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Chapter Sixteen
Just like the previous day, Alex found himself out in the cold, wintertime wilderness as the sun began to rise. The Runners had been through many expeditions much like this one, tracking down the Domineers, and he was certain that they were already catching on to their tactics. He knew this had to be true, given the surprise the insane Domineer had waiting for them the morning before. It made Alex all the more nervous to be out here again with depleted power among his ranks, and he was not sure if having Rowan along this time was reassuring or just made him feel increasingly uncomfortable.
It took a couple of hours to retrace their footsteps. Even in the dark, Rowan was a natural at following the day-old trails marked in the snow. At first, she led them back to the spot where the Runners fought the Domineer scouts just the day before. Alex could hardly stand to look around at the bodies sprawled upon the s
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As they drew closer to the walls of the camp, they were quickly spotted by the Domineers patrolling the borders. Rowan lowered her head casually. The Domineers sent a small party out to greet them. As they approached, one of them stepped up to Kota and gave him a prying stare.“Who the hell are you?” the man uttered curiously.Kota hesitated briefly as he glanced past their confronter and noticed that the others accompanying him were placing cautious hands on the weapons at their sides. He swallowed nervously as he tried to work his disguise as well as possible. “We were separated from our scouting party,” he said, trying to think of what an Outsider might say. “We followed their footsteps back here.”For a second, it seemed as though this man was not about to buy his story one bi
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Outside the outpost, Alex and the rest of the Runners had separated in their efforts to close in on the site unseen. While Kota’s team was infiltrating the camp, Alex had scaled as far up the adjacent slope as he could. From his height, he would have been able to take a glance over the walls of the outpost, but it was not yet bright enough for him to see what was going on inside. He froze when a commotion rang up from within the walls followed by the cry of a familiar voice.“Rowan!” Alex gasped in horror. Without thinking, he hurried his way down the slope and toward the walls of the Domineers’ outpost, sliding on the snow most of the way. He could only hope that the rest of his team had taken up their own positions around the camp, and that the guards perched atop the walls would not see him coming.Rowan resisted futilely as the Domin
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As the sun rose over the hills of the Dark Zone, the sky still appeared to be darkened by the deep, red overcast. Atop the tower lookout at the Citadel, Delmar stood as he gazed out at the sky with an expression of concern. The mornings had been greeting the mountains with the crimson precursor of the anticipated storm for the past several days, but things were quickly becoming more and more severe; the temperature was reaching a dangerous low that had even Delmar shivering, and the cold gales were beginning to pick up. They were blowing away the strip of hair covering the haunting scar along the side of his face. Something was terribly wrong, Delmar could feel it, and he was more concerned now than ever because not all of the Ravennites had returned to the Citadel yet. He was thinking particularly of his sister.“Delmar?” a voice called over the sound of the winds. Delmar turned around to see
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Rowan did not hesitate to leap to her feet and attack when the Runners sprang into action. In a rather grisly action, she grabbed hold of the head of the nearest Domineer and snapped his neck with all her strength. She picked up his sword and dove right into the fight with Kota and the others by her side.By themselves, the Domineers did not stand a chance against Rowan, let alone the rest of the Runners. They knew it, too, and Rowan intended to exploit their weaknesses. She took them one by one, fighting with the ferocity she learned from Alex as well as using her natural harmonious movements to confuse her adversaries. The Runners had completely breached the outpost, and now it seemed they had taken control of it with ease. Rowan killed several opponents who had foolishly engaged her before she heard a threatening voice behind her.“YOU BITCH!” th
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Many voices were echoing throughout the depths of Alex’s mind. They were uttering the same thing over and over; a name. They were speaking a name, and Alex could feel himself shuddering as he recognized it very distinctly.“Winter’s Bane.”Alex did not know the meaning of these mysterious visions, and why they continued to haunt his subconscious. He lied still in his current, dream-like state as the voices around him began to fade away until only one was left; a young woman’s voice he had heard before. He remembered it from his last unnerving vision when he saw the woman in the shattered remains of the Citadel, standing before what appeared to be a strange, white tomb.“Winter’s Bane,” he he
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Rowan was not the only one preparing herself for the terrible weather to come. When Caine had taken his team of Domineers deep into the mountains, the first thing he had them do was construct a shelter near the edge of the clear-cut in anticipation of the storm. Most of the Domineers were skeptical of the severity of such an event, oftentimes laughing and shrugging it off as hardly anything to be worried about. It took a great deal of scrutiny from Caine, and sometimes threatening, for the Domineers to create a shelter large enough to house them all when the storm struck the Dark Zone and sturdy enough to withstand its powerful winds.Later that evening, the Domineers had all gathered inside the tight-knit walls of their shelter. Their jeering about Caine’s warning of the storm had all but ceased after the precursor event that morning. They had moved all their firewood inside, which they were already
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Rowan knew the clay mines were always prepared for situations such as this. She and her Domineer prisoner walked through the mine for almost an hour. The darkness of the tunnels did not bother Rowan in the least, but with her captive’s arm around her shoulders again, she could feel him breathing and trembling in fear, and frankly, it did nothing but annoy her.Eventually, Rowan stopped and set the Domineer down onto the cold floor of the mine. Listening intently, she could hear that the winds of the terrible storm had already begun engulfing the mountains once more. In no time at all these mines could become nothing short of a frozen tomb. Rowan felt around the walls until her hand came across an object suspended there.At this point, she finally felt relieved as she stripped herself of the Outsider’s filthy clothes she had thrown over her own
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Miles away, Alex and Kota managed to find shelter of their own shortly before the storm resumed. They had hiked along the riverside for the majority of the day, until at last, Kota spotted a large tree growing into the rocky side of the cliff. Due to its interrupted growth pattern, the tree’s roots had been pulled upward from the ground for several feet. The two of them realized that if they could quickly secure it into a small sanctuary, then there was a chance they might be able to survive the night.As the sun slowly began its descent in the sky, and the winds picked up again, Alex and Kota finished fixing their shelter beneath the roots of the great tree, which was made of little more than branches and sticks they had anchored into the ground surrounding the tree. It was the best they could do, and both of them knew it would be nothing short of a miracle if it survived the incredible force of the
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