“Let’s go.”
Liam brushed past me. “I’ll lead, you navigate.”
I ran my hands over my weapons quickly, thought about going back to the truck for my crossbow. No, if we had to climb the whole mountain, I needed to pack light, and if Liam shifted he wouldn’t be any help with a stack of weapons. Sword, whip, and smaller blades were all I could carry and hopefully all I needed.
The snap of a twig brought my head around. Bushes and trees surrounded us on three sides. Ahead of me, Liam had stopped walking and was eyeing up the same bush I was, a bush that seemed to melt and move.
A grey skinned hand large enough to palm two basketballs pushed the foliage away, and through the bush stepped the biggest damn ogre I had ever seen. Twelve feet, maybe better, his face twisted in a snarl that turned his human-like features into something out of a horror movie. Covered in a light chainmail, he held a sword that had been obviously sized up for him. Fuck, the thing was at least five feet long, maybe even six. His muscles rippled like water flowing over rocks as he lifted his sword, using it to point at me.
“You think to trespass on these lands?”
Calliope’s fear spiked again, which made me reckless. At least, that’s what I’m going to blame for what I said next.
“I don’t see any signs, nothing that says ‘Stay the fuck away.’ You should put some up if you don’t want anyone here but your big grey ass.” I lifted an eyebrow at him, cocked my hip and put a hand on it. Really, there was nothing else to do. He wasn’t going to let us pass without a fight, so no need to be submissive to him. Liam let out a soft groan as three more grey-skinned ogres slipped in around us. Well, this was not good. Maybe I should have been polite. Too late now.
A light rain began to fall and the air went still. The ogre didn’t say anything, just cocked his head to one side, before whipping his sword into the air and letting out a roar that I felt as the reverberations hit my chest. Not that I let it last long. There were times to fight and there were times to run.
This was a time for the latter.
Spinning on my heel, I ran for Liam, who waited the split second it took me to reach him, and then we were sprinting full tilt along a narrow trail that wound along the base of the mountain.
Liam stayed behind me and I didn’t dare look behind. I knew we couldn’t keep this up, knew that they would run us, or at least me, into the ground.
“Tell me you have an idea.” Liam leapt up beside me as something hammered into the ground behind us.
“Working on it.”
“Work faster.”
My brain felt scrambled with the adrenaline and I fought to remember all I knew. From what Dox had said there were components of all the ogre tribes around here. From what I knew—and was obvious with the violet and black skinned species—very few of them got along. I let Calliope’s threads go and Tracked ogres as a species, pushing the ones behind us away to focus on what was in front of us.
Shit, right in front of us! But there was nothing there that I could see … I grabbed Liam and ducked sideways as a red-skinned ogre literally appeared out of nowhere. He swung a mace over our heads, connecting with the grey-skinned ogre that had been closest on our heels.
The mace buried into the grey’s chest, but I didn’t pause long enough to see what happened next. We were on a side trail and I spread out my Tracking, taking into account all the ogres around us.
“Ah, fuck,” I whispered, knowing Liam would hear me.
We were completely surrounded.
The thing was, I was pretty sure I could lead us around them; the trick would be to stay downwind so they couldn’t smell us. I put a finger to my lips and Liam nodded. Behind us the fight raged, drawing the ogres around us closer, tightening the noose around us. For the moment, they’d forgotten about the intruders, too intent on fighting one another. Score for us.
I dropped to the ground and shimmied forward, the muddy ground cold and slimy. The muck slipped through my jacket zipper, like a pervy old man’s wandering hands. Damn it all, this was disgusting. The bush covered us, hiding us from above, and the mud should have helped with our scent. Then again—
A foot the size of my upper body landed in the muck beside me, squishing up and through the bare, jet-black toes. I dared to look up.
Thank the gods the ogre didn’t look down, just took another step toward the fighting, leaving us behind. Liam squeezed my leg and I continued forward, Tracking ogres, dodging them all.
From behind us, the sounds of the fight escalated as more ogres were drawn to the blood. Like sharks, but instead of a feeding frenzy, they were in a fighting frenzy. When they were a half-mile behind us, and there were no more ahead of us, I stood, mud sliding down the front of my body.