Chapter 9

New dangers

~Yandré Skai~

The weight of Forest on Yandré’s shoulders and the accompanied pain of his chest made sweat pour over his body by the time they reached the edge of the first cavern.

 But his senses were trained elsewhere. And though Selia could be heard behind him and Emma in front, he rather listened for footsteps other than his companions, and he listened for monsters. It was clear that any great noise in these caves drew attention to the predators lurking in the shadows.

It couldn’t be helped, but it created a problem. They had to get back to Haven’s scar in one piece, and only the girls were in a state where they could run if something attacked them.

 Even without Forest on his back, Yandré had not allusions that he could run from anything at that moment.

His chest hurt like crazy and each breath was laboured.

Still he was glad. Glad that he and Eria wouldn’t be alone in these caves. It was a little selfish, but the fact that more hands and eyes meant a better chance at survival was a welcome one in some strange way.

What worried him though, was the fact that, that strange thing had happened again. It had expanded all the way from that cavern past the forward scouting base… what it meant, Yandré couldn’t figure out. But he hoped within a hope that no more people would get stuck this side…

The tunnel opened up and drew Yandré out of his thoughts. Emma moved around a pillar, but then she skidded back around it looking shocked. Yandré steeled his features.

They weren’t alone.

He softly padded closer and Emma looked out of breath, her eyes wide. Clearly what had scared her wasn’t human. He nodded to her and peeked around the corner.

Noises filled the air then. Crunching sounds.

A frown settled over him as the thing came into view.

It wasn’t a quilled beast or a Banshee Fox and that was troubling to the extreme.

Whatever it was, it was ripping large pieces out of the corpse of the quilled beast Yandré and Eria had downed with great difficulty.

It was almost the height of a black bear standing on all fours, but twice as long. And its sleek coppery muscles didn’t look built for pure strength, rather for speed, which showed in the manner it was tearing at the dead quilled beast.

The next moment it stopped with a jerk and swung its head to the side, hissing with menace as its lips drew back to reveal bloody teeth that looked wicked sharp. Yet what was most striking was the lack of any eyes.

Yandré pulled back.

“By all that is good…” He muttered while shifting Forest into a better position.

A glance to the side revealed his scared companions looking to him with fear. It was their first encounter with something out of a nightmare. But he hardly knew what to say.

His instincts were screaming for him to run. To get away. Even though it was impossible for him to outrun anything right then.

With a grimace, he moved closer to the two.

Selia spoke up first as she whispered.

“What is that? ”

He shook his head.

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“I don’t know… First time I see one of those. But… I have a sinking feeling it has a great deal better hearing than the other types I have seen. So keep all sounds down to a minimum.”

Emma nodded with her lip firmly between her teeth as she chewed at it.

The problem was… they had to get past that thing to almost the other side of the cavern to get to the tunnel they needed to take to Haven’s Scar.

“So what do we do now?” Emma asked finally.

He paused, wracking his brain for ideas that didn’t involve having to move within a hundred metres of that monster.

But the only thing they could do was try and get around it. The part that really got him though, was that Emma or Selia would possibly have to go first, to test the water, they had the agility to respond to a situation, whereas he…

He sighed, shifting Forest again.

Nevertheless, he steeled himself to go first. But before he could take two steps to the right Emma’s hand on his arm made him stop.

He eyed her and immediately saw the resolve in her eyes.

It wasn’t ideal… but he nodded after a slight hesitation.

With a few measured steps Emma eased out in the open, and in the light of the crystal veins, her eyes were clearly shaking as she treaded the fifty metres towards the next pillar.

The crunching from the carcass didn’t lessen as Yandré held his breath, before letting out as she reached the first cover.

Selia went next without any urging from him, but he didn’t mind, he’d rather have them reach safety in the current situation.

It was then that the crunching stopped.

Emma frantically motioned for Selia to stay completely still as she stood in the middle of the clearing. All three of them looked out over to the eyeless beast. Its head was tilted to side as its human-head-sized ear stood up and twitched to the left to the right.

However, with a moment of brilliance Emma picked up a rock and chucked it towards the opposite side of the crystal cavern. It clattered loudly against the wall, before coming to stop.

Then, sounds like a blade cutting through grass erupted out of the creature and with a blistering move that frightened the party; it jumped twenty metres from the corpse in a single bound and ran the next thirty in five seconds.

Yandré stared in horror. There was no way… just simply no way any of them could outrun that thing. It was at least twice as fast as the quilled beasts. And the quilled beast had been faster than them.

He shuddered in thought of trying to outrun that thing…

The eyeless creature stood by the rock that Emma had thrown, its ears twitched in all directions as it listened for movement.

The girls stared wide eyed at him, with Selia still out in the open. Their chances of getting through the cavern had dropped. But Yandré tried to stay relatively calm for them. They needed to think every move out clearly from now on.

Though, just before he could slowly make his way over to Selia, loud footfalls echoed through the one cave to the right.

“What now?...”Yandré breathed softly. The day simply couldn’t get worse.

Out of that cave, a coppery blur burst out and landed close to the corpse.

It was a second creature, the same as the one in the cavern.

Panic filled him and he almost dropped Forest as his arms lost some strength.

But a moment later, the first creature stormed the corpse, clearly aware of the other beast.

It struck the one at the corpse with a great loud thud and they hissed and growled as the momentum sent them rolling into a pillar. They nipped at each other like they were not out to kill the other, but Yandré didn’t stay still to observe.

He seized the opportunity immediately and through the noise dashed towards Selia, who realized his intention and ran towards Emma. They hardly looked back as they moved as fast as they dared while the two monsters rolled around the ground around the meat.

As they reached the cave that led to Haven’s scar, Yandré looked back over to the monsters. His heart raced even though relief washed over him that they had stayed at the quilled beast’s corpse.

The weight of Forest on his back was no more than a slight hindrance now, the situation had changed now, and Yandré bitterly admitted, it had gotten worse now.

If they couldn’t figure a way out or a way to get away from the monsters that lurked in these caves the chances of survival was going to be borderline impossible. He grunted, ignoring the stinging pain in his chest as he took the lead back towards Haven’s Scar.

Fifteen minutes later and out of breath, Yandré rounded the corner to the dead end. In an instant, he dropped Forest to the ground as the last of the strength in his legs gave out.

Emma was the first to run up to him and ask.

“Yandré!? Are you okay?”

He panted, but managed a nod even though he kept his eyes closed.

He fumbled with his one water bottle and took a deep drink. The cold water from the waterfall welcome as it slid down his throat.

A minute later he opened his eyes and said,

“Up there… Eria is up there. But don’t call out… It’s too dangerous.”

Emma looked to where he was pointing and nodded her understanding and to his surprise immediately started the climb up to find Eria.

Yandré sagged down, the day finally taking its toll.

End of Arc One for the Side story.