NOVEL NEXT 4. Human sighted!
Running had always been a treat. A way to relax after a long day. Something that Abigail both considered herself good at, and worth getting better at.
This moment only validated those ambitions.
It was the arrows flying right by her, sailing only inches over her head. The wave of ground rolling towards her, glowing a dangerous yellow. All that plus the dozen or so guards chasing her, blades drawn.
All while she held tight to single slip of paper, smiled like this was the best day of her life, and ran.
It was perhaps the highlight of her day thus far.
The adrenaline as she surged forward and slid under a wagon passing by. That thumping in her chest, a perfect rhythm that she couldn't escape from, that she didn't want to escape. It fueled her like wood hurled into a fire.
And then she leaned into it, turning her run into something else.
She became motion. A straight line that could only go forward, surging through the street ahead and zipping back into the past, pulling up old memories.
Some from a time before she could remember her name. Back when she was little and learning to walk. But her first steps they weren't the slow thing expected of a child her age.
She ran.
When she was older, and all alone running from Lamy's thugs come to collect.
She ran.
When Esbern first found her and told her to go to the academy.
She ran.
And every day since then, either trying to avoid being late or get out the way of whatever was behind her. Time and time again.
She ran.
As an axe came down just a few feet ahead of her, it's head menacingly sharp, she continued to run. A quick sidestep putting distance between her and the blade.
It was followed by another arrow. This one glowing a vibrant orange as it flew past her.
She allowed herself to slow just long enough for it to explode. Then, like a bolt of lightning, she rushed past and streaked towards the gate. As she got close, only a few moments away from crossing through it onto the other side, it began to close. Both halves, old and creaking with age, were reaching towards each other, spurred on by four guards.
It was clear to her that she was not going to make it. She was too slow. There were too many obstacles ahead, and she was starting to finally tire.
Fortunately the gate wasn't the only way out.
There was up and over it, an option that no one could stop her from reaching. And she framed it in her mind, the path she would and the steps needed to get there.
The first was survival. A dodge and a weave past half a dozen swords. Next was up. Jumping as high as she could, Ardin enhanced muscles screaming with power, she soared over the wall of metal and astonished eyes.
The final step was down. Not straight towards the floor below. No, she fell forward, diving through the air like a bird on the hunt. She curved on gravity just enough so that she barely missed hitting the gate and went right over it.
Over it and face first into the dirt.
But she made it and that was more than enough to ignore how she botched the landing. Instead she got up, eyes wide with joy, a smile smeared onto her face, and looked at the paper the slaver had given her.
No! No! No!
It was written in elvish. She couldn't read it. And as she sat there realizing that she was barely any closer to her goal at all, the gate started to swing open behind her.
Grunts, groans, and shouting heralded the elves on the other side. Elves that would catch her in a moment if she didn't get moving now.
So, again, Abigail ran. She took one step that led into another and like an avalanche she started to pick up speed, and fast.
Slip of paper held fast, she dasher through the trees. Every step an ascending escalating bridge to her escape. Over roots underfoot and under branches over head. But she was not fast enough, didn't have enough stamina to run forever. And it wasn't long till an arrow struck her.
It sailed true and stuck to her back, under her shoulder and drawing blood. It was the first to hit her but not the last. Another following in it's steps as she staggered from the initial blow. Her stagger becoming a near fall in the aftermath.
With it came a new feeling. A beating in her head. The throbbing of her heart seeming to echo, rob her of her senses as she continued to run, now like a blind drunk stumbling after every step. But she kept at it, one step at a time, still putting distance between her and her pursuers.
And as she crossed under the largest tree in the forest, where she had did her initial reconnaissance, a howl ripped through the forest. It was bestial thing that came down from somewhere just ahead.
Abigail, despite how much it hurt to do so, turned to the left, away from the sound came from. Seconds after a pack of dire wolves, maybe the same she encountered earlier, came barreling out from the underbrush.
She heard them growl, then she heard make a guttural shriek of pain from behind her. The sound that followed could only be combat. A song of blades clashing with fang and fur.
Slowly, it grew more distant, quieter and quieter until it was gone and all she could hear was the wind and her own ragged breaths. They echoed the pain that burned in her back and in her arms.
Pain that only seemed more savage when she finally stopped and put her back to a tree. The dirt below felt cold, or maybe that was just her.
She definitely felt cold. But behind that cold was warmth. It ran up from her heart to her head and from her head to her hands where she still had the slavers note firmly in her grasp. A note written in a language that she couldn't understand a single word of. It was practically blank to her.
To an elf, though, it was an actually legible note that they could read. Abigail just needed to find an elf willing to read it to her. A task that was more than likely easier said than done, but not impossible.
She just needed to know where to start.