V
They went on without any real conversation passing between them. Ashton was just putting his arms through the jacket of his dried uniform when Stacia leapt to her feet. She scanned their surroundings, a steely look in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Ashton asked.
“I just have a bad feeling.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. Following her example, he looked about them, but couldn’t see anything amiss. The only thing he could have pointed to, if pressed, was the occasional rustle of leaves in the wind.
“I can’t see anything particularly out of the ordinary,” he said.
“I didn’t ask for your amateur opinion,” Stacia retorted. “We’re getting out of here, now.” She rushed to extinguish the fire, then, bow in hand, she set off toward the forest to the east. However, before they had gone even a minute, she stopped and silently drew an arrow from her quiver.
“Is there something there?” Ashton asked. Stacia ignored him. She raised her bow and pointed it toward a line of trees in the distance. Before Ashton could ask again, the bushes shook violently and out came a creature covered in dark red fur.
That beast from before?! The moment Ashton laid eyes on the Norfess, a certified class two dangerous beast, he felt every hair on his body stand on end. In the same moment, he recognized it as exactly matching the black shape that had attacked him earlier.
“Well, if it ain’t a Norfess,” Stacia said. “No wonder I haven’t caught anything good all day.”
Her face was white as a sheet and her teeth chattered loud enough that Ashton could hear them. The Norfess splayed its enormous claws, then fixed its four eyes, two on either side of its head, on Ashton and Stacia. Luckily for them, the Norfess was a good distance away. Still, if the Norfess charged, it was only too easy to imagine that distance vanishing in the blink of an eye. All the more so when it was a Norfess they were up against.
“We should run,” he said, whispering so as not to provoke the beast. But Stacia only gave a tiny shake of her head.
“No good. We’ll never outrun it.”
“So we just wait here quietly for it to kill us?”
“This ain’t your average forest critter. This is the feared beast of legends, the one they call the Bringer of Calamity.”
“I know all that, of course.”
“Are you...are you not scared?” As Stacia spoke, her eyes never once turned toward Ashton. As though with a Norfess in front of her, she couldn’t get away with showing even a moment’s weakness. Ashton himself replied without ever taking his eyes off the Norfess.
“It’s a class two dangerous beast, and one of the worst ones. Obviously, I’m terrified.”
Stacia couldn’t tell, but his knees were knocking together with fear. It reminded him of when they’d encountered the unicorn on the way to liberate Fort Lamburke. But on that occasion, Olivia had been with him, so he’d made it out without a scratch. But she wasn’t here this time, and given she was hardly likely to conveniently appear and save him, Ashton’s only remaining choice was to run. He racked his brains for some knowledge that would get them out of this predicament.
“Do you think you can get the Norfess in the knee with an arrow? Either side will do.”
“What’s that now?”
“I’m asking if you think you can do it,” Ashton insisted, frantic. Stacia still didn’t take her eyes off the Norfess, but with an arrow nocked to the string, she nodded.
“Only if my target stays still, though.”
“Understood. Then stay like that, and back up, slowly.”
“Back up?”
“Right. As much as I don’t fancy jumping in the river again when my uniform just dried, the Norfess is afraid of water.”
“It is?!” Stacia hissed, shock flashing through her eyes. “I never heard that before!”
“Without a doubt,” Ashton said firmly. The Norfess’s fur was supposed to be highly absorbent, meaning that if it entered a deep enough river, the added weight would cause it to sink within moments.
It was only something he’d read in a book, but Stacia didn’t need to know that. If he couldn’t devise a way to get them out of this, they’d both be knocking on the Gate to the Land of the Dead.
“For now, if we can get across the river, we’ll be out of immediate danger. First, we need to injure its leg and slow it down. I know I keep saying it, but you want to aim for its knee. To make sure you hit, you’ll want to shoot at its face first to distract it.”
“So the second shot is the real deal.”
“Exactly.”
Stacia was quiet for a moment, then said, “I can trust you, right?”
As much to reassure himself as anything else, Ashton nodded resolutely.
“Let’s start edging back. Slow as a tortoise.”
Both of them barely breathing, they started to back away with genuinely tortoiselike steps. For a while, the Norfess watched them. Then, without warning, it let out a soul-chilling roar.
“Shoot!” Ashton cried, just as Stacia loosed an arrow from her bow. A moment later, she nocked another, and let it fly without wasting a second.
There’s almost no chance the first one will hit, Ashton thought. This prediction proved true at once. The first arrow, flying dead straight at the Norfess’s face, was knocked aside by a truly ferocious claw. The second arrow, however, taking advantage of this momentary lapse, embedded itself beautifully in the Norfess’s knee. The creature looked down at the arrow sticking out of its flesh and let out an uncanny wail.
“Now’s our chance! Across the river!”
“R-Right!”
Ashton forced the pain that lanced through his whole body out of his mind, broke into an all-out sprint, and jumped after Stacia into the river.
He gasped for breath. The current wasn’t very strong, but he was in so much pain he couldn’t move forward like he wanted to.
“Move it!” Stacia grabbed Ashton by the collar and dragged him across the river with her. As he frantically paddled with his arms, Ashton turned to look behind them. The Norfess was already at the river’s edge, pacing restlessly up and down and emitting a bloodcurdling moan.
With Stacia’s aid, Ashton somehow managed to get to the other side of the river.
“Looks like we got out of that one,” Stacia said, panting.
“All thanks to you,” Ashton replied, breathing hard himself. “If you hadn’t gotten it in the knee, it would have been on us before we reached the river.” They lay spread-eagled on the riverbank, catching their breath.
Eventually, Stacia said, “If it weren’t for your plan, I’d be dead for sure.” It sounded like it took her some effort to admit it. “So thanks, I guess.”
At this unexpected expression of gratitude, Ashton turned to look at Stacia, but she turned her face aside. Ashton couldn’t help but smile, though he quickly regained his composure.
“I’m afraid we’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. Stacia sat up and looked over at the Norfess. It showed no signs of giving up.
“How’s that?” she asked. “It’s not going to cross the river. We’re out of its reach.”
“Only for now. It’ll find a way around the river and come after us again.”
“What makes you so sure? Speaking from experience, if I may, it doesn’t look hungry enough to be so persistent.”
After she had shot the Norfess through the knee, even Ashton could tell that Stacia was a first-rate hunter. Under normal circumstances, her reading would be correct. But on this particular occasion, Ashton knew, because of a particular behavioral trait of the Norfess, that she was wrong. According to The Behavior of Dangerous Beasts, the tome that Dianne Lane had made her life’s work, adult Norfesses were always in pairs. In other words, it was unnatural to encounter one by itself. Assuming the Norfess that had attacked Ashton in the forest was the other half of this pair, then class two dangerous beast or no, Olivia, who had slain even unicorns, would have cut it to pieces. If the Norfess before them now was searching for its mate, there was a good chance it had picked up its scent on him. Ashton explained all this to Stacia.
“Rotten luck you must have to get attacked twice by a Norfess,” she muttered. “So that thing’s not going to leave us alone, huh?”
“Specifically, I think it’s drawn to some scent left on me. Which is to say, if you leave me behind, you should be able to get away on your own.”
It hardly needed to be said that, for his own part, Ashton felt much better with an outstanding hunter like Stacia at his side. But he didn’t want her to get caught up in his attempt to save his own skin.
Ashton was sure that Stacia would naturally decide to part ways with him. As such, he was unprepared for what came out of her mouth.
“You’d better not be trying to weasel out of paying me.”
“Paying you?” he repeated, confused. “If I make it home alive, of course I’ll pay you.”
Stacia jumped to her feet. “Then we’d better get moving before it catches us!”
“You value gold over your own life?”
“That’s the measure of it.”
Ashton stared at her, then said, “If you regret this, I claim no responsibility.”
Stacia snorted. Taking her bow in hand once more, she strode off without a word. Ashton didn’t speak either as he followed after her, his heart bursting with gratitude.
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