Page 154 of Griffin Food

A few days ago, somebody tried to flee. Not one of the lads with me at this supply wagon, but another wagon a little further along.

They were brought back to the camp and bound to a tree. Then Adharde the bastard, as he is now known, took a blade and opened up his belly. He screamed at first, then he went quiet. He took a long time to die, and before he did, every slave in the camp was escorted past him so we might see our fate.

You would think such a lesson might deter me.

But no. It just makes me determined that if I’m going to run, I need to do it right. I will escape these sick bastards one way or another… and fulfill my mother’s promise when she named me.

“Halt!”

The long procession of soldiers and supplies comes to a grinding halt. It is early in the day for us to be stopping, and I am instantly on alert.

“What do you think it means?” Peter, a young lad in my party, asks under his breath. “Do you think another slave tried to escape?”

“No idea,” I reply. My stomach is not ready for another disembowelment. Knowing Adharde the bastard, he has some other creative way to make a slave die slowly to inspire fresh nightmares.

A mounted fae soldier gallops past with a leashed rockling… and then another.

“Stay with the wagon,” our guard says, fingers restless against the hilt of his sword.

A shadow passes overhead, blocking out the sun in an unnatural way.

“What was that?” Peter whispers.

“I don’t fucking know,” I say. “But it was big. And it flies.”

Another shadow passes over us.

Then another.

I subconsciously edge closer to the wagon like it might offer some protection.

This is a war party, I remind myself. It is the nature of a war party to go to war.

A great boulder suddenly drops through the trees, cracking branches and raining leaves down over us before it lands smack in the middle of the supply wagon.

BOOM.

The wagon collapses, ricocheting bits of wood and supplies everywhere.

I duck.

Then I run.

This isn’t me trying to escape. This is a primal instinct taking command of my brain and screaming DANGER.

Another mighty boulder is sent careening through the ranks of soldiers and supply wagons.

Stupid bastards are going to get us all killed.

A great screech rends the air.

I’m too busy running a zigzag path on my quest to get the hell away… and nearly collide with a rockling as it charges through the trees. A riderless horse careers past. I duck to the side, stumble on a root, and pitch forward at a dead run.

That’s when I realize the trees are running out, and I stagger onto the edge of a grassy plain… and stop.

Land stretches out before me, churned and trampled beneath boots and hooves.

War.