Page 32 (1/1)
"Thank you," he whispered, hanging his head and bending over, gulping air
Lia’s breath was harsh in her ears as she hurried She fished the bowstring out and fitted it around one tip, then pressed the bow into a tree root to flex it and fit the another end After tying the e and was satisfied with the strength of the pull
"Keep going, and try to be quiet," she whispered back, walking this tihts came quickly If the pursuers separated to find the discovered, but reduce the nuainst one If the pursuers ise, they would co distance from each other
A crackle from the woods on their left, caused her to slip an arrow fro their course again Were they seen, or was it an animal instead? The darkness made it difficult to see beyondall movement She could hear the soft crunch of Colvin’s boots and bit her lip Hopefully the sound would not carry far and reveal thele of woods and their deliberate evasions, Lia quickly lost her sense of direction She had never tried to find a particular tree in the dark She could hear the sounds of pursuers in the distance No one called to each other, just the steady, oppressive crunching and snorting of hooves as they dragged the horses into the woods to search
"I need to use the orb again," Lia whispered "Help htly around and crouched down in the earth, setting down the bow Colvin knelt in front of her, so close she could feel the heat co the orb in her hands, she willed it to guide thehtly, and she saw it
In the sprawl of oak trees surrounding Muirwood, a single tree dwarfed the rest The oak was so massive that its lower limbs, each the size of a tree itself, bent low and rested on the ground, as if it were soe that it could only droop The base of the trunk could be encircled by five or six people, linking hands all the way around it And the upper branches were so twisted and long and vast that no other tree could groithin its shadow When Martin had showed her the tree, he had said he had named it Sentinel, after the creature created in the dawn of the First Parents that guarded a sacred tree whose fruit granted immortality The Sentinel oak was over a thousand years old, Martin said It was part of the grounds of Muirwood A part that few other than the Abbey hunters knew existed
"This way," Lia said, slipping the orb back into the pouch and took up the bow and nocked arrow She knew the path now and went towards Sentinel, keeping within the woods surrounding it
Lightning flashed in the sky, revealing movement in the trees, rove Lia bit her lip, wondering if they had been seen Myriad Ones began sniffing around the sound filled Lia’s ears – she did not know if it was the keening of the wind or the sed at Colvin’s ar
On the far side of the Sentinel, she found thesince razed by lightning and fire Fro with scrub and swollen with churning water
"Down there," she whispered, putting the arrow back and kneeling by the edge She handed him her bow to keep her hands free and slipped down into the chilly waters in the gully The waters were icy and deeper this time Normally the trickle would barely cover her feet She reached up and motioned for the bohich he handed to her and then slipped down into the water, gasping with the shock of cold Carefully, she waded against the current a short distance and found the outcropping of a hunched tunnel, covered with brush
She could feel the Leering inside it, eh she was used to it, even though she kneas there, she could feel it throbbing against herinside the shadows Parting the scrub, she poked inside with her bow, feeling nothing The feelings only intensified It was dangerous It was a place of death Gritting her teeth, she crouched and stepped inside, plunging into pure darkness Her breath rattled in herwas tolerable during the daylight, but at night, ither e out, she crept forward into the sh stone of the Leering to quell its warning