(Photo by Mikhail Nilov)

There was definitely something wrong inside of her body, Gray acknowledged. That didn’t mean she slowed her frantic pace, only that she knew she could only keep going like this for a few more miles. The tearing pain was most likely a wound, maybe an arrow, but as long as she didn’t look down, didn’t actually see the injury, she could maintain the hope in her mind, however fragile, that it was just a torn muscle from how hard she was pushing herself. Besides, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t already injured in a dozen other different ways.

Her eyes began to swing down towards her shoulder where her left arm used to be but she caught herself and locked her gaze back to the forest in front of her. She had no time to waste thinking about herself. She wouldn’t live more than an hour if she stopped, even if she weren’t injured. They weren’t that far behind her and they could move almost as fast as she could through the wilds. The only part of herself that she did focus on was her right hand, gripping the bottle. She couldn’t lose it, not now when so much had already been sacrificed. She was the last one who could get it to the coast. To the waiting ship. All she had to do was get to the other side of the forest. All she had to do was run, nonstop, until she got there. Never mind the miles between her and her destination. The blood running down her side. The pain screaming for attention from a dozen different parts of her body.

Gray coughed as she crested a hill and began running down the other side. She tasted blood and spat it out. Her lungs burned and there was a rattle in her throat every time she gulped down more air and her vision was beginning to fade around the periphery.

Not good.

She had a few charms and even a potion in her pack that could help her, but without a free hand to access it, it was all useless to her. She couldn’t let go of the bottle, not even for a moment. Even without looking at her hand she could see the glow of the binding magic keeping the bottle from being summoned out of her grip. The glow meant it was under attack and she hoped it would last long enough for her to reach the ship.

There was one last charm on her belt that she could access, if only by pinching it between her thumb and forefinger while still holding tightly to the jar. It took her a moment to locate it but as soon as she did she felt its power run through her, numbing away the pain and granting her a reprieve from her injuries. It didn’t heal her, but it did allow her to run as though she were whole. She even had a spectral right arm, giving her better balance while she ran.

The charm faded away but the power remained. It would last her for a while, though how long exactly she wasn’t sure. It all depended on how badly she was injured. She supposed that would be one way she would know how bad a shape she was in.

The bottom of the hill led to a flat stretch and Gray thanked her luck that she didn’t have to run up another hill so soon. Even with the charm her muscles burned with the exertion. Unfortunately, her luck wasn’t all good. As she sprinted across the flat ground, still needing to watch her step to avoid tripping on roots and fallen branches, a startled badger leapt up from behind a low mound and charged directly at her.

Gray knew people who’d never seen or encountered badgers before and those people often thought of them as a sort of wild dog that lived in a burrow. Those people were horribly misinformed. Badgers, Gray knew, were far more like small bears mixed with the meanest, most territorial dog breeds. This badger had scars all down its muzzle and snarled as it came at her.

The curse, leaden with magic, escaped her mouth before she could even think. She had meant to save it for her pursuers should they catch up to her but the badger had to be dealt with. She watched as the power struck the beast and turned its skin inside out. It howled once and then curled in on itself, quivering, before it died.

She ran on, leaving the creature behind and measuring how much power she had left within herself. Each of her charms had their own power but her curses relied on her own wellspring of power and it was dangerously low. If it ran out, she’d die. Even that one curse had been a risk, but what else could she have done. She had no weapons to fight off the badger and it would have caught her had she tried to run past it.

Sacrifices. Each step, each decision, was yet another offering on this bloody path. She could let the bottle go, binding magic or not, and let them have it. She could save herself and would anyone really blame her? She had no home to return to, no family or people waiting for her. Even the ship and crew she was rushing towards were foreign to her. If she never arrived, they’d leave without her and accept it. No questions asked. So few even expected her to make it that many of them probably thought she was already dead. By rights she should be dead but magic and determination, mostly magic, had kept her going.

All for a single jar and what it held.

There was a saying among hunters that Gray had heard from time to time. These were not hunters of ordinary beasts, but of the true monsters in the world. Hunters who did not bring back meat to be eaten but instead brought back loved one who’d been stolen. Brought back pieces of monsters too terrible and filled with power that even dead they seeped their essence into their surroundings. The saying went, “If it can bleed, it can die.” In the past, Gray thought it was a joke. Of course they bled, even monsters. Everything alive had blood of one sort or another. Some bled pure power while others bled poison, but still they bled. It wasn’t until the very gods went mad that Gray found herself wondering whether or not they could bleed.

In her hands was the proof that they did bleed. She had a jar of their divine blood. With it, the hunters could find the gods weakness and discover how they might strike them a mortal blow. How the jar had come to be was a secret that had died long before Gray got the bottle. Her entire people, famed for their speed and hardiness, had died to get this far and Gray was the last of them.

With her would die the last of the great sprinters who could out pace even the gods. It was their great gift, something the divines were now regretting, but even being faster than the gods was no guarantee. The death of her people was evidence of that. And though they were faster, they weren’t that much faster. Gray had been running for days now and she barely had an hour lead on them at most. She would need every second of it because, even now with the charm empowering her, she was slowing. Magic or not, a mortal body could only do so much and she’d been running for days with no rest. She had food and water in her pack but with her right arm gone she couldn’t get to it so she’d had to go without. She would have left the pack behind to shed the weight but it was strapped to her in several places such that it didn’t even need the shoulder straps to keep it in place and undoing all the other straps with her one hand wasn’t worth the trouble. Besides, she was pretty sure the extra straps were helping to hold her torn body together. Without the added support she suspected she would have bled out and died long ago.

Another hill rose up ahead of her and she gritted her teeth. She could feel the power of the charm wavering already and hoped it would last her at least to the top of the hill. From there, if she could see the coast, then she’d know she could make it. If not, then she’d know she had failed and would die. Of course, she wouldn’t just lie down and die then and there. She’d keep on running until her heart burst or her lungs tore like everyone else before her. All that would change was that she’d know she was too far from the coast.

Her feet met the base of the hill and she launched herself upward, leaping more than running as the dregs of the charm flickered and died. Pain returned in flashes, here and there all across her body, but still she had enough will to push through and keep running. She could see the top of the hill, if only she could reach it, if only she could see the coast.

Behind her, so very distant and yet so very close, the land itself was dying as the insane gods pursued her. If she were foolish enough to look behind her she could have seen the twisting reality and corruption that was coming for her. Enough of her people had made that mistake that Gray knew better than to give in to curiosity. Those who had, died while gouging out their own eyes, screaming of the madness they saw.

A muscle on her left side snapped and she stifled the scream that tried to escape her lips. Breathing was all but impossible but still she ran up towards the crest of the hill, pressing her elbow against the torn muscle and, slowly but surely, forcing herself to resume breathing. Each remaining muscle was working extra to make up the difference but she could manage it a bit longer, a bit farther.

It won’t be there, she told herself. The coast was still miles and miles away. This was just another hill and she would never make it. She knew it was true. Knew she would die before ever reaching the coast. She was defying the very gods who had shaped her world and, in the end, who was she? She was the last of a people who were really good at running. That was it. She wasn’t the best of them, just the last of them. The fastest of her people had been the real heroes, the ones who’d first began this terrible race. She was just the last one in a long line of dead runners.

Gray reached the top of the hill.

Salty air struck her face and she saw the ship waiting for her at the coast. It was impossible, but she couldn’t deny it either. She almost tripped and stumbled but she caught herself and dashed wildly the rest of the way out of the forest. The hot sand was a relief to her feet. She’d long since worn away her shoes and the brambles of the forest left deep cuts on her calloused feet. Then the sand found its way into the cuts which was significantly less pleasant but she didn’t care. She was here. She’d made it.

The sailors called out to her and she laughed with joy and relief. The last distance was covered in a blink and she collapsed the moment she was on board. The oars dipped and pulled as the sails were unfurled and the ship began to speed away from the land. The gods were fearful of the deep still for reasons no one understood, but it meant they would pursue more slowly.

Healing flooded over Gray and she felt her dying body come back from the edge of death. Torn muscles and splintered bones re-knit and she breathed more easily as the pain subsided.

“Sleep, runner,” a gentle voice said. “You can rest now.”

Gray wept even as she closed her eyes and felt herself being carried below decks. Only now did she let herself feel the loss of her people, remember the dying screams of everyone she’d known and loved. She held out a hand as if reaching for them and someone else took it and patted it gentle.

“Drink some water,” they told her and held a cup to her lips.

She drank and then lay down on a bed she did not feel she deserved. She should have died with the rest of them. Someone else should have been in her place. She was nobody special, not the fastest, not the bravest, just the last, the only one who could have finished the terrible race. But that didn’t matter, in the end, did it? She was the one here, now, and she was alive. It was a small comfort, but it was the last thought she had before slipping into a dreamless sleep. Later she would dream of her people of those endless days of fleeing but for now she just slept. Hope was on the horizon and her part was done. Like the runners before her, she had handed off the jar and others would now take up the task.