In the middle of a fighting retreat Floumeré abandoned him. Something the necromancer had said had gotten to her, something Rusk couldn’t hear over the garble of noise in his ears. Felix, where was Felix? Why wasn’t Felix here? But when Floumeré’s grip on him slipped free and she shouted and charged away with a cry of battle anger, Rusk hoped she’d kill the necromancer. End this for all of them. Then they could eat from the tree and all would be well in the world.

Then there was a cackle, and Loretta screamed.

Even in Rusk’s half-conscious state he scrambled to his feet, miraculously since he couldn’t do that for himself before, some Heroic instinct kicking in, and tried to run to her aid.

The crusader got there first.

Loretta was deep in the clutches of at least three corpses that tried to stick their hands in her chest or her arms or her torso and dig out the meat there, and while she kicked and hollered and cried the crusader closed the distance and speared them straight through, all three at once, with a skill he no doubt perfected in an attempt to impress the king when he was first recruited.

Or maybe for some other reason. The motion looked decidedly Heroic. Perhaps this person had also encountered a relic of the forgotten age. The age when Heroes were worshipped instead of scorned.

The bone hawk cry sounded from the air as Rusk’s vision swam. Felix was still nowhere and the crusader whistled even as he wrenched a corpse away from Loretta so his hawk made of bones would come around and peck at rotting eyeballs.

“Why are you helping us?” asked Loretta.

“Because your leader spared my life.” The crusader spun his spear through an ambling corpse as it came closer.

“The tree,” cried Rusk. His voice scratched his throat to shreds with its sudden intensity and dryness. “Save the tree! My arrow, Dragons Knock…” He’d lost track of it. Disorientation was taking its toll. Somewhere above him he heard laughter, the laughter of a king. Or a necromancer. Or both at once. There was a foreboding he couldn’t deny and he just knew. He knew they were going to lose. He fumbled all over the ground in search of his arrows. His bow. Dragons Knock. A monster. Mandy. Keys. Anything.

“Yes sir!” said the crusader in response to Rusk.

“What’s your name, crusader?” asked Loretta, and thank goodness as Rusk blinked furiously there behind here propped against the trunk of a dead tree was Felix. He’d brought the nest of blankets and vines with him too apparently.

“Gedresial,” answered the crusader just as Rusk’s consciousness failed him.

He entered a strange dream. The dragon soul of Dragons Knock took physical form in front of him inside his mind. And in Rusk’s mind he was a child again, a child who didn’t even have the scars across his biceps. That age before he’d known Iya Tarfell. The age when monsters were a distant unfathomable threat that couldn’t possibly ever reach him or his family or community, not a constant of his world.

The Dragons Knock was long and slim just like the arrow that held it. Its spirit was shaped reptilian, like a snake, and it glowed that pure white of the arrow that held it as well.

Rusk looked at it in awe, in that dream state when you know there's something not right but you can't figure out what it is yet.

Then the Dragons Knock knocked on the air in front of it, and its claws were arrows and its head was curling into a snout set in a sneer and Rusk got the definite feeling he'd disappointed it somehow.

He wondered why. Then he remembered.

"I passed out."

"You did. And now we are separated. Are you proud of yourself, my foolish archer?"

"You don't have to be rude."

"Will you never learn?"

"You barely know me."

"I know your type. The ambitious ones are always the first to die."

"And I'm to believe you care if I die?"

"Of course. You are my archer."

"Yeah but you never chose me. I picked you up without anyone bequeathing you to me. It was at random. You don't owe me anything."

"Anyone who fires me becomes my archer for their time. You fired me. Now you are my archer. And you have betrayed me by letting yourself be conquered."

"I was exhausted. I'm still exhausted."

"And I provided means to fix that."

"Ambushes are unpredictable and I didn't predict one. I'm sorry for not being fucking perfect. I'm working with what I got here."

The Dragons Knock went silent. It shook its head, and a revered expression crossed its face. "I knew Iya Tarfell, and she would've been proud you went out of your way for your friends. I am sorry. Perhaps I should've provided better resources myself."

Rusk stared in his dream.

And then the Dragons Knock was gone and he was waking up in a hard place. Hard and dark, with slotted little rays of sun or moon. Moonlight. Sunlight would be more yellow. Rusk picked himself off the stone floor and wiped the drool off his face with a groan.

Where was he?

He glanced around.

The floor was stone, but so were the walls, the ceiling, even the bars that lent themselves to what little air he could get, and even that was thin now that he was paying attention to it.

Where were the others? He called out.

No one answered.

Until, after a moment, someone did. The crusader.

What was his name?

Rusk could've sworn he heard it hollered at some point during his dream.

"You're awake," said Gedresial.

"Sort of." Rusk sat on his haunches. He found he felt he hadn't slept a wink even though he had no clue how long he'd been out. “Anyone else here besides you?”

“Nope.”

Rusk’s heart hammered at the possibility none of his friends had survived. He would’ve preferred monsters. “Why didn’t the necromancer kill us?”

He couldn’t see Gedresial from where he was. They weren’t in cells opposite each other. They were side by side. Even if Rusk squeezed his nose through the bars he couldn’t make out more than the chin or an arm of Gedresial.

“The ways of the king are a mystery even to me.”

“Say, we’ve never officially met. I’m Rusk. Rusk Veega.”

“I’d shake your hand if I didn’t think that guard over there would snap my arm in two for it.”

Rusk chuckled under his breath.

“I wouldn’t speak of the others in here by the way. Ears are everywhere.”

“Right.” Rusk sighed. His head was pounding and he leaned it against the cold hard side of the cell wall between him and Gedresial.

The guard at the other end of the room let someone in. A clinking of armor emphasized the gesture, along with a long sweep of the guard’s arm.

Then footsteps.

Rusk opened his eyes.

The person approaching was blurry. But they were chatty, and sounded very much like a leader. An amused one too.

“King Ehrryn will provide me with a great reward for turning in a traitor,” said the person who’d come to stand in front of Gedresial’s cell.

Gedresial shrunk away from them.

Rusk squinted in an attempt to figure out if he could determine the person’s gender. They sounded female, weirdly enough. Then again he wasn’t familiar with the ways of King Ehrryn. Maybe he employed female guards or captains. Rusk hadn’t ever thought it important to learn, and now he was kicking himself. He should’ve when he had the scrolls.

There was an archive in Sanctuary he’d completely overlooked simply because it didn’t interest him at the time, and now he regretted it. Even though there was no surefire way to know whether or not helpful information was in those volumes now that they were out of reach, Rusk for the time being was being hypercritical of every single thing he’d done on his journey.

A hero, captured. It was pitiful.

The female captain spat a few more harsh words at Gedresial and then made a swift leave. When she exited, another entered. They moved with grace and power, stepping deliberately in a practiced manner almost befitting of a soldier, and they stopped in front of Rusk’s cell instead of Gedresial’s.

“You,” said a man with jewels adorning every inch of him. Black jewels. Purple jewels. Silver. Gold. Emerald. He wore a crown, and embedded there were stones of all sorts, surprisingly of the more common variety, but Rusk had read in his travels that some ordinary stones possessed extraordinary defenses against the supernatural. “I feel I know you from somewhere.”

Rusk forced his eyes to refocus. He stood up straighter and tried to look defiant.

After only a split second he slumped back against the wall of the cell.

The man in front of him did not look impressed. More contemplative. He stroked his beard, which was black as the obsidian rings on his fingers. His eyes were a golden brown, glowing hazel in the gauntness of his face under the refractions from the crown’s adornments.

This wasn’t the necromancer. This man gave off a different presence, and it was obvious who he was just by what he was wearing.

Before Rusk stood King Ehrryn.

“Well, it is of no matter. Either way you are scheduled for execution. Have you any final wishes? Perhaps a specific meal before you die?”

The gravity of the situation fully descended on Rusk, and he slumped all the way down to his knees. The fatigue was in his bones. It turned his core to jelly.

His friends were dead. They had to be. How else could they let him be taken here?

No. They escaped. He wished they’d escaped.

He searched his memory and found no clues.

Felix had looked so weak the last time Rusk saw him.

“You fold so easily,” said King Ehrryn. “Pathetic. Truly.”

Then the ruler of the kingdom with a swoosh of his cape exited the room, leaving Rusk to contemplate his fate.