Marcii (The Dreadhunt Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

              To find yourself without friends or family, or even companions, in a storm such as the one that Marcii endured that night, is for certain a most lonesome place to be.

              But it wasn’t simply that she was alone.

Marcii was outcast, hunted and on the run.

              She felt the weight of those burdens all too heavily upon her as she fled from the certainty of torture and execution.

              Her life would never be the same again.

              And yet, even though she had fought so hard and somehow managed to escape with her life, she had not been able to save her family, or those poor women, or Alexander, or even Malorie.

              And what of Vixen, she suddenly thought to herself.

              What if Tyran found out Vixen had helped her escape?

              He wouldn’t think twice about killing her just because she was an orphan, and Marcii knew it.

              Dejection set in.

              She wanted nothing more than to just lay down and give up.

              But she could not stop.

              By this point Marcii was stumbling blindly through the darkness, for the sun had well and truly set by now. She was simply hoping and praying that she was heading in a general westerly direction.

              Sighing heavily, she found herself thinking all of a sudden of Kaylm.

              She wished he was there with her.

              He would have known which way to go for certain. He would have known what to do. He would have a plan.

              If Marcii was honest with herself though, which by this point there seemed no reason for her not to be, she didn’t miss him for those reasons.

              No.

              She missed him simply because he was her Kaylm.

              He always had been.

              Not any more though, she suddenly realised.

That horrible truth struck the young Dougherty like a blow from a great hammer.

              Shivering, both from the cold and from her looming depression, Marcii strove onwards through the wind and the rain.

              She was far too tired and far too traumatised and the weather was far too bad for her to tell with any certainty if she actually heading even remotely the right way, but she knew she could not stop.

              They’d still be looking for her.

              And not just that, but as the night drew in it was only getting colder.

              A lot colder.

              If she stopped now, even if they didn’t find her, she would surely die of the cold.

              The rain was so heavy that she could barely see two feet in front of her, but she pressed on relentlessly.

              She couldn’t hear their chants any more, hopefully because they were far away, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t there.

              They could have been right behind her for all she knew.

              Marcii couldn’t see.

              She couldn’t hear.

              She couldn’t even focus.

              She was ruined.

              In the end, as she stumbled blindly through the dark of the night and into a copse of trees, the exhausted Dougherty crawled the last few feet to the base of a vast oak.

              The ground beneath her was soggy and it squelched unpleasantly at the touch. Her knees and her fingers sunk into the mud as she crawled, but she barely even noticed, for she was numb through with cold and fear.

              The small patch of woodland offered her at least a little shelter from the driving wind and rain of the storm, though it could do nothing about the desperate cold. Marcii curled tightly into a ball, freezing and alone, able only to pray that the night spared her.

              Exhausted, once she was there, she could not move, and soon enough, quivering and soaked through, she fell into a drained, uneasy sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Two

              Marcii stirred slowly awake, grunting and groaning as if she’d been asleep for decades. Her body felt heavy and stiff and unbearable. Even just lifting her head was a momentous effort all of its own.

              She realised all at once, with a great measure of relief, that she was still alive. As she came around she half expected blinding rays of light to be pouring down from above and filtering through the canopy that had sheltered her.

              But it was not to be.

              As she rolled her eyes skyward Marcii could see even through the leaves and the branches that the heavens above her were pitch black. It had, however, stopped raining, which was a small blessing at least.

              The young, abandoned Dougherty shivered horribly.

Reminded all at once exactly how cold it was she forced her body into reluctant motion, desperate to generate some heat.

              She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up and off the sodden ground. Marcii dragged herself to her knees, though her limbs felt heavy and refused at first to cooperate.

              Her stomach growled angrily at not having been fed and she felt the all too recognisable weight of exhaustion in her muscles.

Ignoring it as best she could, she had no choice but to push on.

              Though the rain no longer fell, the sky was still thick with clouds that bore down heavily from above, making Marcii’s head pound.

There was no moon by which she could see and the stars were concealed from view by the lingering storm.

And so, as she clambered sluggishly to her feet, slipping on the sopping ground, she squinted to make out blurry shapes and figures in the darkness.

Her eyes might well have adjusted to the night, but that’s of little use when there’s virtually no light at all.

Nonetheless, at least she could make out blurred outlines that were more than just a few feet in front of her face now, for before the thick rain had been even more blinding than the darkness.

Fear still gripped her and she daren’t make a sound or any sudden movements as she groped through the black all around.

Eventually, after what felt like an absolute age, she at last relented and stretched one hand out and leant against the tree that sheltered her. Soon enough though she found herself leaning heavily upon the thick trunk, for her legs were weak and shaky.

The nights had been growing colder, for they were well into the darkest, harshest months of the year now, and this one was no exception. She could feel the chill in her very bones. She noted critically that her clothes were still wet and clung to her horribly. She imagined that alone had quite a lot to do with the cold that consumed her.

Regardless, she knew she had to move, or chances were she wouldn’t last the night.

She staggered slowly to the edge of the treeline, using the huge, blurred trunks as supports to lean upon every few steps.

As she reached the edge of the trees Marcii could see the faint light in the distance that betrayed Newmarket amidst the darkness. There seemed to be a lot more lights than usual for this time of night, but she imagined there was still a lot of activity in the wake of all that had happened.

So, using the lights from her old home as a guide for now, Marcii turned and headed off immediately in the opposite direction.

Staggering free from the trees and away from the small, sheltering copse, the air seemed to grow noticeably colder. She shuddered terribly and rubbed her arms with her hands. The thick trunks had kept at least a little warmth amidst the cold of the night, and more than likely it was only that which had kept Marcii alive while she’d slept.

The exiled Dougherty forced her heavy legs to drag her feet slowly in front of each other, one by one.

The night drew on, harsh and sluggish, with a freezing wind that bit at her face and her body. Unrelenting as the elements were, no matter how much she wanted to find shelter and collapse, Marcii forced herself onward, resting only every now and then when a fresh wave of exhaustion loomed over her.

When the time came, once she had gone far enough, and even then a little further still, only then she would allow herself to stop and recuperate.

But it was not to be.

In a sudden, flurrying rush, startling her legs into terrified, exhausted motion, Marcii heard shouts in the distance, not too far behind her.

Instantly her body surged forward and her legs began to churn painfully.

Glancing back briefly, fear catching in her throat, Marcii could see the bobbing lights of burning torches flitting in between the copses, dancing over the rises and falls of the very ground itself.

Clearly, whilst the storm might have slowed Tyran’s hunting parties, it hadn’t deterred them completely.

They were still combing the hillsides searching for the fleeing witch.

Marcii drove herself to move yet even faster, but only managed something of a crooked jog, for the cold had set into her very bones and her muscles simply would not work.

She glanced back again in horror.

They were gaining.

To make matters worse, as she scanned her surroundings, looking desperately for shelter, the clouds above seemed to scurry this way and that in urgent panic, unveiling at long last the moon and the stars.

Fortunately, this allowed Marcii to find cover more easily. Though, unfortunately, at the same time, she knew it would make her much more vulnerable.

The shouting, bawling crowds gained on her even still.

She didn’t know if they knew she was there and were following her, or if they were just charging around through the night chancing their luck of stumbling across her.

Either way, she didn’t have time to find out.

Soon it wouldn’t matter which it was, for they would be upon her regardless.

Marcii stumbled headfirst into the next copse that came into view. Luckily it was tucked away into a small valley cut into a natural inlet in the land. She fell down a ditch and struggled to clamber out, praying all the while that the trees would be thick enough to conceal her from Tyran’s troops.

Crashing through the low hanging branches and the waist high shrubs, Marcii threw herself between the trees and tumbled to the ground with a dull thud and a deep grunt.

Mercifully, it seemed this patch of woodland was indeed very dense and thick.

Marcii crawled deeper and deeper into the concealment of the trees, scraping her hands and her arms on the rough bark of the trunks as she went. Her knees bashed into roots that jutted out from the ground in every direction and glanced off rocks as she crawled over them.

But, driven by fear that coursed frantically through her veins, the pain did not slow her.

After what felt like a lifetime Marcii was exhausted. Her scurrying crawl had slowed to a weary trudge on all fours and she could barely feel her hands or her feet for the cold.

She pushed off against the hard, harsh bark of a tree trunk to her left, forcing herself the last few metres into what she believed was the very centre of the copse of trees. It was where the trees seemed to be the thickest, and indeed also the densest.

She hoped only with her final saps of energy that the trees would be dense enough to hide her while she rested, and thick enough to keep her from freezing to death.

However, all was not as it seemed.

Marcii collapsed again.

Relief finally surged through her muscles as she allowed them at long last to rest.

She fell thankfully against the huge base of the next tree that she came to.

But, that final tree trunk was not what she’d expected at all.

As she stumbled forward from her knees, throwing her hands out to save from crashing headlong into the thick trunk, shock rippled through her.

At she hit it, her palms and fingers did not meet rough, cold bark as they had done on every tree previous, but instead they found thick, warm fur.

Instantly, as they made contact, Marcii’s hands clenched in horror, only succeeding to entwine her fingers in the matted fur even further.

She daren’t move.

Slowly, ever so slowly, fearing even to breathe, she raised her head and cast her eyes upwards in absolute terror.

Though it was still the dead of night, the parted clouds had not yet returned to conceal the murky moon and the stars.

By their dim light Marcii could see outlined against the trees and the sky above an enormous, deathly figure looming over her, as tall as the very treetops themselves.

She could make out nothing more than its massive outline.

Silhouetted against the night, its vast bulk was like that of a giant. Its legs were each as thick as a tree trunk and its shoulders were wider than Marcii could even comprehend.

It was much too big to be human, and it was certainly no animal.

Whatever it was, it filled Marcii with dread, for it was far too monstrous to be anything but the work of the devil.