The monsters felled, the party pressed on through the forest.

Tiredness dragged down at Horatio’s limbs along with the burden of the man he was carrying on one shoulder. The night became a pale dim drudge through the forest, an intermittently-moonlit march that would not end. Time blurred, and there was only the shadowed shapes of the trees, the putting of one foot in front of the other, the overwhelming need for it to be morning and for this part of the journey to be over, like a terrible itch he could not scratch.

But then somehow, sometime, the forest ended, around about the same time that dawn broke.

The party stumbled out of the trees and into fields of grass reflecting radiant orange in the slow sunrise. They had lost the road when they had first headed into the woods, but they knew they were heading north by keeping the sun on their right, so they would probably find it again eventually.

‘Can we stop for breakfast?’ said Egea from the back of the pack. The events of the night appeared to have taken the usual mocking note from her voice. Horatio was surprised that she was even asking for permission.

‘No!’ said Primus. He marched on determinedly like a man possessed. ‘Olivia is in danger. We don’t stop now until we catch up to her. You can eat breakfast while we walk.’

For once, nobody objected. Primus was so set on making progress to catch up to his granddaughter that he seemed as though he would genuinely leave them behind if they did. Horatio’s whole body ached, not least of all his shoulder, but he saw the sense in keeping going too: not only because Primus’s granddaughter was apparently in danger, but because now they knew that the Cult of Brax were hunting them as well. It would not be sensible to stay in one place for too long, and to find proper shelter in a town would be safer and easier.

‘Are you heading for Kirts?’ said the girl who had joined them in the forest unexpectedly.

Horatio did a double take. ‘Why are you still with us?’ he asked her, surprised. ‘Don’t you have somewhere else to be?’

‘I thought… I thought that I might come along with you,’ said the girl.

‘You’re welcome to,’ said Ceres with a smile, drawing alongside the girl. ‘Qind’s door is open to all. But don’t you have a family to be getting back to?

The girl licked her lips. She looked less tired, less haggard, than everyone else. Maybe she was used to staying up all night.

‘No, I don’t have a family…’ she said. ‘I’m an orphan…’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Ceres said immediately. She put her arm around the girl as they walked. ‘Me too, young one. What is your name?’

‘It’s…Silvia,’ said the girl.

‘Well, Silvia,’ said Ceres, ‘you can stay with us for as long as you need to, or as long as you like.’

Primus remained conspicuously silent, stomping along at the front of the group. Maybe he couldn’t hear, or maybe he just didn’t care anymore, so long as they kept going.

‘Yeah,’ said Egea, ‘no problem with me. You seem to have some useful skills, and you’re pretty handy in a fight. You can join our band. What size is that dress?’

‘Egea!’ chided Ceres.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said the trader. ‘Yeesh. Just trying to do a few economic calculations. What say you, Wyvera, Wolf?’

The other two party members expressed that they had no problem with Silvia joining.

They trudged on, and Ceres peppered the girl with further questions. She had run away from an orphanage in Burg where she had been maltreated and had been making a living by stealing ever since, and had recently begun a habit of sleeping in the forest for shelter.

As they talked, the glowing circle of the sun climbed higher in the sky, and yet Horatio did not feel much warmer—in fact, the air seemed to be getting chillier by the moment as they made their way North, the breeze starting to bite a little against the skin of his cheeks.

His gut was tight and he kept looking over his shoulder as the others continued to chat, and then to begin sharing their own stories with Silvia of what they had been doing before they joined the travelling party. He felt uncomfortable about them being out in the open, away from the road.

It was about midday when he looked over his shoulder for the hundredth time and saw not one, but two groups of monsters racing towards them in the distance, and his heart spasmed.

Out in these grassy fields, there was no shelter to escape into, and they wouldn’t outrun them.

“Look out everyone!” he called, interrupting their conversation. “Get your weapons ready!”

Battle3 and Battle4