Chapter 15 | Part 6

The Coatly found them late on the third day.

The first shriek came from behind. Elion turned, lowering his good shoulder, while Srietz fumbled for his pack.

“They found us.” The goblin’s voice was tight.

Drusniel lifted his hand toward the moving air.

“NO.” Srietz grabbed his arm with surprising strength. “Cast and every Coatly for leagues gets a direction.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

Srietz dug beneath the padded dividers in his battered pack. “Smoke. No spell for them to follow.”

He pulled out a vial. Clear liquid that caught the dim light strangely.

“What is that?” Elion asked, eyes still fixed on the approaching shapes.

“The compound scatters their echo-sense. Smoke carries it.” Srietz’s hands shook around the vial. “Last one. Three weeks to replace.”

“Use it.”

“Three weeks—”

“Use it.”

Srietz threw the vial.

The vial broke against a rock. White smoke rolled across the path, and the shrieks scattered with it. A Coatly struck a trunk hard enough to shake down leaves.

“RUN!” Srietz vanished into the smoke.

They ran bent low through smoke that burned their eyes. Drusniel’s bundle snagged on a branch; the strap tore, dropping the waterskin and blanket. He left them. Ahead, Elion forced his shoulder narrow again to pass between two close trunks, then stumbled hard enough that Srietz had to catch him.

Beyond the smoke, a low opening broke the face of a black ridge. Elion pointed with his good hand.

They dove inside.

The Coatly didn’t follow.

Elion sank against the wall, shaking. Drusniel bent over his knees until he could breathe without coughing. Their food had run out that morning; now the water lay outside with the torn bundle.

Srietz stared at the empty place in his vial case.

“You said we protected you.”

Srietz closed the case. “Hard to collect payment from corpses.”

The obsidian caves glittered around them exactly where Elion had remembered them.

Srietz looked into the dark. “Where now?”

“East,” Drusniel said.

End of Chapter 15.6 —> 16.1: The Seer’s Warning: The Weight