I awoke with a pounding headache and was cold and wet. After a moment had passed, I realized that everything below my waist was in water. I couldn't remember what had happened. Why was I waist-deep in the water?

I vaguely remembered being attacked by figures in black and being picked up by Helnion. What had happened after that? I couldn't remember. My head was foggy, and it hurt to think. It hurt just being awake. I wanted to go back to sleep. The headache would go away if I did that. Wouldn't it?

“Salis,” I heard someone call to me, “Salis. Are you awake? Please wake up.”

The voice sounded familiar. Why did it sound like they were crying?

“Salis. Please wake up,” I heard again.

Should I answer the voice? My head hurt. Opening my eyes might make the headache worse. I just wanted to go back to sleep. Yes, sleep would be nice.

Then I remembered. The long chase. The long night. The cat man. Helnion going to try to chase them off. The two men that had forced my hand and me shooting us into the air and landing on the two carriages. Then the jump that had too much power behind it. My last memory was of right before I hit the wood just under the window I had been aiming at. What had happened after that?

I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was Helnion next to me, holding me. She was crying, softly calling my name. She looked like she had been crying for a while. This was the first time I had seen her cry, though nothing had happened before that would make her do so from what I had seen. Her eyes were closed, and she hadn't noticed that I had awakened yet.

Before I said anything to Helnion, I looked around me. We were not in a carriage. We were still in the middle of the river and were holding on to a large piece of wood. Helnion couldn't swim so it wasn't surprising that we had not gone to the shore.

Now there was the big question, what had happened to the men and carriages. That we were in this forest could wait for now.

“Helnion,” I spoke.

“You are awake!” she almost let go of me and the piece of wood, “How are you feeling?”

“Well enough,” I said and then got to the point, “What happened?”

She told me. To be honest, it baffled me more than amazed. Why had the drivers of the carriages just sat there and let themselves be shot? Sure the carriage would crash without them at the controls, but they could have just jumped to a nearby carriage and let Helnion go down with it. They could probably have easily killed her before it hit the water and get back in time. The only time a driver had actively attacked her was when he was the only one left to complete the mission and even then he had disregarded the fact that the carriage would crash into the water after he had knocked her way into the controls. Still, I would not complain. I had made escaping easier.

Now we're no longer being chased. The forest we had entered was the reason. Nobody came into this forest, the Howling Forest, except for followers of Usui. This was why many people called it Usui's Playground. I hated Usui, so I called it the Howling Forest.

We didn't look too deep into it yet. We were far enough in that I couldn't see the edge of the forest upriver.

“How long has it been?” I asked Helnion.

She thought and then shrugged, “You know I have no sense of time.”

“Want to go to shore?” I asked her.

“I am staying here until we leave the forest.”

That would take days at the speed of the river. Even then the river exited from the middle of the forest and there were no towns for a hundred kilometers in either direction.

“We're not too far in yet. Now would be the best.”

She looked at me worriedly, “Okay.”

It was now time to go to the bank. It would be a long and hard swim. Not only would I have to drag Helnion behind, but she had also saved my poleaxe and bag. The sword was also still at my hip. At least I had the piece of wood we were holding on to help float everything. I ended up teaching Helnion a little swimming. It wasn't much but I think we made it to shore faster with her help.

We made it to shore after… I couldn't tell how much time had passed. Neither of us stood up upon reaching the shore. We hadn't eaten since the day before, been slammed into things, and I hadn't slept unless you counted being knocked out for an hour or two.

The sounds of animals were everywhere. Most of them seemed harmless, but they had named the forest Howling Forest for a reason. There were wolves here. Lots of them. I also knew there would be bears. From what I had read about these two predators were not like their normal counterparts. They always seemed to know when someone that didn't belong here came. They didn't eat them either. They would drag the remains back to the edge of the forest as close to the nearest village as possible so all could see. No one came to the forest, not even in boats. This place was Usui's and his alone.

“We need to go,” I told Helnion.

She nodded.

I stood up, barely. Dizziness and nausea swept over me and I almost fell. I must have a concussion or something. I hoped it was nothing worse.

“Are you all right?” Helnion rushed over to support me.

“Can you carry me like a princess? I would like that.”

“Like a princess?” I didn't wait for her to figure out I was joking and started walking upriver.

It was slow going. Neither of us had regained any energy. We would just get more tired as time went on unless we got food. Even if we still had the crossbow or any energy, we still wouldn't try to hunt for food. We didn't want to kill any of Usui's friends and get his attention. We didn't want to go away from the water, anyway.

I was sure we were being followed. I think it was wolves. They had probably been following us since before we came out of the river. I didn't know why they were only following and hadn't attacked. They didn't need to wait for reinforcements. We were as vulnerable as anyone could be. We had regained magical energy but Helnion was tired and wouldn't concentrate well and it was dangerous being around her when she tried using magic and tired. I might be able to do something but I would have no idea how well until I saw what my current output was.

I fell. I had no energy. My legs were also in bad shape from the grinding they had received. If I didn't get something to eat, I wouldn't be moving much farther.

“Helnion, will you go look for some food?”

She looked around and shivered, “Alright Salis.” Helnion sat me next to a nearby tree and left.

There wasn't much I could do. I decided to sleep. I wasn't worried about getting attacked while I was asleep since I wouldn't be able to defend myself well and I would rather die painlessly in my sleep than when awake.

I fell asleep easily.

There was a scream. I sounded like Helnion. It could only be Helnion. She was in trouble or dying. I knew I wouldn't make it in time, but I would at least try. Using the tree, I stood up. I could walk far enough, I would walk far enough to get to her. I didn't want her to die alone.

Helnion burst through some foliage to my left. She was breathing heavily, and I had never seen anyone as scared as she was. She saw me and ran to me and soon pulled me towards the river.

“What's going on?”

“Wolves,” she got out between frantic breaths.

I wasn't surprised obviously. I had known they were out there. I had just hoped that they would leave us alone. They had left us alone. That is until we started looking for food.

“Stop,” I told Helnion before we entered the water.

“No. They will get us if we do not get into the water.”

“I'm pretty sure wolves can swim,” I told her.

“They can…” she said before slumping to the ground.

“We couldn't swim, anyway.”

A wolf walked into view. Helnion stifled a scream. I watched the wolf, and it watched me. I didn't know what the wolves were doing. I was sure that they would make examples of us, but they hadn't. The only explanations I could think of were that we would die on our own and they didn't need to kill us or that someone had told them not to kill us. Usui and his followers controlled them after all.

The wolf went back the way it had come from. Helnion relaxed and sat down by a tree. I sat down too. Neither of us said anything. There wasn't anything to say. There wasn't anything we could do with me in my condition.

I fell asleep again.

I heard Helnion scream again.

I woke up.

There was another wolf. In its jaw was a rabbit. It walked up to me and placed the rabbit by my feet then left.

It had brought us food. Did someone, namely Usui, want us to live? I felt nauseous. It made sense. I knew Usui loves natural beauty and unique things. I didn't know if I could be considered beautiful; I didn't care about that, but I was certainly unique. In more ways than one.

I picked up the rabbit. It would need to be skinned and gutted. Fire would be no problem. There should be a knife in my bag as I had bought a couple of small throwing knives. I didn't want to dirty my sword with something like this.

Helnion took the rabbit from me. She seemed to have already forgotten about the wolf and was happily preparing the rabbit. I wished there was more, but I would be more than happy to even have this much.

I awakened from my doze to the sound of a crackling fire and the smell of cooking meat. Helnion was sitting next to me and was holding a stick with the rabbit on the end over a small fire. She was rocking back and forth happily as she watched the rabbit cook. She seemed to have forgotten completely about the situation we were in. There was no reason to worry. Whatever happens, will happen we just had to overcome it when the time came. The wolves also seemed to help us and we were probably safe and would make it out alive. There was nothing to worry about.

“It is done!” Helnion yelled happily after a little while. “I think.”

It smelled good. I had had rabbit when I lived in Porra-Kel. My “father” often went hunting when he was not working in the mine and would often bring back rabbit.

“Here,” Helnion said, handing me a large chunk of meat.

Helnion ended up giving me a larger portion of the meat. I didn't complain. I was more than happy to eat it even if it meant Helnion getting less. Selfish I know, but I needed the energy.

“We should rest for the rest of the day,” I told Helnion when we had finished eating.

She nodded and then helped me stand. Neither of us enjoyed sleeping on the ground. We felt exposed. So we would sleep in a tree. Helnion almost preferred sleeping in her tree back in our hideout over her bed, despite the falling hazard. I preferred a bed, but I was fine every once in a while.

Helnion had hoisted me onto a low branch and I moved to a sturdy branch while she got up behind me. It was still light out, but I didn't care. Neither did Helnion as she fell asleep faster than I.