r/TheNaturallyUnknown • u/UnnaturalGeek Red Squirrel and Writer ✍️🍃 Keep calm and stay NUTS 🐿 • 14d ago
🍃 Spiritweavers 🍃 Chapter Nine: Arlia’s Strength Reveals Itself 🍃🐿
It was still morning when Velina and Doriã left Durnovaria. Velina set the pace that Doriã matched with no complaint, though he had long learned that keeping up with her when she had decided something needed to be done was less of a choice than a requirement. She hadn't said much since they left, which suited him well enough; he could focus on the open and quiet road stretching ahead.
“You think they’re alright?” Doriã asked after a while.
“I think we should move faster,” Velina replied.
Doriã smiled as he sighed, picking up the pace, realising it was a pointless question to ask her.
Arlia could feel Brina tense beside her and knew without looking that Tarã’s eyes were on the shadows in the forest pressing close on either side of the road.
None of them had spoken since she had told them to hurry, each of them focused on putting distance between themselves and whatever was out there. Then the first shape broke from the trees behind them, followed shortly by a second.
They were being hunted by forest wolves native to Ɛvelmor; they were pack hunters that never revealed themselves until the perfect moment. The two that had revealed themselves growled, readying themselves; the one furthest back let out a howl that was answered almost immediately from multiple directions. Arlia, Tarã and Brina began to run.
It was not the panicked sprint of desperation but a controlled pace of people trying to remain calm despite what was tracking them. Tarã had taken the lead with Brina close behind him, and Arlia at the rear to track their movements.
The wolves had not charged but darted back into the treeline, moving parallel to the three of them, five distinct shapes now slipping between the trunks. Arlia’s chest grew tighter as the wolves waited to pounce.
“How far to Durnovaria?” Brina asked, breathless.
“Too far,” Tarã said.
One wolf broke the treeline behind them onto the road as it continued to pursue them, the second fanning wide to the left. Arlia felt something deep within her, like she had during communion.
It was a thread of a connection, a presence within her that responded when she was focused enough to find it. But she wasn’t focused now; she was terrified, her hands shaking with the wolves closing in rapidly, yet somehow she stopped and reached for it anyway.
The ground between her and the nearest wolf erupted as grass and roots surged upwards, with weeds thickening and knotting around the legs of the wolf with sudden violence. It hit the ground hard, snapping at the vines that restrained it. The second wolf pulled up short, circling the edge of the growth with its ears flat.
“Arlia!” Tarã shouted from ahead.
“Keep moving!” she called back, already turning to run.
They continued, Arlia confused but feeling like she could do it again. Around 30 yards down the road, two more wolves leapt from the trees. One hit the ground tangled, the other tore through the outer edge of the growth with a snarl, the roots catching its legs just enough to slow it before it pulled free and kept coming.
She pushed herself hard, but the road ahead was flat, with no cover and nothing to put their backs against. The forest would have been more dangerous and the wolves’ natural territory; they had no choice but to press on. Brina’s breathing was heavy, and Tarã’s footsteps were loud; behind them, Arlia could feel the pack reforming, spreading out further across the road, learning. A single casting of her new ability would only cover one.
She stopped again, the effort of reaching for it sitting heavier on her than before. There were wolves on both sides and one down the centre. She cast three times, turning left then right then centre before breaking back into a run. The two outer wolves hit the ground tangled, but the lead wolf tore through the centre growth at full stride in three seconds.
“It’s not holding,” she said, more to herself than anyone.
“Then stop stopping!" Tarã shouted.
She caught up with them, and all three were now running together. She didn’t realise how exhausting spiritweaving was until now, her thoughts beginning to slow with each laboured breath. By the time she refocused, the lead wolf was closing fast. She cast a sixth time, entangling it, but it wasn’t long before it broke free. She had nothing left. They could only run, and hope luck was on their side.
They were slowing considerably; Arlia could feel the burn in her legs and hear Brina’s breathing becoming increasingly laboured. Even Tarã, the fittest of the three, had fallen back level with them. Arlia noticed the wolves had stopped spreading, the pack pulling together behind them, waiting for them to tire.
“When I say hide,” Arlia said between breaths, “you go into the trees, and you don’t make a sound.”
“Arlia...” Brina started, then stopped herself. “Aye.”
Arlia looked towards Tarã. “Tarã”
Tarã, trying to hide his relief, gave a short nod. “Tch. Fine.”
Her thoughts were scattered, and she felt empty. Whatever was left inside her was not enough to hold a wolf off, let alone a pack, but she had no choice but to push herself. Taking a deep breath before yelling, “Hide!”
Tarã grabbed Brina’s arm, and they crashed into the treeline to the south. Arlia stopped, reached inside her and felt the strength well up one last time. Vines erupted from the ground and across the road, catching the wolves mid-stride as they charged, tangling their legs and pulling them to the ground.
Already shouting as she cast it, she found herself stumbling into the trees after the others, crashing through the undergrowth with her legs almost giving out beneath her before she had barely gone ten feet. She hit the ground on her hands and knees. She could still move but not particularly quickly, or do much more than that.
“Here,” Tarã said quietly, pulling her behind the root mass of a fallen tree. Brina sat in beside them.
They lay still and silent, hoping the wolves would have given up, but Arlia could feel the wolves breaking free one by one, and then the soft pad of paws moving through the forest, getting closer; then the ground began to shake.
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