A moment later, Yaling, God of Music and the third of his companions, used her mahee to muffle the sound of the chalk completely until even the cheetah did not hear it. Barely a moment after that and the scents of their mahee at work were also hidden under a spell that D’Argen had only recently learned about. It was one of those few that the gods of any aspect could use, so he could not tell which of his companions employed it.

As the cat searched the spot, D’Argen did not dare move, not wanting its attention back on him to start the chase again. He may have been the fastest living thing in all of Trace, but he still needed to stop and make sure his lungs were working properly. His mahee could only do so much to give him the speed and endurance he needed to run for so long. The distraction from his three friends afforded him the time to calm his heart and breathe in fresh air, preparing for another chase around the hot plains.

The cat was smart. Too smart. It clearly knew that D’Argen was the most dangerous thing to it at the moment.

D’Argen understood that his break was over once the cat’s head swivelled back to him. It looked at him the same way those voided demons did, back during the demon wars when they kept D’Argen on his toes for days at a time.

The cat’s stance opened wide and D’Argen matched it, ready to push off into another run as soon as the cat pounced. It approached him slowly though, hackles raised, head down, tail gently swishing against the dried grass under its soft paws.

In response, D’Argen hunched over. The long dark hair from his ponytail brushed the ground, collecting dust and debris that would be a pain to wash off later.

The cheetah lifted one of its cheeks in a snarl.

D’Argen opened his mahee. The moment the scent of his magic reached the cat, it pounced. D’Argen pushed off to the side, turning the furrows into a crater, and ran off again. He passed so close to the cat that its swipe tore at the flaring skirt of his robes and pulled a few strands of his long dark hair out. Fortunately, it took the cat much longer to change direction in order to chase D’Argen down again. His scalp tingled from the lost hairs.

If it were not for the sharp claws and fangs, D’Argen would have thought it was playing with him. His three companions, safely hidden behind magic and watching him running around like an idiot, probably found it all hilarious.

“Can you make it jump, please?”

The shouted question came from the rock. Of course they dropped the sound spell to give him orders.

D’Argen could only roll his eyes in reply. He did not trip only because his mahee made sure he was always steady on his feet. Unfortunately, that same magic wrapped around the cheetah as well and gave it his speed and endurance, allowing it to keep running after him even hours into this chase.

D’Argen was faster than some voided cat! This was not a speed demon from millennia past. He could open his mahee wider, too wide for the trail of his scent to make a difference, and leave the cat behind in the dust. The only reason why it could keep up with him and get so close to snap at his heels was because, somehow, it was able to use the scent of his mahee to run faster. This was one of the reasons they were still here.

D’Argen dropped his centre of gravity and bent his knee lower on the next step then pushed hard against the ground in the following one so he would jump high into the air. Fortunately, the cheetah followed the motion, jumping unnaturally high after him. He had barely landed on the dry ground when he heard the “Thank you!” being shouted from the distance. The cat was probably too far for the jump to have been properly visible. Another shift had D’Argen making a wide circle with the cheetah following closely as they ran back to the spot where his companions were hidden.

Out of curiosity, he opened his mahee just a bit wider. The scent of the ocean drifted after him and right over the cheetah. When the magic touched his feet and he sped up, so did the cat. This was the first time he had ever even heard of something other than the gods using magic. True, the cat was only using the scent he left behind as he ran, but even that had been unheard of until now.