"How is she?" Hewin asked Falyar and put the last body into the flames.

Falyar sighed and looked at the clear sky: "She is resting for now. I had to sear the wound with Lynxbright and it knocked her out. Poor girl. But she will be alright, she will be." The tone of his voice revealed it was more of a wish than a confident statement.

The burning flames together with the sun hanging low just at the tip of the trees veiled Varnutum in a reddish glow.

Hewin nodded and sat down with a painful grimace. He felt many bruises all over his body and his fur was torn out in several spots showing his skin.

Falyar was in a similar state and carefully crouched next to Hewin.

"Ah, my boy, thank you. Thank you for defeating that monstrosity. I didn't hope much, but now, I think we might see the mill again and carry on with our lives," Falyar said and a single tear dropped from his eye. "All these poor people," he shook his head and looked up: "I wish them rebirth into the most peaceful creatures far away from all this."

For a minute there was silence.

"Andanaya mountain cows," Hewin said eventually.

"What?" Falyar asked confused.

"The most peaceful creatures. I always thought of cows living in the Andanaya mountains as the most blessed animals in the world. Think about it. They just chew pines and moss all day, they have a spectacular view from the mountains, their thick fur keeps them warm and they live too high for humans to bother them," Hewin explained.

Falyar smiled faintly: "Yes, that sounds like bliss."

The sound of shuffling feet pulled them out of the conversation. They both jumped and grabbed their swords. Lynxbright shone brightly and, in contrast, the Voidsword was inking blackness into the evening. When they turned they saw a group of people approaching. They came from the direction of Dan Kat and they looked like they have been through hell. The original colors of their clothes were covered by dirt stains, the bags under their eyes indicated they did not sleep for several nights and they were all very thin, probably from hunger.

One woman in a ragged dress wearing a brown cap ran towards them. She hugged Falyar and sobbed: "You drove it away. We...we...watched from the forest...Thank you, thank you, thank you," she kept repeating.

Hewin has never seen a human and a Lynxarian hugging each other and it took his breath away. He didn't think it possible. After a moment, Hewin ran away and brought strips of dried beef and some bread from his backpack. He mentally told Ash to stay hidden as he didn't want to upset the people.

The travelers divided the food among themselves, often giving bigger chunks of bread to the children. Most of them were crying as they were eating.

Meanwhile, Falyar made a separate fireplace so they don't have to sit around a burial pyre.

The two Lynxarians explained what they had learned about the puppets. The light in the survivors' eyes dimmed further when they heard about the black goo inhabiting its host and tearing apart everything inside.

"But that is all gone now," Falyar concluded.

Hernan, who apparently was something like their leader, looked up surprised: "You, you don't know? They are not gone. We wanted to take refuge in Dan Kat but the black cloud is there too, and we saw other such clouds further far away as well. I think..I think they are all over Faer Zavelin."

Hewin felt his heart sink down.

The woman who first hugged Falyar, her name was Ralka, gave them a pleading look: "Will you..stay with us? Please?"

Falyar's brows furrowed.

Hewin looked towards the road to the forest. He remembered the feeling after he slain the innkeeper. A pressure receding slightly, his memory unlocking, the urge that Enyar is somehow the key to all of this intensifying. I cannot stay here, he knew.