Mantle of the Gods

All six of them were crossing the bridge.

A part of me had hoped that they would be too wounded to follow us or give up, but if anything, they looked even more determined to find us.

"What do we do?" Aelin shivered

She may have seen some stuff, but I had a feeling that, unlike Rix, she hadn't killed anyone.

"We can't win a fight with them." I began backing up as I realized they were exactly following our trail.

"If I can take out their Healer, then we can pick them off." Rix pointed at the other robed figure. The one whose robe wasn't covered in red blood.

"How?" I pulled on Aelin's arm. "They are tracking us. There is no way that we're going to get a chance to surprise them again."

"We can't outrun them." Rix pointed at their Tank. "You and I are faster than the bucket, but she isn't. And we can't carry her like that again."

The other party was across the bridge and heading into the woods.

"We have to go." I started moving deeper into the woods, but neither woman followed. "What are you doing?"

"They're tracking us." Rix pointed at the woman with green hair directing them. "If we run, we die tired." She looked at me. "but if we split up, then maybe they lose the trail." She started moving towards them.

"What are you doing?"

The redhead looked at me. "If they have to choose between you and me, they're going to pick me." She looked at Aelin. "Get her through the water and maybe it'll wash off whatever is allowing them to track us.” She shrugged. "Even if they catch me, you know they won’t kill me."

I was about to tell her that there were things worse than death, but the look in her eyes told me that she had already survived some of those. Since they weren’t going to kill her, it gave me hope that it would limit what they would do to her. Because whatever they did do, they’d have to answer for once we all got out of the dungeon. I knew that there were monitors in the gates between the floors, so if we all died, then it would be an almost certainty that the only other team to enter the floor would have had something to do with it.

“Maybe you’ll get away?” Aelin tried to offer hope.

We both knew that wasn't going to happen, but I wasn't going to point that out.

"All you have to do is buy time, right?" Aelin sniffled.

"It'll be dark soon." Rix nodded. "That'll give me more cover. I just have to hide until one of the teachers gets here."

Honestly, I couldn't believe that Trent had let this go on for this long. I was starting to worry that maybe he wasn't watching us.

“You don’t have to do this." I said it almost more to try to convince myself than her.

“I’m the only one who can.” Rix took off without waiting for a response.

I thought about running after her, but she was right. We weren’t going to win if we fought them and we couldn’t outrun them. The only chance we had was to hope that she would be able to give them the slip.

I began to pull Aelin towards the river. I was hoping that even though it was wider than the creek that we’d camped by, we wouldn’t have too much trouble crossing it.

I heard shouting and Aelin stopped. “We shouldn’t have let her go.”

Before I could answer, the green-haired Shooter appeared behind her.

“Aelin!”

The Shooter hit her over the head, knocking her out. I looked around for something I could use as a weapon, but the black-haired Hitter and a leather-clad blonde green-eyed green-skinned man with knives on his belt appeared beside her.

“I’m going to enjoy this.” The Hitter smirked.