Jovian stopped dead in his tracks, his breath wheezing loudly and painfully to his ears even as his heartbeat threatened to drown out all other noise. A growing unease surrounded him as he realized if he had traveled much farther he would have found himself entering the accursed Shadow Realm.
With a sneer at his ill luck, Jovian turned Methos back and headed for the main hunting party, or at least where he thought the group should be. He traveled for a time, and when he heard the horn blow again—for they obviously missed Jovian—he realized this time it was on his left, which would mean he was traveling south.
“What the otherworld?” Jovian cursed under his breath as he brought the horse to heel. Peering around him, Jovian cursed a second time, for now the fog was growing thicker. He figured the best way to fix this problem was to let the men find him.
Lifting his horn to his lips, Jovian took in a deep breath … and stopped. Right behind him came the haunting laughter again. All of the hair on his body stood on end as he froze too terrified to turn or blow his horn.
Motionless, Jovian reminded himself to breath, with eyes tightly closed. When he found the strength to open them, he thought for sure he could see two glowing green orbs pacing beside him, stalking him. The horse stomped a few times and blew nervously. Suddenly Jovian had to grab the reigns as Methos reared, and he lost hold of his horn.
The second time the stallion reared, Jovian was tossed from its back, and the crash to the ground sent pain lancing up his arm as it snapped his wrist. He let out a sharp cry as the horn blew again, still farther away than before.
With his good hand, Jovian pushed himself upright, his brown trousers damp from the wet earth and his hair matted to his head with sweat. He cradled his wrist to his chest as more pain shot up the bone. Sucking the air in through his teeth, Jovian winced.
The laughter came again, but Jovian was defenseless against it. His body trembled. He looked around frantically for the horn, but he couldn’t find it. Retracing his fall, he tried to determine where he was when he lost it, but decided to move forward. He stopped. Forward—wasn’t that the way the laughter was coming from? Instead he turned, and when he did he found himself eye to eye with glowing green eyes, level with his own. This was saying something for the size of the beast, as Jovian stood nearly six foot.
He stumbled back, breaking his fall with his dominant yet broken hand. A surge of pain sent black spots to cloud his vision. On the way down, his head thumped against something hard, hard enough that he heard the thing crack. He would have reached back for it, but just then a huge shape bounded out of the fog and pinned him to the ground. All the ways he had landed up until now had protected his bow and quiver, but with the large shape landing on him, the weapon stood no chance. It splintered, driving part of the quiver case into his left side, where the bottom of it hung.
Jovian looked up into the poisonous green eyes. Unnatural putrid eyes that glowed like hot embers, yet seethed as if made of smoke. The creature let out a cackle, much like the laugh Micah had claimed came from a hyena, but this creature was anything but a hyena. Part of its body took the form of a hyena, but the face was large and ape-like, a slightly deformed ape with large tusks that protruded from its bottom jaw up the sides of its skull to frame its temples. The creature opened its mouth, and Jovian saw a forked tongue lick the air before his face.
He felt something pierce his shoulders then, and when he looked down he saw cloven hooves that came down to a sharp point, like claws. Jovian’s attention was quickly brought back to the beast’s face when it let out a series of noises that sounded for the entire world a mixture of a cough and a bark.
The boy didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t reach his weapon, and even if he could it was now splintered, not to mention it would do him no good at this close proximity. He was in pain from the quiver, which continuously dug itself deeper into his back, and furthermore, now there was an agonizing pressure in his lower right leg where the large beast pierced its clawed feet into Jovian. He cursed himself for acting as Alhamar would have, and not how any self-respected twenty summers old boy would have, but no matter how much Jovian silently berated himself a little whimper issued from his lips. He was thankful that no one was around to see the tear that escaped his eye.
He sent a prayer up to the goddess, that she would protect him, and he was hopeful that she could hear him during her struggle to leave the grips of the Otherworld. The creature growled as the Holy Mother’s prayer issued from Jovian’s lips, and the leg that pinned his right one down twisted, splintering Jovian’s leg much like his bow.
A sharp cry left his lips, but Jovian still formed the words:
“Holy Mother of the Ever After, be here with me now. I have strayed away and lost my ground, fearing to be never found. Blessed She who is all things, weave a light around me, for in your light nothing’s lost, and evil shall not be.” A harsh sound slipped from his throat as the beast wrenched its back leg further into his broken one. Tears sprang to his eyes, and Jovian thought all was lost. The goddess didn’t hear him.
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