Read Online Chasing the Valley by Skye Melki-Wegner - Free Book Online Page A

I’m going to die. Any second now, we’ll smear ourselves across a tree-trunk, or a bullet will blast through my head in a spray of blood and darkness . . .
    We burst into a clearing.
    Screams. People scatter, foxaries snarl and I just glimpse the remains of a campsite as we smash through the middle of it.
    The hunter gushes out of the wind behind us, solidifying in an empty space in the middle of the clearing. He smiles, raises his pistol and begins to curl his finger around the trigger. I watch every click of his knuckles, every bend and strain of the tendons in his finger . . . His fingertip touches the curve of metal, the knuckles stiffen . . .
    Then someone runs through the wreckage towards us and the hunter explodes into flame.
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    At first, I think I must be dead. My brain can’t register what my eyes are seeing – the flaming body can’t be real. The hunter must have pulled the trigger. Maybe this is what dead people see: delusions, unexplained fires, screams that echo like claws across their skulls . . .
    The hunter’s scream dies. His body falls.
    My knee burns with pain, my head throbs and each breath barks up my throat with a ragged scratch. This isn’t a delusion. There’s nothing hazy or dreamlike about it. It’s raw, it’s brutal and every second hurts.
    I turn slightly, surveying the ruins of the clearing, and realise that we’ve found the rest of Radnor’s crew. Two foxaries are chained to a tree behind the crumpled remains of the crew’s campsite. The blonde richie twins, Clementine and her sister, gape in shock at the destruction. Radnor himself wears a bloody bandage across his forehead. But my eyes are drawn to the bulky figure before us, hands outstretched, still ready to lunge at the smouldering corpse of the hunter on the ground. His features are obscured by smoke from a burning stick in his hands.
    â€˜Who are you?’ I whisper.
    Radnor steps forward. ‘This is Hackel. Number Five in our crew.’
    As the smoke clears, I get a better look at the newcomer. He’s huge and strong, muscles bulging beneath his cloak. If I hadn’t known about Radnor’s teenager-only rules for the crew, I would have guessed Hackel was in his twenties. He glares so hard at the fallen hunter that I expect another fireball to shoot out of his eyes. But he just drops the stick and kneels beside the body.
    Now that the shock has worn off a little, my senses shoot into overdrive. The stink of burning flesh, the hot sting of smoke in my eyes . . . It’s enough to make my stomach heave, and I want nothing more than to run into the trees and never look back, never think of this horrific scene again. But I can’t show weakness now, not in front of the refugee crew that could mean my survival. So I clench my fists, tell myself to ignore the stench and try to breathe through my mouth.
    Hackel grabs the hunter’s burnt wrist. Flakes of something fall away – I don’t know whether it’s fabric or flesh. Hackel examines the forearm, but obviously doesn’t find what he’s looking for, because he drops it back into the dirt. Then he reaches around the man’s neck. I want to stop him, to tell him that this is barbaric – he’s already killed the man once, he doesn’t need to throttle him too.
    But Hackel isn’t trying to throttle him. He just pulls a silver chain from the hunter’s neck, black and dingy with soot. There’s a quiet clink as he examines the metal charms that hang from the chain. Alchemy charms , I realise with a start. I’ve never seen them up close before, since only the wealthiest of richies can afford such trinkets. The charms have spellwork imbued into the silver, ready to be deployed against the bearer’s enemies.
    Hackel pockets his trophy, rises to his feet and exits the clearing in silence.
    It takes a moment for me