. Elric wished he were a better hunter. He was beginning to get hungry. But by the size of the tracks, the beasts were larger than the ones in the Otherworld. And a wild boar could be more dangerous than a wolf when confronted. It was probably best to avoid them, as well. The pig tracks diverted onto a branching path that swung around a large boulder.
Elric pressed on through a patch of thick fallen leaves. The ground felt strangely springy under his feet.
“Elric!” Osmund’s sharp call sounded like the crack of a whip. “Don’t move.”
He froze, his sword at the ready. “What is it?” Elric’s heart picked up, and he did his best to breathe like Master Elk had taught him and steady his hands. He had a sinking feeling, and thought he heard the brittle sound of a twig breaking. That was odd.
“Turn around. Place your feet very lightly,” Osmund said in a calm voice, his hands outstretched as if he were balancing on something treacherous. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”
Elric placed his foot, and this time he definitely felt the ground sway underneath him. To his right, he noticed a peculiar twisted vine pulled taut between the ground and the thick branch of a tree above them. That twist didn’t happen naturally; it was a rope. He traced the rope up over the branch to a cluster of leaves above him hiding a large bell.
A trap. And he was standing on it.
With a racing heart, Elric sheathed his sword and held his hands out wide for balance. He dug his feet under the leaves and felt a woven lattice of branches tied together with lumpy knots. The entire thing felt as if it would break at any moment. He stepped on the knots, hoping that they reinforced the strength of the branches at the joints. Every time he shifted his weight, the entire contraption shook under his feet, and the bell above him swayed even though it didn’t ring just yet.
“Grab my hands!” Osmund said as he leaned forward as far as he could. Elric couldn’t do it. If the trap did give way, he didn’t want to pull Osmund in with him. He needed another plan. Stepping carefully to the edge of the scattered leaves, he used all his strength to leap as far as he could, landing with a thud on the path beside Osmund. His heart was still pounding, but he took a deep breath to calm his nerves.
“That was close,” Osmund said as he helped Elric up. “This is elf handiwork. I have no doubt.”
“From now on,” Elric said, “we follow the pig tracks. They seem to recognize these things, and we’ll avoid large patches of leaves.”
“Good plan,” Osmund agreed. “You’re lucky you’re still a boy. If you were any heavier, that trap would have collapsed.”
They skirted around the edge of the leaves, testing the give of the ground to make sure they actually had dirt beneath their feet. They walked ahead a little ways before they saw a huge open pit farther up the path. Elric hurried forward, fighting the urge to call out Wynn’s name, but he couldn’t without the stalking reaper hearing him. What if she had wandered onto one of these terrible traps?
Elric reached the edge of the pit, out of breath. The pieces of the lattice that had covered the top of the pit hung down into it like broken sections of a rotting roof. Elric bent his knees and leaned his weight back before looking into the pit.
He let out the breath he was holding when he saw that the pit was empty. Well, it was not exactly empty. The pit was deep, at least twenty feet, and at the bottom, large sharpened pikes had been sunk into the ground so they would hold fast when some unfortunate creature fell into them. Now that he saw what was at the bottom of the trap, he felt a little sick. He was glad he didn’t know what waited below him earlier.
Osmund came up beside him and let out a low whistle. “Whatever fell in here, it looks like it climbed out.” He pointed to claw marks fiercely raking one side of the pit by a dangling portion of the lattice.
“Lucky for it.” Elric backed away. He didn’t want to remain near these traps any longer than necessary. They didn’t know what other surprises the inventive elves laid in this area.
He heard a leaf crunch behind him. The hair stood up on the back of his neck and his ears tingled.
“Osmund?” A creeping sensation followed a chill running up and down his arms. “We should get out of here. Now.”
A low rumble of thunder sounded somewhere on the horizon, but the sound didn’t fade. Instead it melded into the distinct growl of the reaper.
“Where is it coming from?” Osmund said as he turned his back to Elric’s. They readied their weapons and protected their backs, just as Master Elk had taught. Only then did Elric realize Osmund likely had the same lessons when he lived in the Between.
The reaper howled, and the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. Elric gripped the hilt of his sword and focused on his breathing. Elk had faced this creature and nearly died. Elric wasn’t a soldier. He was only a shepherd.
As the storm continued to rumble in the distance, only his darkest and most defeating thoughts surfaced in his mind. There was
