The next chapter - a sneak peek

You start running without even thinking of it, up the stairs two at a time, launching yourself through corridors and turns you take out of pure muscle memory, weaving through the masses with practiced ease. The bustle of the morning is gone, hunters and guards running in opposite directions, shouting directions at each other with alarm instead. You feel it too, the alarm. Prickling on your skin like needlegrass, bunching your muscles with tension. Sweat pearls on your brow, not from exertion, but something much, much worse. [i]Fear[/i].

You haul yourself into the elevator before a stocky guard slams the gate closed.

He flicks the visor up on his helm, and glares at you with the one eye he has left.

“Should have known you would only bring trouble.”

*fake_choice

# I swallow, and say nothing. Maybe he's right.

#”We will accomplish nothing by infighting. Focus, warden.”

# I growl. “Watch your mouth.”

# I ignore the barb. “What do you know of the threat?”

The platform arrives and you bolt out of it, the walls of the hedge rattling with another shriek. Up the final stairs, through the dressing rooms, you exit to the ramparts that hold the entries to every winding boardwalk. The tops of the trees cascade outward from the hedge in an endless sea, and you spot the disturbance a few miles out by the way the trees there seem to be swallowed into the earth one after another. It is big, whatever it is. And it is almost here.

The ground groans with the roiling vibration and your step picks up, even as you struggle to find purchase against the shaking stone. Pressing through the organized chaos on the ramparts, you pass archers as tense as their bowstrings and amped warlocks squeezing past them to stand in formation, their near visible auras crackling with energy. A new defense- it calms you momentarily to know that there are more hunters competent enough to wield the surge.

“Prepare for shield!” A Captain roars it as you run past and you watch as the warlocks begin to flare, the ether around them swirling as they assume positions on small outcrops of the bulwark, hands outstretched. Archers kneel below them, and hunters run past beside you, picking up their teammates for a direct assault on the beast that yet again shrieks, and the sound is too close for comfort, shattering windows several floors beneath you.

*page_break This shouldn't happen in broad daylight.

The groaning of the earth has grown so suddenly loud that you feel the urge to press your hands against your ears to drown it out, somehow, even though you know it won’t help. The deep hum is so embedded into your entire body that your vision trembles with it, even your teeth clatter within their sockets. You are barely fazed as the warlocks begin coupling their hands with each other, every clasp a sonic boom- one after another, linking the surge like a running fuse around the hedge. It surges through your body like a fizzling wave. Your steps falter with the intensity of it.

“Steady-” $!{yor} bellows, and you aim your run ${yo_his} way, empowered by the flaring surge, skidding over piles of leaves and mounds of coiled rope before sliding around the bend and nearly into the large ${yo_man}. $!{yo_he} spares you a fleeting glance and a resolute nod that asks for your focus. Your hand wraps around your ${baseweap}, and you finally focus your vision on what is approaching the hedge.

*page_break Your eyes widen.

A soil lamprey, two stories tall and another in width, only half its circular maw visible as it forces itself through the ground, chewing trunks like snapping kindle, churning the dirt, the roots and grass, spitting it back out on the sides of the big troughs it leaves in the earth as it makes its way forward, frenzied.

The archers move with the order to nock- though screamed from the cavernous lungs $!{yor} possesses, it barely floats like a desperate whisper over the thundering noise. You steady your breathing and adjust your grip on your ${baseweap}, unable to do much that wouldn’t break a cog in the well-oiled machine the hedge’s defense has become. $!{yor} stands, still as a marble statue, eyes honed on the beast that is just about to break past the thick growth of the inner ring, waiting for it to enter a clear area.

The forest seems to hold its breath, every eye trained on the looming threat. The moment stretches, elongates, as if time itself warps and stutters with the fear that hangs in the air.

The beast grows closer.

*page_break “Loose!”

At first, soaring stillness. Everyone holds their breath as the sedative arrows sail between branches, spearing leaves before plummeting to their target.

"Nock!" $!{yor} bellows again, cut off by another shriek from the lamprey. The archers swiftly reload their bows, hands moving with practiced precision. The warlocks crackle with the surge, eyes glowing bright as if lit from within.

"We need to get the shield up now, commander." Auryn appears by your side, Sive in tow. "We cannot risk a lamprey inside the hedge."

$!{yor}'s jaw ticks, ${yo_his} eyes still glued to the approaching lamprey. $!{yo_he} tilts ${yo_his} head to the side and shouts.  “Where is $!{idren}?”

You snap to $!{yor}. “Lyselin said the vicar had him ${id_him}.”

Auryn curses.

“Loose!” Another payload of arrows whistle through the air, a flurry of projectiles that rain down on the writhing beast. The lamprey is relentless in its advance, undeterred by the arrows that have pierced its pale, writhing body. It shrieks again, a hacking sound that makes the whole forest stutter. $!{yor} snaps to Auryn. “Get [i]down[/i] there. We will not stop it. You have another volley before it goes up.”

Auryn nods, and picks up a coil of rope to hang across ${au_his} chest.

“With me, $!{pcname}!” Auryn takes off, ${au_his} voice piercing with urgency. $!{au_he} doesn’t wait for a response, both ${au_him} and Sive take off running towards the ramp to a boardwalk.

Another order to nock rings out behind you as you follow Auryn’s command. You don’t give yourself time to think and let your past experience take over. Your steps land with sure footing as you dodge and weave through the narrow and crowded boardwalk. You grasp Auryn's shoulder with practiced movement, sticking to your group until you reach the uniting platform.

“Go!” Auryn sends Sive down first, and you are quick to follow, Auryn behind you. You swing over to a naked branch, jump to one below, your muscles screaming once you thud down on the boardwalk beneath. A pipe stands there and you follow Sive’s lead, latching on and sliding yourself to the forest floor. Your rushing blood pounds in your ears.

*page_break The shield goes up as you land.

Quiet as a whisper, a blue wall flickers into place. It reaches from the roots of the branches that intertwine together, all the way up and over the top of the hedge, doming over the entirety of your hometown. It stuns you in its beauty, but you are quickly snapped out of it as Auryn's face appears before you, snapping out a staff that ${au_he} twirls to his side.

“Your shield, hunter.”

You click it on, and the water engulfs you. Your blood runs cold. Groups of hunters pass you, hurtling through the foliage toward the source of the ear-splitting thunder of the lamprey.

“Stay on me, we have to get close enough to overwhelm it!” Auryn shouts to you, and begins to run. “Sive, with the guards!”

Sive nods, and readies his axe. He runs toward the growing phalanx of armed guards by the gates. You take off after Auryn, plants slapping against your shield. You run for hundreds of meters, interrupted by screeching as volley after volley of arrows whistle past above you and land in the squelching flesh of the lamprey.

Auryn gathers every hunter on his path with brisk command, and soon you are a hundred men strong, whistling through the leaves like a pack of beasts.