I want to ask so many questions about the beings who attacked us but the most I can get out of my lungs are short breaths, speaking would just slow my speed down further, becoming even more of a burden.

I make the effort to raise my head, expecting Yvonne and Patrick to be relaxed at this slow pace but I am surprised to find their movements to be rigid, each of their steps shows exhaustion in how heavily they impact the ground.

After further inspection, I find Yvonne to be limping slightly while the back of Patrick’s leather armor is split wide from one shoulder-blade to the other, showing bandages rosy with blood underneath.

Worried, I throw a look behind me at Leomi, she seems to be without injuries at a first glance. But, having forgotten to monitor my new balance, I trip and start falling sideways. Lady Lance’s hands immediately rush forward, taking hold of either side of my waist to bring me back to my feet.

I mutter a “Thanks.” between two breaths ragged by an already dissipating fear. Her hands let go of me much too soon for me to even start enjoying it as the scare of the fall has only just left me. One of them, however, seems to trail behind the other as she places it on my back.

“Stop!” Yvonne barks, her head suddenly turning around, making me jump in surprise as she throws a burning glare over my shoulder. “You cannot keep burning your reserves on a civilian.” She adds.

I follow the path of her glare, confused but careful not to trip this time, finding Lady Lance making a difficult expression as she tries to hide the golden glow made by the hand that was resting against my back a second ago.

“Much as your heart bleeds for her, the stakes are too high for you to keep making emotional decisions on this matter.” She adds, her expression becoming gentler as she speaks.

“Already wasted too many resources on a peasant.” Patrick mumbles the complaint just loudly enough for us to hear.

Her heart bleeds for me? I cannot help the smile that blooms on my face as I hear that, barely registering the other’s scathing words and not caring the least for them.

Yvonne’s sentence seems to echo around in my mind, sustaining my suddenly elevated mood, but this situation isn’t one where I can forget the surrounding circumstances so I force myself to ask the questions that have been needling the back of my mind.

“What stakes?” I ask. “Who were those beings? One of them used flow on me!”

I hear a loud sigh coming from Patrick but he seems to resign himself as he leans one shoulder against the wall for support and takes a break.

“There, drink.” Lady Lance offers me a flask of water, I open my mouth to protest as I don’t feel thirsty. “You need to drink, you’ve lost a lot of blood.” She instantly crushes my protests before they can even be uttered with a stern voice and serious eyes.

I take the flask and take care to drink despite the difficulty with the smile still plastered on my lips, further renewed by her concern for me and the fuzzy feeling filling my heart.

“These beings as you call them, are called Rykz.” Patrick supplies the answer, surprising me. “The Rykz are … mostly animals I suppose. The vast majority of their population displays about as much intelligence as wolves would in their hunting packs but with more coordination and brutality. As their insectoid appearance and number of limbs suggest, their behavior is closely related to that of ants which is where the coordination and brutality comes from. Their discipline is unshakable and each of the members of their species will obey its orders to the letter with no regard for individual survival. A Rykz unit will charge or retreat in perfect order, it will fight through exhaustion and missing limbs without blinking.” He interrupts his tirade to take a breath. “The stakes, peasant, are of the highest order, the Rykz do not, ever, show themselves without an intelligent member of their species nearby to give orders. That means that there is at the very least a Queen on the Izla and no one else but us knows.”

“But, that Rykz used his own flow, he did something to my skin … it, it burned.” I add with a shiver.

“We do not know enough about the Rykz to draw conclusions about flow distribution in their species, some speculate that only the Queens have access and they bestow their reserves upon their subjects while others claim that the assumption that only beings of sufficient intelligence have access to their own flow is flawed or incomplete. It matters little as of this moment …”

“But he made a construct, two in fact, one … weird thing that made my skin glisten and a wide area flame construct.” I interrupt him.

“Yes, the latest experiments show that you can teach animals to use simple constructs instinctively if you train them from very little.” He cuts me off before I can ask more questions with a glare and a wave of hand. “The problem is that we’ve never seen a Queen infiltrating, or even attacking human lands like this, it has never happened.” He changes his tone to hammer the word in. “Two of the Rykz that ambushed us escaped so that means that their Queen will soon be aware that we know of their presence on the Island.”

“He means to say that very soon, two things will happen.” Lady Lance says. “They will hunt us down and they will launch a surprise attack against the Izla, the timeline between those two actions will depend on the level of success they achieve in chasing us.”

“A surprise attack? What? Why?” I ask with round eyes, baffled at the sudden jump in the conversation.

“You do not stealthily move a Queen and dig hidden tunnels for a diplomatic mission.” Patrick looks at me as if I am stupid, or rather, stupider than he thought. “This is an invasion.”

“But, we … I mean we’ll be okay, right? We have soldiers.” I stammer thinking of my father and our small home, despite how I felt earlier about burdening Father, that doesn’t mean I want to lose my home, Mother’s home.

“I don’t know.” Lady Lance admits sadly. “We don’t know how many Rykz there are on the island but …”

“At the very least twenty thousand.” Patrick supplies the numbers, but it seems like my eyes communicate my lack of ability to wrap my mind around them so he continues. “There are fifty thousand people on the island, there are about a thousand trained men and women in the guard, add another thousand for all the retinues we nobles maintain. We may be able to call upon ten thousand untrained peasants to fill the ranks, at most.”

“Fifteen.” Yvonne corrects him, Patrick raises an eyebrow. “You aren’t counting on the fact that this will be a defensive war against an invading foreign species, most peasants capable of fighting will want to answer the call. The problem will be that they are still in the middle of sowing for one last harvest before winter, we will have to open the granaries we keep for trade with the kingdom if we want to pull them out of the fields.”

“She’s right.” I add. “This isn’t a good time to leave the fields unattended.”

“Either way, the Rykz can field their entire population to fight the morning and retreat to tend to their mushroom pits in the afternoon.” Patrick hits the wall he’s laying against with a closed fist. “You cannot starve out or siege a Rykz hive, the best you can do is block their tunnels. Our only hope may ironically lay in the fact that they are here to invade, if we manage to surround and slaughter their army we may be able to take the hive before the Queen can replenish her workers.”

“And if you can’t do that?” I ask.

“Then we lose, in a year or ten, if we cannot take the hive then we lose.” He states with finality while both Yvonne and Lady Lance make pained faces.

They can’t be serious, the King, no, the …

“The Emperor wouldn’t let that happen! He would send his phalanxes right?” I protest, unease filling my stomach.

“Girl, the King himself wouldn’t risk his army fighting an entrenched Rykz hive, the most we can hope for is financial support from the kingdom, as for the empire … the Emperor has to protect the whole empire, we are simply not vital enough for him to send his phalanxes.” The words themselves seem to pain him as he admits our lack of importance in the grand scheme of things.

“Alright, we need to keep moving.” Lady Lance raises a hand and points forward.

I try to give her the flask of water back but she shakes her head, muttering a small “Keep drinking.” between her lips. I shrug and catch up with Yvonne and Patrick who went ahead. The pause did at least allow me to catch my breath despite the inner turmoil it provoked.

Despite being out most of the time if I go by my level of hunger, it doesn’t seem like they’ve spent more than ten hours walking. I take another gulp of water to trick my hunger but it isn’t wasted as the water feels reinvigorating.

We walk for many hours in silence. I gather that we are retracing our steps back towards the fork in the road we first encountered, it wouldn’t have made sense for them to keep going deeper in the tunnels after that ambush, so I don’t bother to break the silence to ask.

Every hour or so, Leomi reminds me to drink water whether I want to or not, evoking warm feelings in my heart every time she does. We do finally reach the fork and we pause to catch our collective breaths, even Lady Lance seems to be suffering, if only from a lesser degree of exhaustion.

As soon as I stop though, my stomach starts making loud grumbling noises in protest, choosing the most embarrassing moment to protest my constant use of water to trick it and evade hunger.

“We might as well make camp here, we’re tired and …” Yvonne lets her words hang in the air as she throws a look towards my belly. “… hungry.” Her lips curl up into a teasing smile and I feel my cheeks heat up a bit.

“It’s not that funny.” I grumble, moving towards Yvonne and help her light up enough torches to make a cooking fire.

“Hum, it’s a little bit funny?” She takes the sack of potatoes and the pot out of the supplies backpack.

“Maybe I should eat you to satiate my hunger!” I threaten, flashing bared teeth her way as I put the last torch down on the fire, trying to play her game.

“Noooo!” She whispers in an overly fake scream. “I told you I don’t swing that way! Spare me!” She explodes in giggles when I freeze and my cheeks flare up. Worse still, I hear concealed laughter coming from behind me but it quickly fades. “Sorry, sorry! You’re so transparent I can’t help it, you’re like a walking teasing candy.” Her apology is utterly unconvincing as she remains laughing throughout giving it.

“Sorry I wasn’t taught how to lie with my face all the time?” I grumble and shake my head, holding my hand out in front of her as she takes potatoes out of the bag.

However, her laughter suddenly dies out while her eyebrows make a concerned frown and she makes a small apologetic smile. She remains silent for a long minute, watching me with the same concern as I just stand there confused.

I look down at my hand, trying to find a clue about what’s happening. I make the connection soon after, my previous embarrassment drowned out by gloomy thoughts as my head turns to my left side. Can’t even peel potatoes anymore … what the fuck!

I make my way towards one of the walls instead of starting to scream at nothing in frustration, sitting down against it in silence, my sole hand reaching for my neck trying to find the string tying my winter cloak around it, finding nothing after a while I look down and see that it is indeed missing.

“Where’s my cloak?” I ask the others in a volume barely above the crackling fire and Yvonne’s peeling cuts.

“ … It was the only piece of cloth readily available so we used it to quench the blood flow until we could find every bleeding artery and vein to close them.” Lady Lance explains.

“Okay.” I say quietly.

I let my head drop into my hands between my raised knees but fail because one is obviously missing, I shift position to hold my forehead with my right alone. How much did that cloak cost me again? Two silvers? Does it matter? It’s just something else I can’t afford to replace. I let a heavy sigh escape me and raise my head up to let it rest back against the wall.

I let my mind wander as Yvonne cooks and the other two sit down to maintain their equipment, Lady Lance using a grindstone to smooth out some chinks in her blade I cannot spot from my position while Patrick takes the top of his leather armor off and starts sowing both edges of the rip on its back together.

— — —

I wake up in a start as a hand shakes my shoulder, completely taken by surprise as I had not expected to fall asleep. I take quick stock of my surroundings and find Lady Lance standing in front of me, holding out a bread roll wrapped around a potato at me.

The small pain of a headache is pounding at my cranium, coming from the sudden nap and its interruption no doubt. I hold my hand out towards her flask and she immediately takes it off to hand it over. After a few long gulps of water, I start wondering where I left the other one she gave me but I quickly abandon the thought as I just don’t care enough to look around at this point.

A smile comes to my face as I hand the flask back to her and she makes a pressing motion towards me with the hand holding the rolled bread and potato.

I take care to use my right hand to take it, wrapping my fingers around the bread and avoiding a possibly burning potato. I bring it between my knees, eager to devour the food but cautious not to repeat a clumsy mistake like earlier when I let my head drop.

So I naturally try to use my other hand and open the bread up so I can use my other hand’s fingers to touch the surface of the potato inside and verify its heat. As is obvious, nothing happens as I stare at the potato, moving a phantom left arm to lift very real bread.

I remain there, baffled by the fact that my mind made this most ludicrous lapse, forgetting all about my missing left hand that is the very thing that caused the latest string of clumsiness to begin with. Lost in my thoughts I forget my tight grip over the break roll and my tired clumsy fingers let it slip.

Lady Lance’s hand darts forward, catching the food out of thin air before it even makes it more than a dozen centimeters towards the ground. She brings the roll back up and into my hand, wrapping her burning hot fingers around my suddenly cold feeling hand to make sure I am holding it tight.

She takes back her hands much too soon for my taste, although it feels like that would have been the case regardless of the amount of time she kept her hands on mine. I raise a small thanking smile at her before starting to devour the bread and potato, as soon as I finish it, Leomi leaves and comes back with another that I also make short order of.

“Thanks.” I tell her, she nods before turning around, walking away towards the fire, joining Yvonne and Patrick.

I get up and also make my way to the fire, ignoring the look of annoyance Patrick throws me, visibly trying my make me feel like I am intruding to get me to go away. I’m almost surprised by how little I care whether I’m breaking some kind of social etiquette or not, my life is too far gone for such petty things to impact me it seems.

I let myself drop sideways on my right side in a spot as near to the flames as I dare, the ground is hard but my butt needs a break and it takes less effort to lay there on my side than to remain in a sitting position without a backrest.

“Who’s up for the first shift?” Yvonne asks, concealing a yawn.

“I’ll take it.” I immediately say, continuing before they can object. “I just took a small nap and apparently keeping watch is about all I can do … so I’ll take first shift.”

“Both of us then, I’m the least tired here. We’ll share my blanket since you don’t have your cloak anymore.” Lady Lance states, starting to riffle through her pack.

Yvonne nods while Patrick gets up without a word, both of them moving away a few meters to make their camping beds.

I should be happy that I have her attention but … at this point I must just seem weak and vulnerable to her, is she just babysitting me? Like I can’t do anything by myself? This … this can’t be how I look now, right?

“Hic.” My hand jerks up to my mouth, clasping it shut while my elbow drops to the ground, the impact pains me a little as the elbow takes over as the support point for my torso. I ignore the small amount of dust on my hand as I squeeze my jaw tight and straight up will the panic rising in my chest to recede as another hiccup tries to make its way up my throat. Hic.

I managed to constrain it internally, it only makes my head and chest jerk up a bit. This is the opposite of what I want to show her, I probably don’t have a future but fuck me if I don’t do everything I can to get her in the present.

I slowly pull my hand off, releasing my jaw as I unclasp my fingers and pull them out of the grooves they dug in my cheeks, cleaning the area around my mouth of the little dust my hand left there with quick swipes of my fingers. I wipe the nascent tears in my eyes with my shirt before taking a deep breath and … “Rrrraaaaaaaahh!” I let all the air in my lungs escape at once in a yell of frustration, trying to put all my rage and anger within it.

It works enough that I regain control of my feelings, almost smiling as I hear my blood pounding at my temples with every beat of my heart, the sound reaching all the way to my eardrums.

Looking around, I find Lady Lance smiling gently at me, without a trace of pity that I can find. She throws me a wink before placing the blanket in her hands down on the ground near the fire. I see Patrick as he opens his mouth but Yvonne speaks first.

“They already know where we are, doesn’t make a difference how much noise we make before we pick which tunnel we’ll take.” She accompanies her tirade with a sideways shake of her head at him.

“Still.” He grunts with restrained anger.