The Mantis Variant - Book One - 9. Chapter 9 - Ilya, Part Three

Night fell on Teshon City. It spread over the mountains that stabbed up at the sky, and the stars began to sparkle to life.

Ilya walked naked through the snowy forest in the darkness. She did not sleep. Throughout the night, her many dead friends entered her mind, and she was more than once brought to tears. There were several people from her days living on the streets, whose faces she could still picture, but their names were lost to her memory.

Above the frozen treetops, the grey sky began to lighten with the slow approach of the early-winter dawn. Snow was still falling, and the sun was hidden behind thick clouds. A thin layer of the fine white flakes covered everything, and it gave the woods an ethereal quality.

Hunger eventually began to pang in Ilya's stomach, and she again activated her powers. Her bare feet lifted from the icy forest floor, and she rose naked into the atmosphere above the jagged mountains and sprawling lands below. She turned towards the distant coast with the stretching sea beyond, and she flew.

Her flight would take a fraction of the time it would have required to walk, and although it was years since she last used her powers, they now made her feel something new. It was not that there was a new ability within her, but as the cold wind whipped around her bare form, for the first time she reveled in her gifts.

Why she did not do this sooner, fly up into nature to get away from the city and people, she did not know.

The exhilaration that coursed through Ilya's body and radiated down her limbs was incomparable to any feeling she ever experienced on the ground. Using her long-repressed powers was like making love to a deity. Even true love did not feel like flying, and she once experienced deep love with another, but that painful memory was something for another time.

Right now, she flew, and nothing could diminish that Ilya was embracing her abilities. She ran her fingers over her bare skin, as the cold breeze caressed her above the trees. Even the bleakness of the pale sky held beauty for her, while she soared through it, and Ilya could not remember a single moment in her life that she felt more joy.

Then the wicked edge of a hunting arrowhead glanced off her cheek. The arrow ricocheted, whizzed away from her, and fell into the trees below.

Ilya screamed in pain and clutched at the bloody gashes in her face. She focused her powers to stay aloft, as her gaze darted around the forest below.

"Don't hit the head you idiot!" someone down in the trees off to one side yelled.

Ilya launched forward with her untested powers and urged them to their limit. She soared towards the water with the trees whipping below her.

Another near miss made her veer to one side in midflight. The second arrow sailed high above her and arced far into the distance.

Her eyes focused on the glimmer of Teshon City and she flew hard. With no practice, her powers barely felt like they were in her control, but she knew she needed to go faster.

Then, like being struck by lightning, an arrow found its mark. Ilya gasped in pain that was so fierce it stole her breath. She began to plummet from the sky.

The voices came from further behind now, but she did not want to meet the ones who spoke.

"That got her!"

Ilya begged her powers to take her farther, but the trees were coming up fast from below.

"She's coming' down boys!"

A vicious steel shaft with natural turkey feathers at its end protruded from Ilya's side below the ribs.

"That naked bitch is ours!"

She gritted her teeth and forced her power to obey her command.

"We'll take her head and sell her mantis gland for a pretty piece of copper!"

Ilya pushed her ability and stayed aloft. The forest swept away just beneath her dangling feet.

The coast drew nearer, and the distance between Ilya and the hunters was growing at a pace that they could not match. When the tree line broke and a sandy beach stretched out in front of her, she came in for a landing. Whether due to pain or exhaustion, her powers sputtered at the end of her flight, and Ilya crashed to the soft sand.

She cried out in agony but knew she could not remain there and pushed herself to her feet. With one hand clutching her face and the other on her side, she began to hobble in the direction of Teshon City. She could see in the distance, where the sand became rocks and the land rose away from the water. That stony shore would lead her back to the city and medical attention, and she needed a professional to deal with her horrible wounds.

Ilya was leaking a trail of blood that she knew would be easy to follow, once the hunters made it all the way to the coast. She could not dither, and when she arrived at a path that led inland to the main entrance of the city, Ilya opted to follow the rocks that ran along the water's edge. She hoped the path would bring her straight to the Spritehood and mystics that dwelt there for healing.

Beneath the primary lighthouse of Teshon Harbor, Ilya came to a small section where the rocks were underwater. She tried to activate her powers again, and although she could feel them within her, they would not respond. Tentatively, she stepped into the water. One of her feet slid on the slippery rock, and Ilya wailed in pain as her body wrenched and twisted. She grabbed the arrow, gritted her teeth, and managed to get her feet under her. Slowly she made her way to more of the dry rocks under the Noreaster Light.

The pain in her side that radiated through her entire body caused stars to flash at the edges of her vision. Her head swam, but step by agonizing step, Ilya forced herself forward. She made her way on the rocks along the northern edge of Widdershins Bay, until she passed the old shipwreck.

Eventually, the waterfall at the end of the deepwater cove by the city gates came into view, and relief washed over her. It was accompanied by an overwhelming wave of exhaustion, and with buckling knees, she staggered against the cliff wall beside her. Ilya groaned at the arrow in her side. She hobbled along, keeping one hand on the rocks for support, but then she stumbled upon a small dry cave.

Her spinning brain decided she should rest for a moment in its sanctuary, but as she reached the mouth, two young women stepped out and surprised her.

They were also very startled.

"Oh, my gosh, you're naked!" one of them squeaked.

"You've got an arrow in you!" the other one declared with wide eyes.

Ilya fell to her knees at the sandy entrance and reached out to them. She tried to ask for help, but her voice vanished, and she was swallowed in darkness★