Over the starting mark PART2

They took out their weapons and their eyes began to search the trees and high bushes around at Dayrue's alert. The rattlers stopped moving and bent their legs to lower themselves to the ground in the center of them. Roshar flipped up his eyepatch over his bad eye as he would need all the sight he could get.

Snaps from twigs breaking and shuffles from plants got louder from every angle as the unknown scuffled towards their location in numbers. They held tighter onto their weapons with their backs turned towards the rattlers.

They dashed from out of the tall greens so fast they appeared as black blurs with thundering deep growls. Rue's head fidgeted from shock.

"Werewolves," she thought to a ringing behind her ears as one leaped at her. Her teeth gnashed together with anger and her hand on reflex moved before her with a dagger. Its blades never reached the beast as it got pushed back by her telekinesis with such force. Once it hit a nearby tree it fell to the ground to become hidden by bushes and didn't get back up.

There were so many of them leaping at them from the bushes all around. Her telekinesis was the strongest she had ever felt as she pushed them to hit into the trees. After her fourth one, she had a clear image of what they were fighting. They were not Werewolves.

They were a hairless black-skinned canine that rushed on all fours but were slimmer and smaller than the Werewolves. Several tall spikes rose from their backs lining their spines. They had red eyes, and their thick skin on the upper snouts curled back in wrinkles to reveal sharp teeth.

They had no idea they were dealing with chupacabras, one of the most ferocious species native to that Domain. They were a low intelligence species and so did not know of the Frontera system. Their reason for attacking was purely for food.

Roshar aimed his arrows at special locations in their front legs so they could no longer attack but flee limping. He was not aiming to kill them, however, one that missed his arrow and persisted in getting too close leaped at him. He stabbed the sharp end of his metal bow to pierce its head before giving it a blow with his spiked-knuckle glove and it flew far into the bushes.

Cronan and Dayrue were careful not to use their telekinesis on such mindless and fast-moving creatures as they needed to preserve their energy for the next Domain. They each had a sword and threw the occasional daggers.

Cronan's dagger throws were so strong, it pushed the beasties back once they stabbed their skin and stayed lodged even as they lolloped away.

Skinner, the two-sworded master, was swift at dodging their sharp front paws giving him enough time to secure a poison tube into the top blade of his sword. He spun it around and struck several light blows for the poison to kick in. They soon fell motionless onto the ground and the paralyzed bodies began to pile up.

The red poison only paralyzed its victims and would require several stabs to kill a creature of that size, unlike the black poison which meant imminent death. They were in the wrong by trespassing into their territory and so they avoided the unnecessary killing for such a large species.

However, one dragged itself using its front claws in an attempt to snatch a rattler from behind her legs. Rue tried to push it away but her ability had weakened after the realization she was not fighting Werewolves and now it was completely shut off.

"Crap!"

One hand reached for a sword and sliced both its front paws off in a nick of time. Its loud shriek of pain startled the rattlers that huddled together in the midst of their circular formation.

Rue's heart wrenched at the creature in pain and could not imagine how it would survive like that. She threw five shurikens to kill it.

"No more mind pushes?" asked Ezra at the top of his voice, throwing several shurikens and punching the mutts down to the earth with his knuckled fists.

He was still fixed on getting her to talk to him even during a battle.

Rue threw one dagger to spin around like a boomerang to saw deep lines into the skin of three beasties before it lodged into one's neck. She ignored him.

One had crawled its way up to leap from a tree, but only its head made it past Dayrue's shoulder after she slit its head off to fall amongst the rattlers. They scurried to move away so it hit the ground instead.

Soon the other chupacabras stopped attacking to creep around in the bushes. The snap of Dayrue's finger sounded through the air before she signaled that more was coming and they had to move.

She was the first to rush off and the rattlers followed, zipping on their four legs. They started to surpass even her.

The stalking noises far behind them made them know they were being hunted down. Once the blues from a rushing river popped out from behind the greens to block their path from several feet away, all hope seemed lost.

The current was so strong that soon only the rushing waters could be heard all around the trees. Fighting the current to cross it seemed futile, much less getting the rattlers to go in. Even worse, the hungry pack was too close behind them.

On their right, the grounds dropped to a cliff and the river met it to fall into a waterfall. They all nodded in agreement to jump off the edge and land in the waters below. That should separate them from the mutts on their tails.

They tucked away their weapons securely and when they neared the edge, grabbed a rattler up in both their arms and jumped off.

The chupacabras had reached the edge in their numbers to look down, but they did not follow to jump off. It was a long fall and the loud rushing waters clogged their ears. They squinted their eyes as droplets hit them like heavy showers of rain but they did not think much of it.

They took one deep breath before they hit the busy waters to sink below to the calm blues. They helped the rattlers to swim to the surface due to their load making it harder for them. Soon all their heads popped up without their hoods to gasp for air.

Rue and the others looked up at the beasties lining the cliff on one side of the waterfall. Soon her mind got conflicted as something felt off about the water around her. Confusion began to crowd their faces as the current began to push them closer towards the waterfall instead of away.

They started to swim away but they were no match for the current. Soon they began to get carried up the waterfall back to the edge of the cliff and even past the beasties.

It was a reverse waterfall, and so its currents went up instead of down. Even worse the pack of beasts followed their trail until they reached a part where the current died out for them to resist it. They merely tipped their front claws into the waters before yanking them out to growl at them.

Rue and the others dragged their soaked bodies out but onto the other side away from the pile of hungry mutts. They did not cross and seemed to hate the water.

Rue like the others could not believe it. Now they were even further back from where they last were.

Dayrue blamed Skinner and Rue backed her up, but he gladly took the blame.

"Yes, as team leader I must carry the failure of my members."

Roshar's scroll was in a waterproof bag, and he was pleased to see it was in good condition as he unrolled it. Poo from the sky fell on it and it wiped the smile from his face.

The cliff seemed to go on for miles on both sides and they needed to cross it to continue on the path. They had no choice but to return there. However, instead of jumping down to land back into the waters, they descended the rocky slope.

The rattlers' feet stuck to the rocks and with gravity pulling down on their load strapped to their bodies made them travel faster down the rocky slope. Their bodies waggled from left to right as they raced down.

It put a smile on Rue's face and it reminded her she needed to move faster. Her gloves had good friction on the rocks and her claws added extra support. If she slipped, her tail could grab onto something to stop her fall.

Not long after they reached a height they could jump down onto green grass that flourished on both sides of the river.

They continued their path while marveling at it flowing in the opposite direction. Soon they saw its source came from the mouth of a massive dark cave with mysterious glowing symbols around its entrance.

Using the compass and Dayrue's signals they steered away from it back into some high trees. Bright reds in the sky contrasted with the greens to peek through the leaves above their heads. It was noon and darkness was coming. Soon glowing spiders crawled on the tree barks all around. They saw the most beautiful glowing flowers.

"They're so beautiful," gasped Skinner.

"It must be poisonous," the others said in a synced chorus.

They passed through thick bushes filled with thorns that brushed over their hardened skin. They had to pull the mantle away from their shoulders as they yanked at it. The load and armor flaps protected the rattlers from their sharp ends.

The second they stepped out into knee-length bushes Cronan whispered for them to get down after he alone noticed Dayrue's signal. The rattlers' height made them already hidden.

They peeked through the tall grass to notice a small tribe of tall blue-skinned species with four arms. They were rowing on rafts on waters that had taken the orange color of the sunset.

"Why are dominant species this far from the center?" asked Cronan.

Roshar said, "It looks like they're on a family trip."

"A family trip?" asked Ezra. It reminded him of when he went fishing with his dad. It began to fill him with depression.

They created stealth energy fields over their bodies making them appear invisible as their dark red mantles contrasted too much with the bright green. They continued and crept to meet the height of the bushes for added cover.

To Rue's disappointment, she still could not cover her entire body, and reds from her mantle were out in the open. Dayrue who was a master of the stealth energy fields created one for her while holding hers up.

She signed her appreciation to her and kept a low conversation. She learned that Dayrue could cover two objects and they could even be moving, but that was her limit.

Rue was very impressed.