The King's Blood by S. E. Zbasnik, Sabrina Zbasnik

wall, his fingers digging deep into long disturbed earth.  
    The fall felt like ages, but was really only about three feet, his shoes sinking into the mud to keep him from falling back into the spike that now towered above him.  
    "Are you all right?" the darkness called down.
    Aldrin realized that while he could still see her silhouetted by starlight, she'd lost sight of most of him. "Yes, yes. I'm alive."
    "Okay," it wasn't quite the relieved response he'd been expecting. A bit more "wonderful" or "thank the pantheon" would have been preferable to a "yes I heard you. Whatever." "If I can flag down Marna, I can get some rope and..."
    As soon as the head began to disappear from sight he screamed, the kind of scream that could draw attention from, say, an army camped not even a mile away from their predicament.  
    His darkness hissed, "Shut your noble hole."
    But Aldrin, so many strains held in check, finally snapped, "Please, don't leave me! Don't go! I'll just, Gods!" He started to scramble, the dirt crumbling beneath his fingers and falling into his mouth. He jumped high, trying to find a root, anything other than more transient dirt to cling to.
    On his fifth jump, a hand, blacker than the earth around him, latched onto his and refused to let go.

CHAPTER FIVE

    " R each. No, reach harder!" Ciara's voice rasped in the slowly rising light of dawn, her legs dangling over the pit as she tried to haul the trapped prey out of its den.
    The night offered little in the promise of rest. After the boy's outbursts she did the only thing she could think to silence him and, laying upon her stomach, lowered her arm as far as she could, their fingertips meeting.
    He must have spent the darkened hours hoisted up on his tiptoes, his fingers glancing across hers, as the forest shook in anger from the trespassers rampaging through its underbrush. She couldn't see anything but the top of a sandy head and the glint of shredding teeth below. Behind her, the dancing light of fire licked castle walls, the movement and light playing tricks upon her peripheral vision as she feared she kept spying men advancing upon them. Moving not an inch, she listened through her own pounding heart as the monsters in the dark swiped through, their swords searching the underbrush for something.
    For the most part, they stayed in the distance, closer to the castle walls, hunting for those bodies who tried to jump from the parapets to escape. But as night turned into the forgotten hours of the new day, their search grew more desperate. Knights promoted themselves to field commanders, issuing confusing orders to each other. They didn't want to be wandering ankle deep in this gods forsaken forest anymore than their charges did.
    One man, with a sharp heel to his boot that hadn't been worn down, broke free of the group. In her minds eye, Ciara could see him; his eyes red with rage, blood dripping off his sword as he held aloft an enemy's head with a candle wedged onto the tongue for a lantern.  

    Boots crackled across the underbrush, he was unused to campaigns that involved so much nature. For the Empire war was orderly, two armies meet together on the battlefield, have a right lovely massacre, then as dusk settles, head back to the tents for some tea and amputations. But this infiltration business was new to them and, judging by how easily they'd lost a young boy it was looking as if they'd need a bit more practice.

    Ciara held her breath as the monster drew closer. She glanced down, terrified that the kid would take that exact moment to cry, or move. But he seemed as aware of the danger as her and laid his body quietly against the earthen wall. Once more, the enemy flashed his monstrous lantern upon the bracken, but could only spy more fallen branches and shrubbery. A voice, high and lyrical like the Aravingions, called into the forest and the man turned to rejoin his company, not even bothering to look back.
    The rest of the early morn passed in relative peace