Rise of the Valiant. Morgan Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ run. He scanned the woods for any escape, realizing their time was short – but there was nothing.

      The snarling grew louder, and as he ran, Alec looked back over his shoulder – and immediately wished he hadn’t. Bearing down on them were four of the most savage creatures he’d ever laid eyes upon. Resembling wolves, the Wilvox were twice the size, with small sharp horns sticking out the back of their heads, and one large, single red eye between the horns. Their paws were the size of a bear’s, with long, pointed claws, and their coats were slick and as black as night.

      Seeing them this close, Alec knew he was a dead man.

      Alec burst forward with his last ounce of speed, his palms sweating even in the icy cold, his breath frozen in the air before him. The Wilvox were hardly twenty feet away and he knew from the desperate look in their eyes, from the drool hanging from their mouths, that they would tear him to pieces. He saw no means of escape. He looked to Marco, hoping for some sign of a plan – but Marco carried the same look of despair. He clearly had no idea what to do either.

      Alec closed his eyes and did something he had never done before: he prayed. Seeing his life flashing before his eyes, it changed him somehow, made him realize how much he cherished life, and made him more desperate than he’d ever been to keep it.

      Please, God, get me out of this. After what I did for my brother, don’t let me die here. Not in this place, and not by these creatures. I’ll do anything.

      Alec opened his eyes, looked up ahead, and as he did, this time he noticed a tree slightly different than the others. Its branches were more gnarled and hung lower to the ground, just high enough where he could grab one with a running jump. He had no idea if Wilvox could climb, but he had no other choice.

      “That branch!” Alec yelled to Marco, pointing.

      They ran for the tree together, and as the Wilvox closed in, but feet away, without pausing, they each jumped up and grabbed the branch, pulling themselves up.

      Alec’s hands slipped on the snowy wood, but he managed to hang on, and he pulled himself up until he was grabbing the next branch several feet off the ground. He then immediately jumped up to the next branch, three feet higher, Marco beside him. He had never climbed so fast in his life.

      The Wilvox reached them, the pack snarling viciously, jumping and clawing at their feet. Alec felt their hot breath on the back of his heel a moment before he raised his foot, the fangs coming down and missing him by an inch. The two of them kept climbing, propelled by adrenaline, until they were a good fifteen feet off the ground, and safer than they needed to be.

      Alec finally stopped, clutching a branch with all his might, catching his breath, sweat stinging his eyes. He looked back down, watching, praying the Wilvox could not climb, too.

      To his immense relief, they were still on the ground, snarling and snapping, jumping up for the tree, but clearly unable to climb. They scratched the trunk madly, but to no avail.

      The two sat on the branch, and as the reality sank in that they were safe, they each breathed a sigh of relief. Marco burst into laughter, to Alec’s surprise. It was a madman’s laugh, a laugh of relief, the laugh of a man who had been spared from a sure death in the most unlikely way.

      Alec, realizing how close they had come, could not help laughing, too. He knew they were still far from safety; he knew they could never leave this spot, and that they would even likely die in this place. But for now, at least, they were safe.

      “Looks like I owe you,” Marco said.

      Alec shook his head.

      “Don’t thank me yet,” Alec said.

      The Wilvox were snarling viciously, raising the hair on the back of his neck, and Alec looked up at the tree, hands trembling, wanting to get even farther away and wondering how high they could climb, wondering if they had any way out of here.

      Suddenly, Alec froze. As he looked up, he flinched, struck by a terror unlike he had ever known. There, in the branches above him, looking down, was the most hideous creature he had ever seen. Eight feet long, with the body of a snake but with six sets of feet, all with long claws, and a head shaped like an eel’s, it had narrow slits for eyes, dull yellow, and they focused on Alec. Just feet away, it arched its back, hissed, and opened its mouth. Alec, in shock, could not believe how wide it opened – wide enough to swallow him whole. And he knew, from its rattling tail, that it was about to strike – and kill them both.

      Its mouth came down right for Alec’s throat, and he reacted involuntarily. He shrieked and jumped back as he lost his grip, Marco beside him, thinking only of getting away from those deadly fangs, that huge mouth, a sure death.

      He did not even think about what lay below. As he felt himself flying backwards through the air, flailing, he realized, too late, that he was heading from one set of fangs to another. He glanced back and saw the Wilvox salivating, opening their jaws, nothing he could do but brace himself for the descent.

      He had exchanged one death for another.

      Chapter Three

      Kyra walked slowly back through the gates of Argos, the eyes of all her father’s men upon her, and she burned with shame. She had misread her relationship with Theos. She had thought, stupidly, that she could control him – and instead, he had spurned her before all these men. For the eyes of all to see, she was powerless, had no dominion over a dragon. She was just another warrior – not even a warrior, but just a teenage girl who had led her people into a war they, abandoned by a dragon, could no longer win.

      Kyra walked back through the gates of Argos, feeling the eyes on her in the awkward silence. What did they think of her now? she wondered. She did not even know what to think of herself. Had Theos not come for her? Had he only fought this battle for his own ends? Did she have any special powers at all?

      Kyra was relieved as the men finally looked away, returned to their looting, all busy gathering weaponry, preparing for war. They rushed to and fro, gathering all the bounty left behind by the Lord’s Men, filling carts, leading away horses, the clang of steel ever present as shields and armor were tossed into piles by the handful. As more snow fell and the sky began to darken, they all had little time to lose.

      “Kyra,” came a familiar voice.

      She turned and was relieved to see Anvin’s smiling face as he approached her. He looked at her with respect, with the reassuring kindness and warmth of the father figure he had always been. He draped one arm affectionately around her shoulder, smiling wide beneath his beard, and he held out before her a gleaming new sword, its blade etched with Pandesian symbols.

      “Finest steel I’ve held in years,” he noted with a broad grin. “Thanks to you, we have enough weapons here to start a war. You have made us all more formidable.”

      Kyra took comfort in his words, as she always did; yet she still could not cast off her feeling of depression, of confusion, of being spurned by the dragon. She shrugged.

      “I did not do all this,” she replied. “Theos did.”

      “Yet Theos returned for you,” he replied.

      Kyra glanced up at the gray skies, now empty, and she wondered.

      “I’m not so sure.”

      They both studied the skies in the long silence that followed, broken only by the wind sweeping through.

      “Your father awaits you,” СКАЧАТЬ