Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“And you think mine are?” Hollace replied. “I don’t have room to shift. I’d fall off the side of this trail and tumble down until I went splat. You don’t have room to shift, either. You’d probably set the whole place on fire. I doubt these creatures want their redwoods burned down. That’d be a sure way to get your ass thrown out.”
“You’re just trying to discourage me because misery loves company,” she accused him.
“That obvious, huh?”
“You must walk the path,” our basajaun said. “It lets the village know where we are and how fast we are traveling. Though…I’m sure they are laughing about our speed. I don’t think I’ve ever climbed this slowly. We can make friends with snails at this pace.”
“You can’t make friends with anyone,” Mr. Tom replied.
My legs were screaming now. My heart knocked hard in my chest.
We hit a crest, and I could feel everyone’s relief as we descended the ridge a little. In a moment, though, we headed right back up.
“Why?” someone groaned behind me. It could’ve been Nessa. “Why?”
A small branch cracked under my foot. I kicked a rock and made it skitter off the path and bounce down the slope. The basajaun turned back again, probably because of the noise. Austin hadn’t made a sound. In fact, aside from the heavy breathing, everyone was nearly silent.
“You guys are all good at sneaking,” I said through my own heavy breathing.
I stubbed my toe and shuffled to the left. A small, leafy tree bending too far into the path smacked me with its branches. I put up my hand to push it away. My thighs flared from the pivot, and I staggered a little toward the edge.
Alarm bled through the link. Austin gripped my shoulder from behind. “Careful, there,” he told me.
“I’m fine.” I issued a thumbs-up to the side, not daring to turn back with a smile or even a grimace. “My legs are just a little wobbly. I’m good.” I eyed the edge of the trail, which was much too close to my feet. The lip was jagged, pushing out around rocks or receding because of past runoff. “How much do we have left?”
The basajaun stopped now and turned, looking down at me. I meant to stop with him, but my legs were burning so badly that they didn’t respond as quickly as they should have. I smacked my face into his chest and felt his hand steadying me.
“Sorry,” I said, straightening.
“Alpha, let me take her rear,” the basajaun said. “I am more adept in these mountains. If she falls over the edge, I’ll be able to retrieve her much faster than you could.”
“Retrieve me?” I held the straps of my backpack and dared another look over the edge. The blood pumping through me and the height made my vision distort. I didn’t usually have vertigo, but I also didn’t usually cling to the side of a mountain with legs that were threatening to give out. “You’d be retrieving a pile of broken bones off this thing.”
“Okay,” Austin said, stepping closer. “How do we change our places?”
The basajaun turned to point. “The path widens a little up ahead. We’ll adjust the line formation there.”
“She gets her own basajaun security detail, huh?” Ulric asked. “Can I have a piggyback, then? I’m pretty light, I think. You guys wouldn’t even notice me.”
“I’d sign up for that,” Hollace said.
“Me too,” Cyra replied.
“I really love the gorilla hugging my backside, don’t get me wrong,” Nessa called up, “but I probably need a basajaun, too. This is a little beyond my expertise.”
“Just don’t drag me down with you,” Mr. Tom said.
“Now I definitely will. You just cemented your tumble, my friend,” she replied.
The trail turned, veering right over the top of the ridgeline. To either side, it fell away now, but there were a few places where it did, indeed, widen out a little. At one of those places, the whole line reorganized. The basajaunak positioned themselves within my crew, taking the places of many of the shifters. The wolves shifted into their animals, a move that Cyra pointed out was cheating. I agreed. Austin and Broken Sue were the only ones left on two feet; their animals were much too large to traverse the slim trails.
Time crawled by in a haze of physical exertion I wasn’t used to. I’d built up a tolerance while flying, but I hadn’t been running or scaling mountains. This was not in my wheelhouse. The basajaun hovered close as I toiled, his large hand repeatedly drifting out beside me. He clearly thought I’d lose feeling in my legs, stumble, and stagger off the side. I wondered if he was right.
“No guardrails at all, huh?” I asked when we reached a particularly hairy section. “Not even a couple of stakes people might grab hold of in a pinch.”