Page 89 of The Lure of Evil
The downhill gradient worked to her advantage, gravity urging her forwards. So she ran, hardly aware of the acid burning in her muscles. Her feet tackling the uneven ground, skimming over roots and fallen branches, focused entirely on escaping.
The branches in the trees above her bent and swayed ominously, the air from the Dragon's wings buffeting them from above. Panic threatened to take over; it knew where she was.
For the time being, the cover of the trees protected her, but she couldn’t hope to outrun a Dragon. Her thoughts were frantic, terror making it hard to think clearly. All she could do was run.
The trail was steep and uneven, and tree branches whipped across her face. She fell once, sprawling across the hard earth, tearing the skin of her hands and knees. The pain didn’t register, and without a second’s hesitation, she was back on her feet, tearing through the trees once more.
She was focused so intently on the trail that it took her a while to notice that she couldn’t hear the pounding of wings. She didn’t ease up her pace, ploughing through the trees, her chest heaving with the exertion. Her legs were on fire, and sweat streamed down her face, but she ignored it, overriding it. The trees to her left gave way to a wall of rock, thick with moss and ivy. The forest started to thin, the protective green breaking to expose her to widening patches of ominous blue, but she had no choice but to keep going.
She spotted the dark mouth of a cave ahead, just on the other side of a rocky clearing, and hope began to leak into the fear that pumped through her with every ragged breath.
She daren’t look up without risking falling again, but she couldn’t hear the Dragon above her. The narrow slit in the rock wall was within reach. Her tired legs felt like they were wading through water, but she grimaced through gasping breaths. She was going to make it.
Aelia barely had time to register the ground shuddering beneath her feet before her legs were swept out from under her. Caught mid-sprint, her momentum sent her crashing into the ground, and her head slammed against the rocks.
She saw stars, dancing in time to the ringing in her ears. Blinking past them, she raised herself onto her hands, urgency overriding pain.
Something large and unyielding pushed her firmly to the floor again, holding her there. She looked with chilling trepidation over her shoulder, her face a mask of unadulterated terror as she saw the enormous mass of golden scales that stood over her.
She shrieked. It was involuntary, her body bursting with so much fear the excess screamed out of it, piercing the air and echoing off the rocky mountain sides. But there was no one to hear it, no one to save her; there was only the great, golden Dragon pinning her in place.
