Heading back west, Fiher followed at the farthest distance he could away with, pretending to stumble a few times to gain enough distance to react to their motions. Still, the group of Xenai swerved suddenly and Fiher fought to hide his scramble to move with them. More new commands that Fiher couldn’t hear. Amber kept his distance, now, due to the group’s frequent turns and his tendency to run into them. Fiher had no one to blame it on if he made a mistake.
They had not moved far along the new route when Fiher heard Amber shout behind them. Suddenly, the roots around him heaved up out of the ground, tripping him and the other Xenai. White tendrils like a web grew from the ground and over them before they had a chance to move. Layer upon layer built up over them. They pushed against them, but as many as they broke, twice that many had already grown over them. Soon Fiher’s head was forced down into the dirt. The world looked like it was covered in a wash of white.
Amber’s scream of anger cut through the soft, mycelial blanket. Fiher could hear the movement of the bushes next to him before he felt the prick of it’s branches growing into the white pillow that trapped him. The branches dug around him, breaking through the mycelium network that held him down. Too slow; Amber has to be quicker.
He could feel each step the enemy was taking reverberating through the ground—closer and closer. The footsteps slowed. He heard the squelch of flesh and a scream from one of his troop ahead of him. The feet moved again. The branches still wiggled around him, slicing gaps in the threads that nearly instantly knit themselves back together.
“Make the branches cut at the same time, and I will push! I’ll count!” He yelled in Xenaran. He counted down, yelling the numbers as loud as he could while barely being able to move his mouth. He felt the stab of more branches stabbing into the netting. When he hit one in the countdown, he arched his back as hard as he could, praying to get his hands under him. He managed to slide them beneath his chest before the binds tightened back down, pushing his chest into his hands. His elbows stuck out at his sides at a painful angle and the white tendrils were still constricting. He felt the pain rippling through his back and wrists as his elbows were pushed down and his body couldn’t adapt.
“Again!” He yelped.
He started counting down again. Between numbers, he heard another scream and the ripping of flesh. There were two more of his team ahead of him before the enemy would reach him, and it was getting harder to breathe.
He finished the count down and arced his back, then pushed in a fluid motion as the brush jerked through the lines of fungi. He pulled his knees up to his chest and then pushed back against the barrier from his knees and hands with as much force as he could. He made it into an upright position on his knees. The branches Amber manipulated were curving back to continue cutting around his calves as he pulled and strained against the white growths crawling around his knee and up his thigh. He felt enough give to jump to his feet. He bounced backwards, not even bothering to look at what was behind him. He just had to make it far enough away from the center of the sourcecast. He ended up in another bush and rolled out of it, bounding up to his feet and continuing to retreat.
Another scream pierced the air. It ended in a gurgle.
Thats when he saw her. Standing thirty feet away behind the men killing the Xenai. before a patch of red crystals, her hooded cloak blew in the breeze, but it did not contain the distinctive silver hair.
Shara.
The last Xenai that had been trapped screamed out a coarse word in the Pact’s common language, “Bitch,” as the soldier standing over it plunged the bayonet on his rifle into its back. The soldier wiggled it around with force, then placed a foot on the body and yanked the blade out. Nothing but shrubbery stood between him and the soldiers, now. Only Amber remained from their small group.
Shara turned to him. He felt the coldness in her eyes. The determination. He shivered and heard Amber’s quaking breaths behind him.
The soldiers began to charge them. Amber had good instincts. The bushes he had used to cut Fiher free grew towards the soldiers, grabbing at their legs and feet. They slowed to hack at them. Fiher pulled out his daggers.
He had to convince her. He had to tell her he was on her side—but he wouldn’t ever convince her if he killed her friends. I am not your enemy!
In front of his feet, the leaves began to rustle. Amber weaved together a series of twigs and they shot from the underbrush at the nearest soldier. Fiher felt the shock wave of surprise from Amber when the braided dart abruptly changed directions and flew back to him. Another squelch, and a thud as he fell to the ground.
Fiher threw his daggers on the ground and himself to his knees. He put his arms in the air as the soldiers stepped up to him. He looked Shara in the eyes as the nearest brought his rifle up to stab him.
“Zerstörer!”
He saw Shara’s eyes go wide.
“Wait!”
The soldier barely caught the weapon before it hit.
Shara looked over at him, “Fur?”
He smiled, the flat waves of crinkles in his smoke from his apprehension twirling into ascending spirals as happiness and gratitude washed over him. “Yes, Shara.”
The soldiers turned to her.
She lifted her chin and commanded them, “He saved me once. Take him prisoner. He will not die, today.”
They all turned and glared down at him, but obeyed.