A white, glowing orb flashed through the night-sky, heading towards them like an oversized bullet forged from fire. It crashed into the earth moments after Ruban had leapt forward and thrown himself bodily over Hiya, covering her tiny form with his own larger one as he rolled them further into the forest, hoping the foliage would provide some cover from airborne assailants. Zikyang did not have much of a canopy, but it was a fairly dark night. Ruban prayed that that would be enough even as he tucked them both into the nook between two of the larger trees.
Looking up, he saw the silvery form of an Aeriel appear against the dark sky, stark and glowing ethereally in the light of the moon. A moment passed, and two more pearly figures appeared behind the first one, circling each other over the forest with lazy flaps of their lustrous wings.
“Damn,” Ruban muttered under his breath, trying to push himself towards the area with the heaviest undergrowth in the vicinity. “They must’ve been waiting for Reivaa to finish us off, before all the vultures could gather to feed on our corpses.” He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to check for any backup Reivaa might have had. He supposed it just hadn’t occurred to him that Reivaa would willingly share the pleasure of killing them with anybody else. Well, she probably wouldn’t have, which was why they hadn’t appeared until after her death.
“What do we do now, Baan?” Hiya’s voice shook, and she buried her face in the hollow of his neck. He could feel her tears drenching his shirt and he held her tighter, shifting slightly to make her somewhat more comfortable. He didn’t know what else to do, what else he could do. Pain flared through every part of his body, and his injured calf still felt as if someone had hacked at it with a rusted chainsaw. He felt helpless, and it wasn’t a feeling he was used to. He decided that he despised it.
Another energy-shell fell out of the sky and crashed a few feet away from where they hid, momentarily blinding Ruban with the flash of its detonation. A third soon followed – illuminating the woods in a flare of dazzling luminescence before going out just as quickly as it had appeared, making the forest feel darker than before.
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A moment passed in relative tranquillity, and then something caught Ruban’s eye – a flicker in the distance, where the last energy-shell had hit the ground. It was tiny, barely noticeable. Ruban’s heart thundered against his ribs, as though it wanted to leap out of his mouth and vanish.
A fire-shell. They’re trying to flush us out by setting the whole damn forest on fire!
His blood turned to ice, he watched the spark grow brighter with every passing second, spreading slowly in an ever-increasing radius of flickering luminescence. He looked over desperately in the direction of his car, barely able to make out the metallic outline of the vehicle in the oppressive darkness. It was at least a hundred yards off from where they lay curled up in the foliage. Ruban did not need to flex his legs to know that he was in no condition to run that distance with Hiya in his arms. He could barely carry his own weight, and he certainly wouldn’t be fast enough to avoid being hit by one of the Aeriels on the way. They’d be dead long before they got anywhere near the car, he realised, as the flames danced closer to their hiding place with every moment that passed.
Was this what it came down to, Ruban wondered, a distant sort of calm descending over his overwrought senses. A choice between being burned alive or blasted to bits? Didn’t seem like much of a choice to him. But then, things rarely were all that they were cranked up to be, in his experience.
A shadow fell over them, and Hiya squealed, practically vibrating out of his arms in glee. Forcing his eyes to focus, Ruban looked up – to see Ashwin standing over them; wings outstretched, one hand braced against a nearby tree as if he didn’t trust his feet to keep him upright without the extra support. A faint sliver of light still spilled from his injured wing, casting forlorn shadows over the two humans as he stood there gazing down at them with empty white eyes.
Ruban wondered if it would be easier to just let Ashwin do it. He had been quick enough with Reivaa.
“Please, don’t hurt Hiya,” Ruban gasped, forcing the words through his parched throat in a strange mimicry of his entreaty to Reivaa earlier that evening. The words burned on their way out. It felt as though he had swallowed sand. “Please, just…you can do what you want with me. You don’t have to kill her. She’s done nothing to you. Just let her go, please.” He wasn’t above begging when it came to Hiya, when it came to the one thing that really mattered.