“Hold on!” I called back to Marcel. I ducked to pull Osprey’s bound hands over my head and slide them down to rest around my waist. We were uncomfortably close – well, it would have been uncomfortable with anyone else – but it was the best way I could think of to keep him safe.
“You’re insane,” he whispered as the carabao galloped across the rutted ground, eating up the distance in seconds instead of minutes, so very fast that I feared he might crash into something or break a leg in one of the many potholes. “You nearly got yourself captured. I’ve told you before that you’re the priority here. If you’d left me, they wouldn’t have harmed me and you would be much safer.”
“It was the only thing I could think of,” I said evenly.
“They know where we are now.” His words were barely audible over the crashing of the carabao as it turned off the road and into the woods. My bee zipped in from out of nowhere, hovering over us and faintly lighting the wild ride.
“They knew anyway,” I argued and then called back behind me. “Are you still with us, Marcel?”
He moaned. “I will be if you can slow this beast. We’re going to miss the gap. It’s up near a faint path ahead. I think. This animal bounces and weaves in ways I didn’t expect.”
“The gap you wanted to bring us to?” I asked.
“That’s the one.”
“The one we had to trust you about?”
“Yes.”
I sawed on the reins, trying to slow the carabao, but it was spooked and angry and just like me, it saw only one way forward.
Chapter Five
WE DIDN’T MISS THE gap after all. Though it was not like anything I’d seen before.
The carabao eventually slowed, though it kept snorting and tossing its head in an agitated manner. The creature had run straight toward a tangle of Forbidding and the dark magic reached for it from the forest, tangling and rippling out like smoky tentacles. The carabao tossed his heavy head, horns swishing back and forth as if he could fight the landscape on his own.
A few moments after it stopped, a shape shambled out of the dark tentacles – a shape I hadn’t seen since I left Far Reach. My heart stuttered in my chest.
Biting back a curse, I scrambled out of Osprey’s hold and slid to the ground, drawing my sword. A Forbidding bear would make short work of a carabao. Especially one as spooked as this one.
“Grab the reins, Marcel,” I called over my shoulder.
He leaned over the side of the carabao and vomited. I cursed again. I’d been right. His head wound was serious. He needed rest.
“You can’t fight a Forbidding bear on your own, girl,” he said in a muffled voice. He must have been wiping his mouth. “Dodge around it and get us to the gap.”
I didn’t spare him a glance to look at him. My eyes were trained on the bear. I knew we couldn’t dodge it and none of my companions could help me.
The bear was large for its kind. Not the largest I’d ever fought, but certainly the largest I’d fought alone – and I knew there would be no getting around it. Not with that look in its eyes. On top of that, the Claws might be right behind us if they’d managed to catch any of the mounts. I had to do this fast.
I swallowed, flexing my hand on the hilt of the sword and concentrating.
I kept my eye on the bear while I fumbled for my flint and reached down to tear up handfuls of dry grass from the base of a nearby tree.
“Stay on the mount, Marcel,” I ordered him. “Whether you have faith in me or not, you’re too injured to fight and someone needs to keep Osprey on the back of the carabao.”
“Go through the gap, House Apidae. We will distract the bear,” Osprey said, but his voice was muffled with pain. My bee must be busy again.
“Don’t you dare get down from that carabao,” I huffed.
I didn’t look back. I’d have to hope he had enough common sense to listen to me.
The bear shambled forward, sniffing the air, its body coalescing and then disintegrating into a mass of smoky tentacles only to reform as a bear again. I kindled the fire quickly, setting it beside the tree and leaning a pile of hastily gathered sticks against the flame. I’d need it the moment I had the bear in check. Nothing killed the Forbidding except fire to the heart – unless it was maybe blood, but I had only heard about that. I hadn’t seen it in action. And since cuts and wounds didn’t seem to hold the Forbidding back, I could only assume the blood was life’s blood – the blood of someone no longer living. And that was not an option.
The fire danced and leapt along the twigs at the same moment that the bear stood on its hind legs and lunged. I brought my sword up just in time, staying low under the charge as he crashed down on me with crushing force. It should have knocked me onto my back, but I managed a sidestep at the last second, just ducking out from under his forepaw and twisting my weight out from under him with a quick jut of the hips. His claws raked down my arm and I bit back a scream.
Behind me, I heard Osprey calling out and Marcel arguing with him. In the back of my mind, like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, I could feel my bee going deeper into his chest. No time for that.
I spun, slashing, and hacking at the bear’s back. I only had time for a handful of blows. He was already twisting around, massive forearms sweeping up at me, his fingers tipped in deadly claws. I managed a spin backward, twisting my knee painfully, but just managing to dodge back from the blow. My arm was on fire from the last hit he’d scored. I didn’t dare let him get another in.
Forbidding take it! He was fast. And this was so much harder on my own than it was with a brother or sister fighting with me!
He slammed against my legs and I was down, moaning, pain rippling through my legs and back. I rolled as fast as I could, careful with where I placed my sword, so I didn’t cut myself. I popped to my feet as soon as I’d rolled out of his grasp, stumbling slightly on the twisted knee. It didn’t want to hold my weight properly.
The fire was blazing now, and I’d popped up right beside it. I snatched one of the lit branches from the fire and brandished it in one hand, my sword in the other. I needed to end this fast. The bear was quicker than me and much, much stronger. I had only the element of surprise. My one advantage, always.
“Fly, my bee,” I whispered, and I leapt toward the tangled figure just as it was in the middle of bursting apart into smoky tentacles. I thrust straight for the heart of the Forbidding tentacles, ignoring how they curled around my body, trying to snap my bones before I could plunge the fire into the heart. My sword was tangled now. My arm stuck in place.
I thrust the fire forward, but I was inches too short. The Forbidding bear roared, and as it did, the ends of it unfurled, became smoke, and then coalesced into a tangled bear again, but this time with one of my hands and swords stuck between its dark ribs. I struggled, trying to get the fire into its heart. Still too short.
The bear roared again, but this time there was a squeal in that roar. Its grip on me loosened but I didn’t try to get free. I pushed toward it, instead, finally jamming the flaming stick into its heart. Flames licked at my hand, searing it as the bear went up like a heap of dry brush. Forbidding-taken things always burned hot and fast.