'Ranno,' Kuerolong said, jogging back towards them. 'We cannot delay like this.'
He at least was breathing heavily, his huge chest expanding to the rhythm of his breaths. Thick, white sweat covered his neck and shoulders, and coated the contours of his heavily muscled chest.
'She's unable to continue,' Ranno said.
Kuerolong threw his head back and snorted, making it clear that she was holding them all up. It wasn't her intention and she didn't like it at all. Anger boiled up inside her, directed at herself rather than the King of the minotaurs. Why hadn't she kept up with her training?
'Why don't you teleport ahead?' Ranno said.
'I can't. Goran took my gemstone.'
'You don't need a gemstone.'
'I do.'
'Lisa teleports perfectly well without one.'
'That's different. She understands how it works much better than I do. She only held my gemstone once. I think she just understood it on some fundamental level. She was able to mimic its effect even after I took it away from her. I can't do that. I already tried.'
'Gemstones are just training devices,' Ranno said. 'The lords are given them as children. They should grow out of them in time.'
'But the lords still use them. I've seen them. Lord Hades had one, and Goran too.'
'This is a different place,' Ranno said, casting his gaze around him, 'a microcosm of dysfunctional behaviour.'
Rachel didn't know what he was talking about. She just knew she couldn't teleport, and she couldn't run another stride.
Kuerolong tilted his head to one side. 'Be quiet,' he said listening to something in the distance.
Rachel followed his gaze and saw a dark shape in the sky. At first she mistook it for a fless, but then she realised it was a bird, but there was something different about it. It was far away and yet still visible. She wondered how that was possible until she started to grasp the shear size of it. Long wings soared on the wind, as its legs hung low, trailing long, sharp talons behind it. Rachel reached over her shoulder, meaning to pull out the bone staffs but Ranno placed a cold hand on her wrist.
'No need,' he said. 'The eagles are on our side.'
Rachel frowned, staring up at the bright blue sky above. The eagle was already much closer, flying fast across the landscape. It let out a high pitched screech as it swooped low and landed with a heavy thud on Kuerolong's outstretched arm. The bird's weight didn't seem to trouble him at all. Its torso was almost as large as her own, and its huge wings flapped once for balance before it tucked them neat and tidy behind its back.
'Do you bring a message, lord of the skies?' Kuerolong said.
The eagle shrieked, its big brown eyes shifting nervously from side to side. It clicked its beak, letting out a series of gurgling noises in the back of its throat.
Kuerolong nodded and then turned towards them. 'The sky lord has left the Ice Cathedral.'
'Where is she now?' Rachel said, unsure of whether she was asking Kuerolong or his impressive, feathered companion.
'She is travelling west.'
Rachel blinked. She had no idea where she was, or how far they were from the Ice Cathedral - or anywhere else for that matter. 'How far is she from here?'
'Not far,' Ranno said. 'This news shortens our journey by half. We can make it in a couple of days if we run all the way.'
'I can't run another step,' Rachel said, disappointing even herself. She wanted to run and run until she found her daughter but her body had given up on her. There was nothing she could do about it. Her legs trembled and she felt light headed as though she might throw up onto the ground. 'I need to rest,' she said, 'just for a little while. Maybe go ahead. You can help her until I find a way to catch up.'
Her chest hurt even saying such words. She didn't want to follow behind, leaving her daughter's life in the hands of others. She wanted to lead the way. Her resolve hadn't faltered. She was just trying to think of a way around her body's limitations. Maybe she could do something with the bone staffs. She didn't know what.
Ranno shook his head, glancing towards a small copse of trees nearby. 'I have an idea,' he said. 'Wait here.'
Rachel slumped onto the ground with a heavy sigh and leant back on her hands. Her legs were like rubber. She had no doubt they would tip her on her face if she tried to run again any time soon.
When she looked up, she saw Ranno amongst the trees, waving his arms in odd patterns. The branches shook and fell with ease, despite the fact that he held no axe. She couldn't work out how he was doing it but a moment later he came jogging back towards her with a thick bundle of branches beneath one arm.
'What are you doing?' she said when he was standing beside her once more.
'If you cannot run, we must make a stretcher and carry you upon it.'
'No,' Rachel said, 'I won't be carried like an invalid.'
'How else will you keep up with us? Do you wish to delay us? Lisa needs our help. You know that as well as I do.'
Rachel bit back a response. She didn't like any part of what Ranno was saying but she knew in her heart that he was right. She held her tongue, sitting silently as she watched his hands moving in a blur around her. He twisted the branches around each other, tying them with a twine that seemed to extend from the end of his finger. In no time at all he had constructed some kind of stretcher with two long poles at the back and a lattice of thin, flexible branches in between. It had taken him less than a minute to do what would have taken her more than an hour. There was no doubt he was no ordinary old man.
'That twine came out of your finger,' she said. 'How did you do that?'
Ranno raised an eyebrow, his pupils rotating first left and then right. 'Did I not tell you I'm a nanomachine?'
Rachel blinked. 'Are you serious?'
'We don't have time for this. We need to keep moving.' Raising one arm he signalled for Kuerolong to go ahead.
Kuerolong didn't need asking twice. The eagle let out an angry shriek, taking to the sky once more, and Kuerolong turned, setting off at a sprint across the scrub land ahead of them. The others minotaurs followed as soon as he ran past them, their hooves thundering across the ground, leaving a thick dust cloud behind them.
'Why did you send them away?' Rachel said.
'We'll catch up with them. Get on the stretcher and hold on tight.'
'How will you carry me?'
'I don't need to carry you. I can drag this across the ground behind me. Get on now.'
Rachel wasn't sure how it was all going to work out. The stretcher looked sturdy enough but she couldn't imagine lying on it like a queen, being dragged across an alien landscape by what she had until recently considered to be nothing but an annoying old man. Reluctantly she shuffled sideways and lay down on the branches. It was surprisingly comfortable considering it had been made in such a short time.
'Brace you feet on the bottom branch,' Ranno said. 'I don't want you falling off every few hundred metres.'
Rachel nodded, doing as she was told for once. When she was sure she wouldn't fall off, she nodded again. 'Are you sure you can do this?'
'I'm a guardian,' Ranno said, as though that settled the matter. He lifted her up with one hand as he shoved more branches beneath her.
'Hey!' she said. 'Do you mind?!'
'I need to make it thicker,' he said, 'to act as a buffer between you and the ground.'
Rachel suffered his ungracious manoeuvres for a little while longer but she couldn't help frowning at him. Human or not that was no way to lift a lady out of the way.
'Are you ready?' Ranno said.
Rachel nodded, her lips set in a straight line.
Ranno set off, slowly at first, pulling the makeshift stretcher behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder every few strides, checking to see if she had fallen off yet. Rachel held on tight as her strange new chariot sped ever faster across the ground. It shook her bones more than she would have liked as the base dragged across the ground but she focussed on nothing but holding on tight.
'Are you okay back there?' Ranno called out.
Rachel nodded, even though he couldn't see her. 'I'm fine,' she said as an afterthought.
'Hold on. I'm going to go a lot faster.'
The pace quickened almost immediately. Rachel's stretcher bounced over a rock before settling back into its juddering torment as the ground sped away in front of her. Ranno covered the ground much quicker than before. When she glanced back over her shoulder she could see the minotaurs in the distance, racing across the landscape. She realised now that they had been travelling slowly before. They had held themselves back so she could keep up with them, and even then she had struggled to maintain their pace. Now that they were able to stretch their legs, they covered twice the ground with every stride.
Ranno chased after them at incredible speed, his short legs moving faster and faster across the ground. His smart shoes pounded across the landscape but there was no sound of him breathing heavily or struggling at all for that matter. Rachel didn't know what he was anymore. She was just relieved that she didn't have to try to keep up with them on her own two feet. She had never been able to run that fast even in her peak physical condition.
* * * * *
They ran for hours as the sun rose high in the sky, sprinting throughout the day. They paused only once because Rachel's stretcher caught fire after getting too hot from being dragged across the ground. She had been asleep at the time. She hadn't noticed until Ranno had come to a sudden halt and dowsed the flames with his hands. The fire had gone out at once, despite the fact that he hadn't wasted any water on them. After caressing the underside of the stretcher for a few seconds, he had declared it safe and started running again.
The minotaurs never seemed to tire, and Ranno looked as though he could run all week. Only Rachel was exhausted and she had been lying down for the last few hours. She lay on her back, wrapping loose branches around her arms so she wouldn't fall off. The stretcher vibrated constantly, bouncing over every small rock on the ground. For a while she thought her bones would shake apart entirely but eventually she fell asleep, rocked back and forth by her strange travelling cradle.