Chapter 98: Let me go! My brother was behind us!
"Your mate is on my back and unconscious!"
The false voice called again from the trees.
"Lena."
The female covered her ears and kept moving.
Pale wings followed above the riverbed.
They could not hide in branches now.
Swanly ran beside Kael, limping slightly.
He shifted into panther form and lowered his body.
"Get on."
"I can run."
His growl shook the stone.
Swanly climbed onto his back.
Miko was already tied against his chest in a carrying hide.
His wrapped foot stuck out.
"Mama ride Papa too."
"This is not a ride," Swanly said.
Miko patted Kael’s fur.
"Fast ride."
Kael ran faster.
At the front, Nerin staggered.
His antler still bled.
Arion moved to his other side before he fell.
"I have him."
Kael saw it from behind.
He said nothing.
Nerin looked between the lion and the panther helping him.
"This is uncomfortable."
Arion almost laughed.
"It should be."
A shadow crossed the riverbed.
Nilo looked up.
"Bird."
Swanly drew her bow from Kael’s back.
She fired without slowing.
The arrow struck the hollow bird’s chest.
It dropped lower.
Raku leaped from the side and smashed it into the riverbed with his tail.
Miko lifted both arms.
"Miko saw too."
"No, Nilo saw it," Kairo said.
"Miko supported."
"With what?"
"Heart."
Kairo stared at him.
Then nodded.
"Good heart."
The riverbed narrowed ahead.
Three bone-backed crawlers squeezed through the stone gap.
The front group stopped.
Soren moved past them.
"Kael, left."
Kael set Swanly down and shifted.
"Raku, right."
The crocodile male charged.
"Arion, move the center!"
The lion gathered the nearest hunters.
"Cubs back! Wounded behind the stone!"
Soren took the middle crawler.
His tail wrapped around its shell.
The creature clawed at him.
One talon cut across his ribs.
Blood darkened his pale skin.
He did not release it.
He lifted the crawler and slammed it sideways into the left creature.
Kael struck the exposed belly.
His claws tore through soft flesh.
Raku flipped the right crawler.
Arion and two hunters drove spears through its underside.
The middle creature snapped at Soren’s shoulder.
Swanly fired.
The arrow entered its eye.
Soren’s venom followed through the wound.
The creature convulsed.
He crushed its throat beneath one coil.
"Move!"
They did not wait to make sure the bodies stayed dead.
The tribe climbed out of the riverbed.
Dead stone opened into a wide ridge.
No trees covered it.
No roots crossed beneath it.
Sunlight began bleeding across the horizon.
The hollow birds circled once above the edge of the forest.
They did not follow into the open sky.
The Root-Eaters stopped where the living soil ended.
Their long bodies twisted between the trees.
Human teeth flashed in the distance.
The bone-backed crawlers scraped at the collapsed riverbed entrance.
Tovan brought down the final stone shelf.
The passage vanished beneath rubble.
For the first time since Riverbone opened beneath them, the tribe stopped running.
People collapsed across the ridge.
Some shifted back into human form.
Others remained as exhausted animals, sides heaving.
For several breaths, nobody moved.
Then the screaming began.
"My mate!"
"My father is still there!"
"Turn back! We have to dig them out!"
A gray wolf male shifted and lunged toward the collapsed riverbed.
Raku caught him around the waist.
The male kicked wildly.
"Let me go! My brother was behind us!"
"The tunnel is gone!"
"He could still be alive!"
Something heavy moved beneath the rubble.
Stone lifted.
A long bark-covered arm pushed halfway through before the rocks crushed it again.
The wolf stopped fighting.
From beneath Riverbone came a woman’s voice.
"Help me."
The sound was soft.
Weak.
Almost human.
Several survivors stepped forward.
Thalara’s forehead eye snapped toward the rubble.
"That is not one of yours."
The voice came again.
This time it laughed.
Everyone backed away.
Soren climbed onto the highest stone.
Black blood darkened the corner of his mouth, but his spine remained straight.
"Guards around the ridge."
No one reacted.
They were crying.
Searching faces.
Calling names.
Soren’s tail struck the ground.
CRACK!
"Move!"
The command rolled across the dead stone.
Raku released the wolf and turned toward the remaining guards.
"North and east edges! No one approaches the forest alone!"
The guards scattered.
Some were limping.
Some had blood soaking through torn hides.
They still obeyed.
Soren pointed toward Nahla.
"Divide the wounded."
Nahla was already kneeling beside a male whose thigh had been torn open.
"Those bleeding badly come to me first! Broken bones to Sari! Anyone bitten, scratched, or touched by black water stays away from the cubs!"
A wounded survivor shouted, "My mate is missing!"
Nahla did not look up.
"And if you bleed to death while screaming, she will still be missing. Sit down!"
He sat.
Tilla stood in the center of the ridge with Tavi bound tightly against her chest.
Her hair had come loose. Dust covered her face.
"Cub families, come here!"
Females and exhausted males gathered around her.
Cubs cried beneath carrying hides, inside beast-form parents’ fur, and against trembling chests.
Tilla counted.
"One, two, three..."
Her voice shook.
She counted again.
Then a third time.
Swanly stood with Kairo, Nilo, and Miko pressed around her legs.
Kael remained behind them in human form, one bloody arm wrapped around Swanly’s waist. Four deep claw marks crossed his shoulder.
They were already closing because beastmen healed quickly, but blood still ran down his chest.
Swanly kept looking toward the collapsed settlement.
People were missing beneath it.
People who had been alive less than an hour ago.
A female stumbled from group to group.
"Has anyone seen Toren?"
No answer.
Her voice rose.
"He was carrying our mother! Has anyone seen him?"
A hunter lowered his gaze.
The female understood.
Her scream ripped across the ridge.
Another family began calling two names.
Then another.
The air filled with grief.
Soren watched it spread.
He did not tell them to stop crying.
He said, "Cry while moving."
Several faces lifted.
"We count the living first. Then the dead. Anyone who returns to Riverbone will become another name we cannot answer."
A former elder stepped toward him.
"My son may be trapped."
Soren’s silver eyes moved toward the rubble.
"If he is alive beneath that, you cannot reach him."
"You do not know that!"
"No."
Soren’s voice remained cold.
"I know something beneath the rubble is using the voices of our dead."
The elder’s face crumpled.
Soren looked away before pity could weaken the order.
"Tilla."
She swallowed.