Rua survived.

  Ashborne tried to catch the cage as the rotted branch gave way, a tree limb lumberingly reaching out. The cage bounced off his clumsy attempts, rocking Rua about in her enclosure and sending her spinning to the ground.

  The branches that made up the bars of the cage snapped and tore on impact, and Rua bounced about as she covered her face as best she could with her arms. The noise was thunderous, and shards of wood speared in every direction, deflecting off Rua’s Tenacity shield.

  Her body was moving before she fully recovered. Years of training forced her into action, her brain a step behind in catching up. She was on her feet and out of the cage, in seconds, her feet carrying her away from Ashborne’s wrath. The tree smashed down with two limbs thicker than her entire body, furious that his captive had escaped.

  “To your left!” Sami called, and Rua betedly realized the message window was still open, although minimized, a quarter of its normal size and in the corner of her vision.

  Rua weaved, avoiding a Cutting that ripped itself free from the mud. It was slow and bogged down, covered in heavy muck that it had not yet shaken off. She had no weapon to fight it off with. She’d dropped her woodcutter’s axe when she’d been taken.

  The Cutting ran at her, and her fist smmed into it hard enough to send cracks through the wood. It still wasn’t enough. The Cutting shrugged off damage that would’ve stopped anything else its size cold.

  It grabbed her arm, vines growing from its body. This close to Ashborne, it was probably still connected to his root system, and was pulling mass from the host body. Those vines tried to tch onto her, but she countered the sloppy hold, moving her body and shifting her weight to free herself before she could become entangled. She gave a forceful kick to the Cutting’s leg, snapping it in two and sending it to the ground.

  “Reinforcement incoming, I think,” Sami said.

  And then several tons of metal smmed into the Cutting at astonishing speed, sending it into Ashborne’s trunk and shattering it on impact.

  The mud-streaked form was taller than any two men standing atop one another, and thicker than any three combined.

  The Vexurian turned to face Rua, and Sunny’s voice, distorted and menacing, said, “Can we go get chicken after? I don’t have chicken. It’s important. For the memes.”

  None of that made any sense. That frustrating girl was taking more and more after Otter, and honestly, Rua could only handle that kind of nonsense from so many people.

  “Get us out of here first, then we’ll talk about… whatever chicken is.”

  “Oh right. We don’t have that here. Aw man.”

  There was no point in sticking to fight. All they had to do was get out. Get out, and stay out of Ashborne’s grasp long enough to catch a soo-meng off the isnd. Something that big couldn’t possibly move very fast. He’d have to rely on his Cuttings to pursue them. All they had to do was outsmart those, create some distance… Rua had been through worse. She could do this, just so long as they could run.

  Apparently Sunny agreed. The Vexurian bent and picked Rua up, and began to turn to run. And then, with a thunderous crash that sent mud flying in all directions, Ashborne nded directly in front of them, the branches of lesser trees torn clean from his path and falling all around him.

  The entire isnd seemed to shake under the impact. Rua’s heart felt as if it had taken residence in her throat.

  The great tree had uprooted himself and leapt over them to block their escape. The sounds of panicked birds crying out and flying away echoed Ashborne’s nding.

  “I don’t think we can fight that,” Sunny said.

  “I don’t think he’s going to give us a choice.”

  “You don’t have a weapon, do you?”

  “Next Cutting you grab, tear it into manageable pieces. A club isn’t exactly the best weapon, but I guess it’s better than nothing.”

  She hopped down from the Vexurian’s grasp. Finding footing in the mud was difficult, but not impossible. At least it stayed still. She hated ship-to-ship fighting. Give her mud and squishy ground any day over that.

  “Do you have a pn?” Sami asked through the window.

  Rua checked her link, noting the location of Otter. She was close, and getting closer. Tale-telling woman even felt excited. “No. But I’m good at improvisation.”

  “You are not the Lifecrafter,” Ashborne said, his voice a deep rumble, his trunk splitting to form a mouth. “Mother promised a cure.”

  Slight pain. A faint impression. A half-truth. Ashborne wasn’t mindless, like his Cuttings. Good. Her abilities would actually work on him.

  But what was ‘Mother?’ Oh. The Dreamer, of course. She was taking an active hand? That wasn’t good. But Rua could use that.

  “Did she?” Rua asked. “Or did she imply something to you, and you made a jump to a conclusion? Are you beginning to doubt your Dreamer?”

  “Mother implied you were the Lifecrafter, but I smell no life in your Pact.”

  “Just lies, I’m afraid,” Rua said, triggering her Truthshield.

  A bck dome went around her and Sunny. While inside, you couldn’t see outside, but the same worked in reverse, but on a much deeper level. You didn’t see a bck dome. You saw nothing at all. The mind just refused to accept any interpretation of what it saw in that space, leaving only indifference, maybe a sense you had forgotten something, like if you’d left a glyph stone on at home.

  It was a good ability for stealth. It was so-so in a combat situation, especially if your opponent already knew you were there. The mental fog would only st a couple of seconds. But it was a couple seconds to act that they hadn’t had before.

  Maybe Sunny’s meddling with Rua’s memories had prepared her for just this scenario. Or maybe she’d sensed what Rua was up to through the link. Or maybe she just had good battle intuition. She burst into movement as soon as the shield appeared, throwing herself forward at a breakneck speed you wouldn’t expect from such a rge suit of armor.

  Rua darted to the left, circling around. A second ter, Ashborne’s fist came down like the fury of a lightning bolt. Mud and debris were sent hurtling everywhere.

  All Rua could do was run. She had no weapons. No Pact that could deal damage. Hope she was enough of a distraction that Sunny could tear into Ashborne. Her model, covered in mud as it was, was hard to identify, but it looked older. It likely wouldn’t be able to dish out the kind of damage that some of the ones Rua had seen in the past.

  Sunny grabbed onto Ashborne’s arm, and the armor tensed, the body of it shrinking in on itself as the joints retracting in sections of pting. And then, beneath the mud, glyphs began to glow. There was a cracking sound as wood began to splinter, and for a moment, Rua felt hope.

  And then Ashborne lifted his arm, taking the Vexurian with it, and smmed it back down. The Vexurian took the brunt of the blow. Still she hung on, her legs now also hooking in, and more wood cracked and splintered. Ashborne made a roar, and lifted his arm once more before bringing it crashing down again.

  There was a sound of crushing metal, but over it, the sound of shattering wood deafened how bad it was. The end of Ashborne’s arm exploded, sending wooden shards in every direction.

  Ashborne screamed the sound of a wounded god.

  Rua was already moving. Not on the attack, but to Sunny’s side. The Vexurian was id out, limbs spyed in all directions, the armor mangled. Pieces of it had been rent, sections crushed, with jagged edges forming from tears. The glyphs along its sides faded, slowly winking out.

  There was a strangled, inhuman sound, and it took a moment for Rua to realize it was coming from her. Another moment for her to realized she’d rushed to the fallen Vexurian’s bent and twisted form, another to process that she was pulling Sunny’s broken body from the armor.

  Another to realize just how broken Sunny was.

  She was covered in blood, parts of her body smashed beyond recognition. Her face a bloody mess. Her legs twisted in ways they weren’t supposed to be.

  Rua reached out with her link tentatively. There was pain. So much sweet, beautiful pain. Beautiful, because it meant Sunny was still alive, her mind still capable of registering the ruin she had become.

  It was something. Terrible, but hopeful. But she could feel it. Sunny was like a candle, guttering in the wind.

  Sunny let out a breath, blood spitting out from her lips as she did, and then inhaled. A horrible, wheezing sound.

  The edges of Rua’s vision went red. Something inside her shook. And then, in the middle of her field of vision, a message window appeared.

  New Pact Ability UnlockedDefamed HeroCost: 5 WillTurn allies against one target

  Rua didn’t take the time to process it. Didn’t think of how it would work. She just poured her Will into the skill, focusing on Ashborne. There was a brief flicker, as if a shroud of darkness covered him, before fading away.

  Ashborne did not seem to notice. He was cradling his ruined limb. He made a sharp gesture with two twigs that were positioned much like fingers on one of his many arms, and Cuttings emerged from the mud.

  And then promptly attacked him.

  Some part of Rua noted that she had a chance. That she could escape. Get out.

  She didn’t care. It was time for the Mythwalker to die.

  DorenWinslowe