I freeze. I’m about seventeen yards from the monstrous beast slithering its way into the open. I don’t think it’s enough. At the very least, I need to move higher, but I can’t without alerting it to my exact location.
The Cursed One coils its body along the ground and pulls itself from the hole it created. Up close, it looks like a giant wingless dragon covered in thick interlocking black scales with a tail the length of two grown men lying end to end and a ridge of webbed spikes running along its back. Thick yellow claws protrude from its muscled limbs.
Our weapons are useless. Swords break against its scales, arrows glance off, and the only area of weakness seems to be its sightless milky yellow eyes, but to get close enough to stab the eye is to court a fiery death from its mouth.
Besides, stabbing it in the eye is pointless. Nothing dies from losing an eye.
The only escape is to stay off its radar. It tracks by sound and smell, and when it stops and swings its head slowly side to side, huffing smoky little breaths, I don’t dare move a muscle. I’m grateful I don’t have the food in my pack. It would only add to my human scent and make me a bigger target.
Melkin isn’t as fortunate. I slant my eyes to the side and see him clinging to the upper branches of the tree beside mine, but his pack is nowhere to be seen. I guess he had the presence of mind to drop it.
The Cursed One puffs its breath out, and small flames jet through its nostrils, scorching the earth in front of it. The burned dirt seems to infuriate it, and it shakes its head, puffing increasingly large flames from its snout.
If we’re quiet, absolutely silent, it will leave. I focus on breathing in and out with slow precision, though my lungs scream at me to drag air in as quickly as possible so I can flee or fight.
I won’t have to do either, though. I just have to be still.
Suddenly, it jerks its head up and points its sightless eyes straight at me.
My stomach lurches, and as I glance around for a way out, I catch sight of Melkin’s pack hanging on a branch several feet below me. I didn’t realize he’d climbed up behind me before switching trees, dropping his pack along the way. I’m about to pay the price.
Abandoning my efforts at controlled, silent breathing, I give in to my body’s demands, dragging in a huge gulp of air while I tense my muscles for action.
The beast sniffs again, its body coiling like a snake about to strike.
If I don’t move, I’m dead.
I have to time it just right. Leap as it attacks and hope the noise of the fireball it spews covers the sound of me landing in another tree. Glancing at Melkin’s position, I judge the distance between my tree and his. He catches my eye and jerks his chin toward the branch below him.
I brace myself and watch for my moment.
I don’t have to wait long. In seconds, the beast’s agitation reaches a boiling point and it rears up, takes aim, and roars a giant ball of fire straight at my tree.
I run along the branch and leap for Melkin’s tree as the trunk behind me explodes into flame. I land hard, slip, and nearly fall, but Melkin’s unnaturally long arm snakes down and catches me.
I dangle against the tree, my feet struggling to find purchase on the branch below me, while the Cursed One roars its fury and swings its head from side to side, obliterating everything in its path.
Panic blazes through me, sharp and absolute. I’m not going to die. Not like this. I have too many promises to keep.
My feet find the branch, and I steady myself by holding on to the trunk below Melkin. He keeps his hand on my pack, and we freeze as the Cursed One slithers around the trees, sniffing and listening.
I don’t know what called it here. Maybe it was close enough to hear me yelling. Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, though I’ve never been a big believer in coincidence. Whatever caught the Cursed One’s attention, we’re in its sights now.
Any gratitude I feel at being high enough to avoid letting it sniff out our location disappears when it bellows, a throaty roar of fury, and strafes the trees in front of it with fire. The trunk below us bursts into flame, and heat licks at my toes.
Smoke billows up, choking me, and the flames crawl steadily toward us. My lungs scream for air, my muscles shake with the need to run, and my skin feels dry and parched, but switching trees now would be my death sentence. I hold my breath to keep from coughing, and focus on remaining still.
It works. The Cursed One swings its head back and forth for another interminable minute, then curls back around, black scales glistening in the flickering light of the flames it created, and slithers its way into the gaping hole it made in the ground.
We remain still until the last trace of it disappears. Then we explode into motion. Scrambling up the trunk, we run along the length of the thickest branch we can find and tree-leap only to do the whole thing all over again.
Fire spreads quickly in the packed density of the Wasteland, but I know there’s a river less than one hundred fifty yards to the west. Melkin knows it too, and we head for it in unspoken agreement.
Behind us, a wall of fire chews through the forest, spitting sparks and embers toward the sky and gushing a cloud of black smoke in our wake. We leap, climb, run, leap, and at some point, Melkin’s hand reaches out and takes my heavy pack off my shoulders so I can keep up.
In the distance, I see the deep blue-black surface of the river glittering beneath the afternoon sun. My lungs burn, and my hands are raw from snatching at rough bark for balance, but I increase my pace as the wall of heat behind me whispers along my skin.
Melkin reaches the river first, but doesn’t jump. Instead, he waits, reaching a skinny hand back for me as I make my final leap and skid along the branch toward him. He catches me, grabs my hand, and together we dive out of the trees and into the crisp, cold water.