Children of the First

AUTHORS NOTES AND SUCH
(I have nothing new to say; the chapter took forever and you guys rock.)

I wasn’t mad about Retis catching me with the Snare—I wasn’t even thinking about Chris and his Eavesdropping on my thoughts—I was just mad. I charged at the mountain like I was going to knock it over; I needed to burn some energy, and cliff-sprints were the best way to do that.

I never minded cliff-sprints that much when we had to do them in high school. Sure they were hard, but they were better than just running on the track. Really, it was half running, half climbing; you actually had to pay attention and think about what you were doing, which kept it interesting.

I didn’t even slow down as I reached the foot of the mountain. My legs worked on their own, finding footholds and driving me up the rock face while my hands snatched at whatever was within reach. I had to go faster, pull harder, take bigger leaps—I couldn’t let the mountain slow me down. No matter how fast I swung up to the next ledge or hauled myself over an outcropping, the next one had to be faster.

My hands were starting to get raw and I’m pretty sure I was bleeding from my knee, but I made it to the first peak in almost no time at all. Or it felt like no time, anyhow. I didn’t feel much better, so it couldn’t have been that long.

The peak was really just a “fishbone”—a long, thin ridge of rock separated from the rest of the mountain range by a sharp little valley. I would have had to climb down the other side of the fishbone and then back up to get to the actual summit.

By now, I’d caught my breath enough to stand up straight, so I jogged along the ridge a little way until I found a spot for my second cliff-sprint. It was a steep bank of loose gravel stretching from top of the ridge to a cluster of large boulders at the foot of the mountain. There were rough outcroppings of rock jutting out of the gravel all along the slide. “Perfect.”

I stood back from the ledge and took a deep breath—down would be faster. Much faster. I took a few steps and jumped.

The spray of gravel stung my shins, but I managed to stay on my feet by grabbing the gnarled shrubs and trees that grew out of the cracks and slapping at rocks as I shot past. Unfortunately, all the balance in the world wouldn’t help me change course—gravity had decided that I was going straight down, and the mountain had decided to put a boulder right in my way. Or maybe I should say the Druid Aerwyn had decided to put it there—either way, it was going to hurt.

The only thing I could do was try to jump at the last second and hit the boulder feet-first—maybe I would only get slightly mangled. I clenched my jaw and jumped.

It worked—I nearly ate it and my feet stung like hell, but I was alive. Still, I was going so fast that I nearly tumbled right over the boulder, which would have been almost as bad as hitting it. I had to jump to another rock before I lost my balance, and then another, and another, barely making it each time.

I started to get the hang of it after the first few boulders. I leapt from one stone to the next, swung around a little tree, skidding along the gravel slide or landing on another boulder, and on down the mountain. By now, I had completely forgotten I was supposed to be angry—this was way more fun.

I was exhausted by the time I got close to the bottom; my legs burned, but I felt strong—powerful, even. The slide ended with a huddled mass of craggy boulders—probably from the rockslide that left the path in the first place.

I slid down the last few feet of gravel to the end and—I don’t know whether it was because I felt so good, or because I saw people coming towards me and wanted to show off—I not only hit the crag foot-first, I ran up the side and flung myself off the top, twisting around in the air so I ended up facing backwards. It was pretty badass.

I pulled it off too… well, sort of. Sure, I got the full rotation in and came down feet-first but I didn’t stop there. Oh no, I give one hundred ten percent; any moron can do a flip and land on his feet, but only a select few have the dedication to completely over rotate and land on their ass.

Well, at least Retis appreciated my commitment. “Way to go, Windrider,” he laughed.

“You okay?” Pebbles asked.

I was laughing too; the fall had hurt, but it wasn’t all that bad. “Yeah, I…” I paused to catch my breath; it’s not easy to laugh, wheeze, and talk at the same time. “I feel much better, actually.” I looked up at her and smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re bleeding,” she said, pointing to my knee.

“Eh,” I shrugged. “It’s just a scrape, no big deal.”

“That was pretty sweet,” Jarn said, “‘til you hit th’ ground. You gonna try it again?”

“Probably not that exact maneuver, no.” I looked around. “When did you all get here?”

“Not too long ago,” Pebbles said. “Some time between your trip up and your, uh… ‘trip’ down.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hilarious.”

“Thanks,” she grinned. “I thought so. Anyhow, Retis said you’d gone nuts or something, but it looks like you just needed to kick your ass a bit.”

No one else seemed to have noticed the emphasis on “you,” but I could tell from the way she was looking at me that it had been deliberate. I couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking—why would I need someone else to kick my ass?

“By the way,” she said. “Derrick, this is Shawn. Shawn, Derrick.”

He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember from where; his dark, shoulder-length hair, his pale skin and sleepy expression, the way he slouched without hunching his back—I felt like I’d seen him before, but couldn’t picture when or where. I didn’t even know that many humans at Raekos yet, so it should have been easy.

“So you’re the Nedrak scrambler,” he said. “Good to actually meet you.”

I remembered him the second he opened his mouth. “Oh, right, you were the guy sitting behind the scram table at the welcome thing. Nice to meet you, too.

“So now that I can breathe I think I’m gonna do that slide-thing again, this time without the barani at the end.” I turned to Retis, “You wanna try it?” I asked.

“Nah, kin. I’m not a mountain kinda guy—I’d end up in a puddle at the bottom whether I tried to climb it or not.”

“Well I’m goin’,” said Jarn. “Race you to the top? Onyermarkgetsetgo!”

He took off toward the rockslide and hopped easily onto the crag. Roo tried to follow him but fell short of the top and had to claw his way up. I didn’t even bother to try it—there was no way I could make that jump—instead, I leapt onto one of the smaller boulders and worked my way up from there.

Jarn took the early lead; he definitely had me beat on balance, agility, and rubber freak-leap, but I had spent years sprinting cliffs without a fifteen-foot vertical leap, so I knew what worked for me. Plus, I had a longer reach and much longer legs than he did, so while he took long jumps from rock to rock, I pushed and pulled myself up the mountain, only jumping when I had to. Jarn covered a lot more ground than I did, but it wasn’t always straight up the mountain, and I didn’t slow down and speed up like he did—I was going as fast as I could and I kept moving.

I passed Roo (who was following Jarn’s path up the mountain, but slower) and managed to catch up to Jarn after he made a few poorly planned jumps. We were basically neck and neck; Jarn would be winning one second, and I’d be winning the next—the way he was bounding ahead and then falling back when he landed made it impossible to tell for sure, but I’d bet that he was ahead, but just barely.

As we closed in on the finish, it looked like Jarn was going to win, but caught his foot on a root growing out of the rock, throwing him off balance. I saw him stumble, saw my chance to edge him out at the last second, and then saw Pebbles standing at the top, grinning.

I started to yell at her for being a smartass, but “Gai-damnit” turned into “Gai-ow-OH SHIT!” when I tried to vault over a rock, slipped, and skidded down the rockslide, smacking my wrist against something sharp—pain shot through my arm—and my head against something dull—the pain stopped and everything went dark.

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