The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 106: Volume 4: Chapter 98 — The Chase

Read chapter 106 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Volume 4: Chapter 98 — The Chase Dawn. Ironhold Streets. Dawn crept over Eldania like someone lifting the lid on a boiling pot, slow, hesitant, revealing only chaos beneath. The air still trembled from the fragment’s eruption. Smoke drifted low across the streets, mixing with the cold morning light. The palace behind them burned in patches, heat shimmering from Rosa’s last barriers, stone collapsing from the slug’s rise. And through the archway at the courtyard’s far edge, the Queen Regent fled. Her lead mountain lion vaulted the broken steps in a single bound, muscles coiling and releasing with unnatural precision, Queen and guard moving as one weight. The second lion followed smoothly, a dwarf sandwiched on either side of its front rider, the guard at the reins hunched low over the beast’s neck. The third lion brought up the rear with the last two loyalists crammed into the saddle, one gripping the harness, the other half-standing with spear leveled over his comrade’s shoulder. They weren’t running blindly. They ran like a plan had been rehearsed. The eastern gate, half-broken, half-unmanned thanks to the chaos, was already opening when Meredith reached it. Someone had pre-loosened the inner bar. Someone knew precisely when to escape. They slipped through into the bowl of lower Eldania just as the sun’s rim crested over the outer walls. Behind them, three shadows moved. Whistle surged forward first, the big wolf-dog clearing fallen spears and shattered masonry with predatory ease. Scythe didn’t so much ride Whistle as become part of him. His body low, fingers hooked lightly into the thick ruff at Whistle’s neck, weight perfectly balanced so they moved as a single shape. Whistle chose the lines. Scythe refined them. Two strides onto a collapsed awning. A bounding leap to a courtyard wall. A tight turn along a narrow parapet where no normal mount could run. Their speed wasn’t frantic. They were inevitable, geometry solved in motion. Shadow stayed on street level, weaving between bodies, bow always angled for a shot. Daryl stayed… unmistakably Daryl running like he was delighted the world finally gave him something worth chasing, vaulting debris he could have gone around, laughing under his breath. He cleared the courtyard wall with a running jump that should have broken something, used a crumbling statue as a springboard, and hit the cobbles with a delighted, “YES. FINALLY!” Scythe’s voice carried faintly from above. “Daryl. Pace. ” “Pacing is for cowards!” Daryl yelled back, then immediately tripped on a corpse, rolled, popped back up, and kept running without losing a beat. Shadow saw the stumble and exhaled through her nose. “He’s going to die.” “He’ll die after we catch the Queen,” Scythe called down. “Focus.” Shadow grunted. “Fair.” They passed the last row of burned-out shops—and the chase truly began. The Queen’s lions were fast. Very fast. Their new musculature flexed like braided whips, paws gripping stone with feline certainty. Their speed wasn’t natural, but their instincts were. They took turns hard enough to scrape sparks. One dwarf nearly slid off the back of his mount and only caught himself by grabbing the saddle horn and cursing in Khuzdric. The final loyalist sprinted behind them, keeping up with desperate, ragged breaths. Armor clattered. His shield arm shook. But he stayed with the Queen. That alone earned Shadow’s respect. The old Ferric capital was a dense maze, winding, full of switchback alleys only locals used. And the Queen knew every one of them. Her mountain lion skidded around a toppled pottery stall, vaulted a low retaining wall, then shot down a street barely wider than its own shoulders. Stone dust plumed behind its claws. Scythe didn’t bother with the street. Whistle went over the city. The big wolf bounded onto a broken cart, sprang to a balcony rail, then leapt cleanly to the roof tiles above. Scythe leaned with his movement, weight shifting like he’d been born with four paws. They followed t