Chapter 2: Race to the Front

Kate was tired. She and Seth had left the castle in Daikon over ten days ago and they were still two days away from the front line. Traveling through the mountains was tough. The trails were hard to pass through and the road was rocky. Kate and Seth had brought their horses on the trip but the way was hard even for the surefooted mare Kate rode.

Seth's stallion nudged the mare lovingly with his nose, a sign they were a pair back home, too.

"Giving up already, love?" Seth asked gently from behind her, his voice teasing but concerned nonetheless. She turned to look at her mate. She may be tired but she wasn't dead. The sound of his voice still sent butterflies through her stomach. It had been ten days since they had been near a bed and despite her desire to finish the mate bond, Seth refused to sleep with her on the trail with the ground as their bed.  

He had some noble idea that she needed to be cared for after or some other such nonsense. Oh, how the tides had turned. A few short weeks ago she and her twin sister, Izzy, and their best friend, Susanna had been caught in The Hunt and had been begging their mates to wait until the girls were ready to finish the mating process. Nate, Seth, and Logan had agreed, though reluctantly. 

Now, she could hardly contain her excitement. That may be due to the heat that Seth said would be coming soon, but she knew it had more to do with her feelings for him. 

It was like he didn't even know her.

"You wish," she murmured as she looked ahead. The trail was starting to descend and up ahead she could see a steep drop where the trail winded down the side of the mountain. They had been winding through the mountains between Daikon and Elail for so long, she forgot what flat land felt like.

The sun shone down on them, the first day of sunshine in a week. They had been plagued with rain and thunderstorms for the past full week. The rain had cast a dreary gloom over their trail but Kate had been grateful for the cool air that came with the rain.

"Are we back in Elail, do you think?" Her voice carried back. She sounded tired, even to her own ears. 

The heat was getting to her, now that the sun was back shining in the morning sky, it got hotter and hotter as each hour passed. She almost felt like she was suffocating in the afternoon blaze.

She fanned her face, the morning heat was starting to flush her face. They had left the stream behind yesterday and now she was searching in the distance for another source of water. They had plenty of water for the journey, at least two days were strapped to the horses, stored in canteens, but she desperately wanted to soak in the cool stream. Anything to get rid of the sweat and grime that radiated from her. 

She almost wished the rain was back. Almost.

"Not-," Seth started to reply when his voice suddenly broke off. 

"Do you hear that?" His voice came from behind her. She turned her head slightly to look at him. He was tilting his head to the left. She did the same, trying to listen for whatever Seth had heard to make him pause.

In the distance, there was a faint roar. Kate couldn't make out what exactly the noise was.

"What do you think it is?" She asked, turning to look at Seth.

"I'm not sure," he said evasively though his face gave a different answer. He was squinting in the distance, looking up the mountain, but he didn't say anything as he listened carefully to the world around him.

"Seth." Kate said sternly as she tried to glare at him from in front of him. She knew he was hiding something from her.

"Kate." He replied, equally as curt, though teasingly so.

It only took a split second but one minute Kate was looking back at Seth and the next, Seth had a horrified look on his face as Kate was thrown from her horse, tumbling down the side of the mountain. 

Kate would be hard-pressed to explain what had happened exactly. Her gentle mare had spooked and thrown her. That much she knew. What caused her mare to spook would remain a mystery for a few minutes longer.

She was sliding down the mountain now with a wave of dirt, rocks, and trees propelling her along. She tried to get her footing, but she kept crashing into trees on her way down. She was vaguely aware of how grateful she should be that they were small trees and not the giant trees from the playing field in Elail.

If she had been thrown into one of the trees from the playing field they used for The Hunt, she would have been crushed in an instant. 

A sea of rock slid under her body, propelling her down the mountainside toward the valley below. She tried to grasp onto something, anything that would keep her from being sent further down but each tree she passed was uprooted by the rockslide just as she had been. A sea of debris swarmed around Kate as they slid further down the side of the mountain.

She distantly thought about her horse, wondering if the mare had made it out alive. The mare must have known what was coming. She spooked so suddenly, surely she had jumped out of the way once she realized what was coming. A vague image of Seth flashed in her mind, his horrified face. She hoped he, too, was alright. She couldn't see him, but then she couldn't see anything as she slid toward a larger tree. There was dust in the air causing her lungs to fill with debris as she coughed down the particles and she tried desperately to find fresh air.

She tried to push herself against the ground to get out of the way, but it was no use. Her feet were no good on the sliding dirt.

Her stomach seized in terror as she felt herself being pushed toward a large tree. It wasn't the one she had been aiming for and she was heading toward it head first faster than she would have liked. 

Before she could try to steer herself clear, Kate crashed into the evergreen, reaching out to grasp the branch in the hope it would keep her safe from the sliding rocks. As she grasped the solid tree in her hand she felt her body slide further down the mountain, the tree still in hand. 

The evergreen had been overcome by the rockslide, just as she was. They were both flying down the mountainside, the branches scratching her face and arms as she desperately tried to fight her way out.

It all happened in a matter of seconds but it felt like days. Through the dust, Kate could see a cliff up ahead, if she didn't get out of the middle of the rock slide, she would fall over the side of the cliff and that would be the end of her. There was no way she would survive a fall off the mountain. She desperately grabbed onto another passing tree, praying it held steady and breathing a sigh of relief when she found it did. 

Finally.

She pulled herself up, legs flailing against the slide of rock, dirt, and mud as she desperately tried to reach the edge of the rockslide and get out of the path of falling rocks and trees. She could feel the adrenaline coursing through her body. With a burst of strength, she pulled herself up on the branch of the tree and swung her legs onto the branch, sitting above moving ground beneath her feet. 

Above her, a few dozen yards, she could see a giant boulder falling, demolishing everything in its path. It was falling closer and closer toward her, bringing down trees and knocking smaller rocks loose. If she didn't move, she would be flattened under the pressure of the rock but looking down she couldn't see the solid ground to stand on. Rocks and mud were falling down the mountain so quickly that it sped by like a river of dirt. 

Where was Seth? The thought crossed her mind again as she realized she didn't know where her mate was, or even if he was alive. The severity of her situation was stark. Her eyes searched the treeline desperately, searching for someone or something that would alert her to his whereabouts.

The boulder fell closer, crashing into the mountainside and picking up steam as it fell, like a snowball getting larger and larger and it rolled. The rock was flattening trees and foliage alike. Kate was about to be next.

Her palms were sweating and her heart racing as she took a deep breath and launched herself to the side of the tree, reaching out to grab a tree nearby, hoping she was successful. She felt her hands brush against the branch and she fell to the ground, once again sliding down the side of the mountain. 

She screamed. Her body filled with frustration and terror at the helplessness that filled her chest as she continued to fall. There was nothing left to do really; she was going to die. There had never been a time in her life when she had felt so much terror. Rocks hit her face and her head, she felt her leg crash into a tree. It might be broken, she wasn't really sure, but she let herself slide down. There was nothing to grab onto. There was nothing to save her. With a final thought of Izzy, Susanna and Seth, she felt a rock smash into her temple and the world went blissfully black.

Far up the mountain, Seth had been watching with horror as Kate was thrown from her horse and landed on her side. The ground under her was sliding away, down the mountain. He tried to get off his horse, but his horse and Kate's mare were backing away from the rockslide, getting out of the way quickly. If the mare hadn't spooked, Kate would be safe, with him.

But now she was sliding down the mountain. He jumped from his horse and stepped to the edge of the washed-out trail, trying to see down where Kate had disappeared. His chest clenched and his breath quickened. It was getting hard to breathe with the dust and debris being kicked up into the air around him. 

'Can you hear me? Logan?' Seth tried to get in touch with his friend. It had been a couple of weeks since they had talked and if they were close enough, Logan could hear him. He thought their camp was just at the bottom of the mountain. If he was right, Logan might be close enough to get in touch with.

It was silent. Seth tried once more.

'Logan! Kate and I are on our way to the front line, she just fell down the mountain. Can you hear me?' He tried once more. He needed help. "There's a rockslide and Kate's caught in it. If you're near, Logan, we need help! She's falling toward a cliff!' He couldn't see her and he couldn't see a way down. Logan must be too far away because he wasn't responding. His friend would never ignore him, not when he was calling out for help.

He cursed loudly, though no one was there to hear his frustration. He was on his own.

He rushed back to his horse and grabbed his pack, swinging it on his back. He would need water at the very least. He hoped the horses found him later, but he knew they would follow the path to a water source and he and Kate could track them down later, so long as Kate was still alive.

"Fuck, Kate, don't die," he muttered as he started to make his way down the mountain on foot. 

'Logan?' he kept trying to get in touch with his friend. He was sure they were close to the camp. He had been so certain the camp was just at the bottom of the mountain. The horse trail would take two days but if they were dragons, they could fly straight down the mountain, and land in the camp.

That's what Kate was doing right now. She was falling straight down the mountain toward the Daikon camp. 

The rocks were sliding, a mixture of mud, gravel, boulders, and trees falling down the side of the mountain where Kate had been thrown just a few minutes prior.

"Damn it, Kate," Seth said as he made his way carefully down. He tried to find her, searching the way ahead, squinting against the hot, morning sun.

He could see a giant boulder falling down the mountain, it was just ahead of him. He didn't know where Kate was, but he could see the boulder crashing into everything in its path.

It all happened in slow motion, he could hear Kate scream and he turned his head in the direction of her voice. He squinted. There she was. He found her. She was clinging to a tree about four hundred feet down the mountain. There was a cliff very near where she hung, her feet dangling from the tree as she gripped the branch as if her life depended on it. 

Then, in a moment of clarity, his heart lurched and his stomach dropped. The boulder was headed straight for her. She saw it at the same time he did. He watched as she swung herself from the tree, desperate to get out of the path of the boulder. She was almost successful. There was so much rock falling that she could have gotten free if the giant boulder was the only rock to be worried about. But Seth saw a second rock, not nearly as big but dangerous nonetheless, crash into her head and he watched as she fell limply onto the ground. 

She had been knocked out. She was at the mercy of the mountain now. She couldn't fight back.

She slid along the path, her body flailing helplessly, toward the cliff as trees and rocks crashed into her limp body.

The boulder crashed into the tree she had just been hanging from. The tree splintered but held steady, finding strength against the force of the giant, falling rock. The crash between the tree and the boulder was enough to cause the boulder to change direction slightly and Seth let out a small groan of relief as he saw the boulder miss Kate by several inches.

She had avoided the biggest threat, but she still fell down the mountain. She was pushed down by the sea of dirt. The mountain was oversaturated by the recent rains and the ground beneath their very feet had slid away, taking Kate along with it.

A few seconds later, Seth watched the boulder fall over the side of the mountain. The sound of the boulder crashing down the mountain echoed around him and he finally heard a final crash as the boulder fell to the ground below.

The ground was closer than he had thought, but still too far away to survive a fall.

Kate was down the mountain from him, still sliding toward the edge.

She had no escape. Her eyes were closed against the looming horror that Seth could see from up the mountain.

He needed to get to her before she fell over the edge. He slid sideways along the same path the rockslide had taken. He needed to get to her quickly. He couldn't handle her dying, not now that he had found her. Not now that they were trying to save their friends and family from fighting a war needlessly.

Her biggest crime was caring too much about her Elailian and Daikon friends. She and Seth had wanted to prevent the war that was looming. Elailians were marching on Daikon, believing they held shifters captive. Kate held a letter from Amelia proving there were no shifters being held captive in Daikon. 

Kate and Seth just needed to get that letter to the front line, to the Elailians that were marching on Daikon, to stop them. 

His heart lurched in his chest and he felt a scream escape his lips as he watched, almost in slow motion as he saw her body roll over the side of the mountain. His eyes were filled with disbelief. It can't be true. She must be ok. But no, he had seen it with his own eyes. He had watched as she rolled over the side of the mountain. 

She was gone. She had fallen with the rocks and trees that had trapped her in their rush toward the ground. 

"NO!" His voice reverberated through the air. Pain shot through his chest as he felt Kate's pain reverberate through his chest. 

'SETH?' Logan's voice came through his sorrow. 'SETH, WHERE ARE YOU?'

He couldn't reply, he was so overcome with grief that he collapsed on the ground, holding his head between his hands, clutching his hair as he screamed in horror, eyes clenched shut against the reality that faced him. He could hear Logan's voice in the distance but he shut the sound out, feeling only the sorrow of losing Kate.

His mate was dead. 

Fate was a cruel master.