If the situation inside the barn was tense, outside was hell by Igvar's anger. Loud words were heard in the woods. His words were full of hatred and contempt.

"Damn you, woman!" he shouted at Idda again, "you let him in the house. Our house! my house now it's cursed!"

"I didn't mean to!" she shouted, frightened. "Igvar, please, they'll tear our stable apart before they get to them. "

Idda was trying to make Igvar see reason. She watched those furious men break the door; at the rate they were going, it was clear they would destroy everything and kill even the horses.

She begged, "Please, tell them to stop!"

He was raging at the loss of his friend at the hands of the demonic, pointy-eared marked one.

He was disturbed, so when Idda wanted to grab his arm to calm him down, Igvar pushed her to the ground.

Then, he shouted, "If I have to burn that stable with the horses inside, I will do it. The charred heads of those monsters are worth enough to buy new ones; they've already corrupted everything with their presence!"

Igvar's look and face scared her; the situation and fury had clouded his judgment. Idda turned her eyes to the stable door, close to falling to ax impacts.

At that moment, those woodcutters looked like real monsters who, amidst repulsive shouts and threats, were about to break down the door.

"The gate will fall!" shouted the girl, who had saddled the horses. She supposed at least that she had loaded them well.

She packed the things she had found on the place into the saddlebags, such as work tools that would be useful to them, food for the horses, and even torches to use. Then, finally, the girl turned her eye to the broken door and took her bow and one of the few remaining arrows from her quiver.

The guy watched those men who dreamed of having their heads from the window in the attic.

He also saw Idda with her husband, they were arguing, and the look of the reddish-hair girl was worrying.

The man incited his companions with shouts and harangues, "Come on, we'll split the gold!"

The boy's heart was beating quickly. What he would do would be dangerous, but they would both get out of there if he succeeded.

Otherwise, perhaps, the girl could make it.

Taking courage, he squatted down by the loft window. Then, he slid down it and fell out of the building when all was said and done.

Amid the dust and the flashy clatter a few feet away, lumberjacks saw one of the demons scurry away from the scene.

"He's escaping!" shouted a burly, bald lumberjack.

"I'm not running away!" shouted the kid.

Then, trying to look composed, he stretched out in front of him the thick handle of an ax he had found and would use as a weapon.

Trying not to look hesitant, the guy threatened them, "Come and get me, i-if you dare."

The boy's steely gaze was false. Instead, he was hesitating and feeling very afraid. But, at that moment, fear was optional, for it wasn't only he who was on the ropes.

He was confident he could replay what happened inside the hut if he concentrated hard enough. The kid had felt as if something had guided him incredibly in his dodging. If he managed to do the same, it would give her time to get out.

Still, he knew he would have to hurt those people somehow, so the boy hoped that the enigmatic guidance he possessed would help him incapacitate them.

Idda watched as that kid came back out of the stable and made that display of bravery. Then, however, she noticed how his pulse trembled for an instant when he extended his improvised weapon.

Why would he use something blunt when axes and sharp tools were in the stable?

"You'll pay for Friedel's death, demon!" shouted Igvar at the sight of him before pouncing on the kid along with his companions.

The boy watched as those gigantic fellows came toward him. The figures became even more prominent when they were just a few steps away. Then, finally, he couldn't hesitate any longer.

It was time to act.

The first woodcutter to reach him tried to force his ax into the boy's forehead.

The kid dodged it with a graceful back movement and managed to shake it off.

Quickly, he hit back by firmly holding his makeshift club. When that woodcutter reached the ground with his ax, he was so uncovered in front of him that he could deliver a quick blow to the right side of the woodcutter's head.

Even if that man was twice his size, he saw him collapse in front of him with that fierce blow.

Everything came back in front of his eyes: the voices, the prediction, and everything.

The lumberjacks tried to attack the same instant the marked boy knocked his friend down, but their blows were dodged with great skill. However, there were many more of them than he, and those shouts and whispers tried to do what they could. Still, the kid agilely slipped between them, evading cuts and fists.

One of them tried to cut him in two with his ax as his fallen companion wanted to, but the marked kid's eyes were fixed on him, and with one movement, he slid the man's blow to the ground. Another did the same and deflected the impact to the side.

The lumberjacks did not know what to do, for the boy moved, acted, and fought like a warrior.

Igvar tried to knock him down by charging at him, but the kid, with a leap, knocked him off his feet. The woodcutter tried with his ax to hit him and slice him repeatedly. The boy only dodged every hit with increasing dexterity.

That boy was of a similar height to his wife. He was thin and indeed not well fed. Yet, he was facing them with the talent of a swordsman.

As much as they tried to attack them together, the slippery kid almost knew how they would hit him.

Idda watched the situation in astonishment. The marked girl watched through one of the many holes everything happening outside. It was unbelievable, she saw how the boy's arm was injured, yet those wounds seemed to affect him.

At that moment, she could not stand by and watch, so she decided to act and remove the remains of the wood she had used to close the stable door.

The stable door was open, and one of the woodcutters spotted it.

"The other one escapes!" shouted one of the woodcutters.

He tried to go towards the stable. But, in that moment of distraction, the marked kid threw his weapon against the back of the man's head with enough force to make him immediately fall to the ground after that.

Igvar, fed up with the situation, hurried away from the scene and ran back inside his house.

Idda noticed that and, even against her instincts, shouted to the boy, "Run! Run now!"

The kid raised his eye for an instant to Idda, and it was again, at that moment, that he lost his concentration. One of the woodcutters nearly sliced him again with his weapon, causing another wound in his arm like Igvar gave him.

With a whine, he fell back, and once again, each of the remaining lumberjacks rushed at him. Now it seemed he wouldn't get far.

Soon a woodcutter screamed out in pain, for behind the thin sound of a projectile slicing through the air, the marked girl who was already on one of the horses shot an arrow at one of them.

The arrow pierced the woodcutter's ankle, making him shriek in pain. Then, the boy managed to grab his club and delivered a blow to another of the woodcutters that caused him to fall to the ground, stunned.

"Now!" shouted the prick-eared girl to her new colleague.

Then, hurriedly, he ran to the horse she was bringing from her reins and, with a leap, jumped on.

Frightened by the intense situation, both horses began a fast gallop out of place.

Igvar, enraged, came out of his hut carrying the crossbow he usually had on hunts.

Idda saw him and shouted while she tried to struggle with him. "No! What are you doing!"

Igvar took aim and fired his crossbow, but the bolt took another direction, hitting a tree a few inches from the girl's head.

The marked girl watched in great detail as that speeding projectile passed in front of her.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" her husband shouted, enraged. Then he hit Idda's rounded face, which made her feel a whimper of pain as she fell to the ground.

If the whole situation had driven him insane, it left him at a point of no return.

The woodcutter saw his wife grab his wife's face and shout, "Are you a traitor!? Do you like demons now!?"

He then turned his look to his colleagues, of whom one was screaming in pain on the ground, two lay unconscious, and another seemed close to collapsing.

The stable's door was damaged, their hut was destroyed inside, and their two horses were stolen.

Igvar looked at his wife.

"you're doomed, woman..."

The pair of marked ones rode at full speed down the forest path, both horses going deeper and deeper into the place, escaping from their assailants. So they did for a good while as they wished no one was following them. At a distance they rode, they didn't seem to hear any other horses.

"Stop!" shouted the girl.

The pointy-eared girl stopped her horse at the crossroads, the boy wanted to do the same, but it wasn't necessary since the horse stopped on its own.

In front of them was a signpost. The left arrow said "Windcall," the right, "Eastfront."

"It was Eastfront, the place you said, wasn't it?" asked the girl.

The kid nodded, "Idda said that's where this road leads to. But she also said we can go across the plain to Sunhold."

The boy soon realized something.

"Idda! Her husband will want to hurt her after this!" he shouted worriedly. "We must go back!"

She stared at him incredulously.

"We won't," denied the marked girl.

"Are you kidding? She helped us!" he shouted, trying to pull on the horse's reins to make it turn around.

But instead, the horse whinnied and moved in but wouldn't obey him.

The girl sighed and soon turned, "The horse will do as I say," she explained.

"What, why, how?" he asked, still trying to move it.

"I don't know," she exclaimed before asking, "How do you fight like that?"

He paused for a moment to observe his companion. Then, louring, he tried to get off his horse.

"T-Then, I'll come back for her," He said with slight frightened hesitation.

The marked girl grabbed his clothes to keep him in his saddle seat. Even with struggles from him, she stopped him long enough.

"Stop it!" she shouted, getting his attention.

He stopped.

"You'll be back, and then what, you'll knock them out again?" she asked.

The kid remained silent.

"You made it out of there in the end because I shot an arrow at one of them. Otherwise, maybe you'd have a fucking ax buried in your head by now."

The boy released, looked at her angrily, and sermonized her harshly, "She was at the end on our side..."

"And they will surely punish her for doing so," she replied. "Don't you realize? Those men call us' demons', 'monsters.' Anyone who helps us and knows what we are will also do the same..."

The boy watched her.

Then, the girl looked at the back of her hand in frustration, "If I could tear the skin off my hand and take this off, I would..."

Gritting his teeth, the kid had to accept that reality, even when he didn't want it.

Then, she said, "We should go."

Since that morning, everything was so strange, and now even more so. Then, the boy looked at his own mark for a few moments, and turning to look back the way they came, he had to grudgingly accept that decision.

"Let's go on. It's not safe yet," the marked kid exclaimed in an atonic voice.

The girl looked at her companion, then gestured with her head to move on as she guided the horses down the road. So, finally, they came out of those woods at dusk and then off the road and into a vast plain full of hills and farms.

It was going to be a rough ride.