The Kertharians shout and wail, their battle cry a long litany of unfamiliar syllables, rising and lowering in pitch. It feels like language, somewhere below the rage and spittle. The forest is pitch black, the tall evergreens and heavy clouds blocking out most moonlight. I can’t see the Kertharians yet. They’ve been traveling in the dark, without torches or other lights.

  Mandollel grimaces with every movement, but pulls out his slender sword from its loop. The loop sizzles and the blade sings as he does, the scent of ozone crisp among the earthy smells of the forest. He takes a halting step and leans his back against a tree.

  “Take care of the Peacock,” Finna says, and is gone. Disappeared without a trace into the shadows and dark of the trees.

  Rworg starts shouting, a similar string of sounds as the Kertharians in the forest. It’s like he’s singing a melody against them. Unlike the song, the curved sword in his hand doesn’t resemble the weapons that I’ve seen the Kertharians use. I wish he would take a couple of steps away from me and Mandollel. The sword is stupidly large.

  I’m ready to cry before I get the first arrow nocked on the string. I fumble with the quiver and the arrows and even holding the bow feels awkward. The extra thumbs wreck all muscle memory I’ve built up over the years. Mandollel watches me, but doesn’t say anything. He’s leaning against the tree, testing his legs and arms.

  Four Kertharians step out from the forest. Three are holding swords, but I focus on the one hanging back with a bow. He takes aim at me. I’m faster and the shot should be easy. It doesn’t matter. My arrow whizzes past his head and into the forest. He doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he finishes his draw.

  The bowstring twangs and Mandollel’s sword whistles at the same time. He slaps the arrow from flight, and it goes flying to the side, landing somewhere in the underbrush. The silvery arc of his sword lingers in the air before my chest.

  The rest of the Kertharians approach Rworg, but I keep my eyes locked on the archer. He is already nocking a new arrow, but something flies at him from the corner of my vision. His motion stops. The archer goes slack and falls to the side, the hilt of Finna’s dagger jutting out from the side of his neck. I’m still fumbling with my next arrow. It’s impossible to do anything properly with the thumbs. They snag on my clothes and bump into the arrows I’m trying to grab, and everything is stupid and wrong! I scream when I drop the arrow as I’m about to get it nocked onto the bowstring.

  “They have this,” Mandollel says. His arm is hanging limply to the side, the sword dangling in his hand. “Grab me before I fall down.” He’s leaning and slumping away from the tree. His face is the only thing under control at the moment, the rest of his body shaking and legs wobbling under him.

  I drop my bow and grab him as his knees buckle. He’s almost a head taller than me and I try to prepare, but he’s much heavier than he looks. Rworg and Finna better have it, because I sure as heck won’t be able to do anything, getting crushed under the elf.

  I can’t do anything except watch. This is the first time I can watch Rworg fight and it’s nothing like I’ve ever seen. Even the way that Bann moves seems graceful and controlled compared to what Rworg seems to be doing. His swings are wide and brutal and I fear he’s leaving himself completely open, but the way he rotates his whole body, changing the direction of his blade in fluid and surprising arcs, makes it impossible for the Kertharians to get close to him. When one of them finally manages to try to hit him, Rworg’s sword swats the blade directly from the Kertharian’s hand. The sword spins wildly into the forest from the strength of the impact and vanishes into the dark.

  I expect the man to fall back or try to get away. Instead, he lunges at Rworg with both hands reached out to him, teeth gritted into a snarl. Rworg grabs him with one arm and shoves him into the other Kertharian, following up with a swing of his sword. I wince and turn away in time to avoid seeing what happens. The Kertharians are still singing or screaming, but one voice stops.

  Mandollel grabs my tunic with his fist. “Finna has the last one,” he gasps, holding on and nearly pulling me down with him. “Put me down, already.”

  I try to tune out the sounds of the battle as much as I can. Hunting animals is never this grisly. Usually it’s clean and quick. This feels more like hunting teratomes - dirty, dangerous and unpleasant. The two last Kertharian voices go silent nearly at the same time. I manage to lower Mandollel to the ground without falling down on him and look up to see Finna stand behind a corpse of one the Kertharians. She’s pulling a dagger out from the person’s back. This one looks like a civilian. She’s not wearing any armor, and I again remember the woman with the ladle. At least this one was carrying a proper sword.

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  Rworg throws something unceremoniously into the forest. It’s a leg. He crouches to pick up something else from the ground, and bile rises up in my throat. This is what Lille and Gran didn’t want me to see. Rworg is again painted with blood, black in the moonlight. Does he do that on purpose? The thought makes me chuckle in all its absurdity. My hands shake and tremors run through my whole body.

  Mandollel reaches up to grab my hand. “Locke, listen to me. We do what we have to. To save everyone else.” His face is serious, and I chuckle again.

  “It’s just… nerves,” I manage to say. He lies on the forest path where I put him down, limp and unable to even get up, but he’s trying to comfort me. My teeth are chattering and I can barely hold back the chuckles that try to rise up my throat.

  “I know, but we’re not done. Help me up again, please.”

  Something in him asking for help cuts through the panic. I breathe in gasps and tremble all over, but grab his hand and drag him up. He’s less limp now, standing more steadily than before. He squeezes my shoulder and leaves his hand there. The touch helps a bit.

  Mandollel’s voice is strong and smooth. “We need to go. The main force will come to investigate, either before or after the attack.”

  Rworg crosses his arms before his chest. “Prevention, retribution, yet the mission must come first.”

  “Yes,” Mandollel says.

  The Kertharians crash through the forest behind us, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night. Their torches vanish and reappear behind the trees, casting faint, long shadows ahead of them. We’ve been running for what feels like hours.

  Earlier, Finna poured a whole bottle of ambrosia over Mandollel’s trousers. He grumbled something about freezing later, but Rworg massaged his legs for a minute and they started working again. Mandollel’s arms still try to swing and dangle and he hugs them to his chest when running. Corum really wrecked him, whatever it was she did.

  We’re heading to the east, toward Kerthar. I don’t have time to figure out where we are more precisely, but we’re heading toward sunrise. Someone has to have a map. I have my bow and some odds and ends, but the rest have full backpacks. Finna has the device in her bag, which looks heavy and bounces on her back. Her constant muttered litany of curses is the only thing anyone says. I have it easier—running in the forest is nothing new to me, and having next to no gear to carry feels like luxury.

  Dawn is breaking, and I’m not sure what that means for us. It’ll be harder to hide, but at least we can see where we are running and not tripping over every root and stone anymore.

  “Stop!” Finna shouts suddenly. She turns her head around, moving her gaze over the trees and the rocks. The area looks like every other place we’ve run through and past during the night.

  Mandollel and Rworg stop and look at Finna. They must have worked together more than I have. The Kertharians howl in the forest behind us. Even though I’m panting and tired, I want to do nothing but to keep running. The Kertharians must be as tired as us, but they show no sign of giving up the pursuit. Judging from the sounds, the whole camp is coming after us.

  Finna points into the forest. “There’s a hiding spot nearby.”

  The forest looks impenetrable. We have been running using animal trails and paths. Leaving the path and pushing our way directly into the forest might have been a way to lose the Kertharians. It could work if it was the three of us, but Rworg would leave behind a trail of snapped twigs and flattened underbrush that even a blind person could follow.

  “Lead the way,” Mandollel says.

  We push into the thicket. I let Finna go first but take the second place, clearing the way for Rworg and Mandollel. I want to be sure the big man doesn’t try to carve a path through the branches. Mandollel moves through the forest like a fish in water. Even if his arms are still not working right, he ducks and weaves through the branches absent-mindedly as if he were on a nice little stroll. The guy is infuriating.

  Finna leads us to a massive boulder. It juts out from the forest ground, wider than a cart is long and covered in moss and last autumn’s fallen leaves. Finna dives under it, disappearing into a space under the boulder that I had no idea was there.

  “You know it’s big enough,” Mandollel says to Rworg.

  “I know,” he says, even though his face stays sullen. He takes off his bag and sword and slides them under the rock, then squeezes into the space after. It looks impossible, but he disappears from sight completely.

  Mandollel follows him in. He wriggles himself backward into the hole. His bright eyes are the last thing I see before even they fade into darkness.

  After he’s gone, there’s no way to notice there’s any kind of space below the boulder at all. The snapping of branches and shouts shakes me from my torpor and I drop on all fours and dive into the space.

  It’s pretty large, but there are four of us now in it. It’s dark and damp and Rworg smells so much of blood that it’s hard to breathe, but I still relax. No one could ask for a better hiding spot. There are branches covering the entrance and it inclines down sharply, so that we can see a sliver of the sky that’s fading from deep blue to pink. There’s no way someone could spot us here if they didn’t actually watch us hide.

  I twist to take a look around. We’re all squeezed into the space. Rworg might have trouble rolling over to his other side, but for the rest of us, it’s actually almost spacious. The boulder is hanging above us. From the outside, it looked like it would have reached deep into the earth, but it’s actually more of a slab. As if a giant had cut a proper boulder in half and placed the top half here, leaving a gap under it.

  Finna yawns. I smile, but can’t stop myself from yawning as well. We’ve been up for a day and a night at this point. Even though my breathing hasn’t calmed down after the fighting and the chase, I can’t help feeling like I’ll fall asleep unless I fight it.

  I don’t.