The Ashen Healer

Chapter 6

"Weak," another voice whispered. It sounded like Baret, the enforcer. "Look at him crawl. Like a worm."

"No," Evans whimpered. He covered his ears. "Go away."

"You are nothing without your power," a third voice said. It was his own voice. "You are just meat."

Evans squeezed his eyes shut. "Shut up! Shut up!"

He scrambled forward, crawling blindly. His hand slipped over the edge of a drop.

He tumbled.

He fell into a shallow ravine—a dried-up riverbed cut into the rock. He landed in the soft, silty dirt at the bottom. The walls of the ravine blocked the wind. It was slightly warmer here.

But Evans didn't care. He was done.

He curled into a ball. He pulled his knees to his chest. He shivered so hard his muscles cramped.

The voices were gone, replaced by a high-pitched ringing in his ears.

He stared at the dirt in front of his face. He saw a tiny pebble. It was white, perfectly round. It looked like a pearl.

He focused on the pebble. It was the only thing in the world that made sense.

"I'm going to sleep," he thought. "If I sleep, the pain stops."

He knew what sleep meant. In this cold, with this fever, sleep meant death. He would simply not wake up. His heart would slow down, slower and slower, until it stopped.

It sounded peaceful. It sounded better than the pain of the betrayal. Better than the shame of the trial.

His eyelids felt heavy. They were made of iron.

He let them close.

The darkness took him. The cold stopped biting. He felt himself drifting away, floating on a dark ocean.

Thump.

His eyes snapped open.

What was that?

He lay perfectly still. He held his breath.

Thump... Thump.

It was not his heart. It was coming from the ground. A rhythmic vibration.

It was heavy. Slow. Deliberate.

Steps.

Something huge was walking. And it was walking toward him.

Evans wanted to move. He wanted to hide. But his body was a stone. He could only lie there, staring into the pitch-black darkness of the ravine.

The vibration got stronger. Dust trickled down the ravine wall.

Thump.

A smell hit him. It was a musky, metallic scent. Like wet fur and old copper.

Then, two lights appeared in the dark.

They were ten feet above the ground. They were yellow, with vertical slit pupils.

Glowing eyes.

They blinked once. They were looking directly at him.

Evans’s heart hammered against his ribs. The fear cut through the fever. He wasn't alone. He wasn't going to freeze to death.

He was going to be eaten.

The creature let out a low growl. It was a sound that vibrated in Evans's bones. It stepped closer. A massive, shadowed paw, the size of a shield, stepped into the faint moonlight.

Evans couldn't scream. He could only watch as the beast lowered its massive head toward him.

He saw rows of serrated teeth. He felt the hot breath of the monster on his face.

This was it. The end of Evans.

He closed his eyes again, waiting for the bite.

But the bite did not come.

Instead, the beast sniffed him. A long, wet sniff.

And then, a voice—deep, gravelly, and not human—spoke from the darkness.

"Not... dead... yet?"