Mahon instantly climbed down the wall, grabbed his backpack, and ran towards Jorik. He didn’t care about trying to hide, it was useless anyway. There was no Amentiae nearby, because the whole army was already on the fifth wall.

Did they already come back?

As he approached his unit, he saw Jorik starting to give orders and the men all stood up, weapons at the ready. Mahon jumped above an old tree stump and continued his mad rush to the pit from which the soldiers were now exiting altogether.

“What’s going on?” Jorik immediately asked once Mahon was close enough.

Mahon glanced at the soldiers watching him with frowning looks before he turned to Jorik. “Private matters.” He grabbed the noble’s arm and pulled him a few meters away so they could discuss without frightening the whole unit.

“What did you see? Amentiae are coming to us?” Jorik asked with his serious, military tone.

“Yes, but not from the front.” Mahon answered in the same tone. “They are on the fifth wall.”

“What?!” Jorik exclaimed out loud before lowering his tone. “What did you see exactly?”

“There is no Amentiae in the nearby areas simply because we passed the Amentiae army already. The information was true. The army was probably in another section and just came back to this sector. They are between us and the camp.”

“Fuck it! How is this even possible?”

Mahon shrugged “We were too focused forward, and they are too far away to see them without some height. Does it matter?”

“Yes! They should still be in the west! Why did they come back?”

Jorik was trying to find a reason for all this, but Mahon simply shook his head.

“It’s too late to ask these questions. They’re already there. The whys can wait. We’ve to deal with the situation first. We can’t stay here or we’ll probably meet their rear patrols or supply lines soon...”

“It can only be Ravatoris.” Jorik interrupted.

“What?” Mahon watched as Jorik’s face was darkening from restrained fury.

“Think about it!” Jorik grabbed him by the shoulders. “He handed us this mission, but he modified it! There is no way he didn’t know the insects could come back so soon. Yet, the mission initially stated to scout up to the fifth wall. If so, we would have seen the Amentiae coming and been fine. But he changed it, and here we are on the fourth wall, behind the Amentiae army! He must have known. It’s too much of a coincidence for him… He knew that would push us just a bit too far. He planned it all… He didn’t send us here to scare us. He sent us here to kill us.”

Mahon grimaced as he realized Jorik was probably telling the truth. All pieces of the puzzle fit too well together. With a single move, Ravatoris had eliminated his two most threatening rivals. If he had really planned all this, then the noble was indeed as dangerous as Jorik had said. But Mahon wasn’t one to give up so easily.

“We’re not dead yet. If we managed to reach the fourth wall unimpeded, we can go back to the sixth in the same way. We just need to find a sector with fewer Amentiae.”

Jorik took a deep breath and acquiesced. “You’re right. It’s not over yet. The Amentiae came from the west, right?” Mahon nodded, and Jorik continued. “We’ll go east then and try to outrun the army or until we find a hole we can hide in. Let’s try not to frighten the men, too.”

The two men walked back to their unit and informed them of the situation. Jorik immediately continued with their escape plan, as if the situation was perfectly under control, and his acting paid off. The soldiers could guess something was wrong, but the confidence in Jorik’s tone reassured them.

Without wasting any more time, the group ran towards the fourth wall and passed on the other side through a collapsed section. The wall wasn’t uninterrupted, but it was enough to keep them mostly hidden from the Amentiae crawling on the fifth wall.

Jorik imposed a fast pace, and the soldiers almost jogged along the fourth wall. A lot of vegetation had grown beside it, and although they were mostly hidden from the fifth wall, a careful watcher on the third wall could spot them.

But they had no time to walk carefully. If there were both Amentiae on the fifth and the third walls, they were screwed, no matter what. It was best to try to outrun the army on their right flank and overpass them before they were completely trapped between Amentiae.

They didn’t run for long before the sun started to disappear behind the tall mountains in their back. Darkness spread, but they didn’t dare halt their rush. If they wanted a chance to outrun the Amentiae, then maybe moving at night was their only way to increase the distance between them.

They stopped their mad rush as the moon wasn’t brightening their path enough for them to run, but they continued walking. Mahon started Flowing occasionally to get a better sense of their surroundings. He couldn’t see far, but it was still further than his sight.

The soldiers didn’t dare to speak, and the forced march was only punctuated by the muffled groans of the men under strain. They weren’t used to walking all day while carefully observing their surroundings. And yet, they had run most of the evening and were still walking as a new day finally lightened up the path forward.

“Mahon, let’s climb the wall and assess our situation.” Jorik called as soon as the sun appeared in front of them. “We can probably cross now.” He added to ease the man as they crumbled to the ground for their first break since yesterday's lunch.

Mahon joined Jorik as they climbed with ease a portion of the fourth wall that hadn't completely collapsed. When they reached the top, they lied down to make sure they couldn’t be seen from far away either. They crawled to the edge of the wall and took in the situation laying before them.

“Fuck.”

Amentiae were already crawling atop the fifth wall and its surrounding. However, the flags they carried were a different shade of blue than the ones Mahon had seen the day before. And they were coming from the east.

A second army?!

Already, groups of Amentiae were covering the whole wall, and Mahon realized the two armies had already started to merge. The path was blocked. He glanced at the area between the two walls, and noticed with bitterness that the field was already roamed by Amentiae patrols. Amentiae patrols coming their way.

Mahon let out a long sigh as he glanced at Jorik.

“The day’s gonna be long.”

Jorik returned his look. “I’d say the day will end shortly. Let’s face reality, Mahon. We’re as good as dead.”

“But we ain’t dead, yet. It would be foolish of you to lose all hope. I’ve been in worse situations than this one, believe me.”

Jorik eyed him skeptically. “You have a plan to get us out?”

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“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up! You’re not…”

“But,” Mahon interrupted the noble’s nervous breakdown, “there are possibilities we could exploit. The way north is barred.” Mahon gestured to the Amentiae coming their way. “They are just on the fifth wall for now, but with armies this size we can assume there are more Amentiae coming from the east and the west. That leaves only one direction.”

“You can’t be serious. If we go further south, we will reach the Amentiae camp.” Jorik intervened while shaking his head.

“But I don’t see it yet. Whereas I can see Amentiae coming from every other directions right now. Anyway, that’s an option. Or we could find a place to hide, but we didn’t find one yesterday, and this place will probably be swarming with Amentiae soon. Also, given the size of the army, they are clearly planning something, and they’ll probably be there for days. I’m not sure we can manage to hide for this long.”

“Going south will not help that, anyway. Our only salute lays north. Towards our camp. They’ll probably send an army too and fight the Amentiae. We could use the distraction to sneak through.”

It was Mahon’s turn to shake his head. “Why would they go down to fight the Amentiae when they can fight protected behind the sixth wall? Nobody’s gonna go down to help us. We’re on our own.”

“Can’t we pierce through? We can both Flow…” Jorik tried again, and Mahon could hear a hint of fear in his voice.

“An army this size? Don’t let the situation take the best of you, Jorik. We’ll get entangled with the patrols kilometers away from the main army and die long before.”

“What do you suggest, then?” The noble sighed.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’d instinctively try to move where there is no Amentiae. And for now, this direction is south.”

“Isn’t that just delaying the inevitable?”

“Buying time is never worthless. Who knows what opportunity we may uncover? Find a good hiding place, find the Amentiae’s plan and play along, discover a path through their army, take a commander as hostage… If we go straight to our deaths now, we might never know what we missed.”

“That’s… That’s a strange way to see this. But I guess your experience matters more now that we’re here… There is no shame in hoping. Ok, let’s do it your way.”

The two men climbed down the wall and reunited with their soldiers. Jorik started to explain the plan, but the situation quickly degenerated.

“I’m not going another step south!” The First White woman yelled. “Are you fucking crazy? It’s your fault we went so far in, and now you want to go even deeper? Our only chance is to sneak in through the Amentiae back to camp. Do you want to kill us all?”

“Shut it. You’re not the one in command here! We have better odds of surviving going south. We can hide or find a way through if the Amentiae move again.” Jorik repeated what Mahon had said, but he lacked conviction. “We don’t have the ability to sneak in through this army anyway, we can only flee. You haven’t seen how many there are...”

“But going south is even worse! You’re just trying to run away!”

“Look.” Mahon intervened using his general’s voice. “There are thousands of them and only twenty-eight of us. Going north right now is simply seeking death. You can’t deny that. Two armies are closing on us from both the west and the east. There is only one way out. It’s as simple as that.”

“We’re gonna die anyway.” The woman spoke in a calmer tone, as if she had already accepted her fate. “I knew it the moment I rolled the wrong number on that dice. But I would rather die sword in hands charging Amentiae than getting false hopes while playing cat and mouse with these insects.”

Besides her, most of the soldiers acquiesced at the woman’s words.

“There is nothing such as false hopes.” Mahon tried to argue, but he could see in the soldier’s face that they had already chosen.

He glanced at Jorik, and the noble shook his head with a sigh.

“Do what you want. I don’t care. I don’t need people already dead inside. Actually, our odds are better if we’re fewer.” Jorik eyed each soldier one after the other, trying to see if his provocation had stirred something in them, and Mahon noticed more than one fidgeting uncomfortably under his glance.

“You’re free to run to your death. It’s your own choice, and I’ll not stop you.” He paused. “But I will be going south with Mahon. Whoever wants to join us can, but I’ll kill with my own hands anyone that joins and change his mind afterwards.”

A heavy silence followed his declaration as some undecided soldiers eyed between them and the First White’s group.

“Let’s leave now.” Jorik said after a few more seconds. “Good luck with whatever you try. I sincerely hope your deaths will be painless.”

Without another word, Jorik turned back and started walking towards the third wall. Half a dozen soldiers immediately followed after him, but most of the unit stayed behind, either by conviction or too uncertain to decide. Mahon eyed the tired soldiers one more time. He didn’t want to abandon them behind, but who could blame them for making their own decision in such a desperate situation?

The look on her faces showed that more than one already thought himself as just dead already. The harsh truth was also that most of them weren’t in physical shape to endure another mad chase with the Amentiae.

Mahon nodded to the remaining group and joined Jorik with three quick strides. He glanced at the focused look of the six soldiers that had chosen to come with them. They knew they were going for a couple of hard days with slim hopes of getting back to camp alive, but at least they had not given up entirely.

“Follow me closely.” Jorik ordered. “Keep your eyes open for anything. Let it be shelters or Amentiae, just mention it even if you’re not sure. We ain’t scouting anymore. We’re surviving.”

Jorik went first, and Mahon walked at the back. Soon, Jorik imposed a jogging pace straight south, towards the third wall. He ignored any semblance of discretion, instead favoring speed.

The faster and further they moved away from the Amentiae, the better their odds of surviving were. They were on the lookout for a shelter or a hiding place, but the first thing they spotted was an Amentiae patrol coming from the east.

“Get down!” Mahon said as soon as he saw them, and the unit immediately laid down on the ground without wasting a single moment. “To the right. Towards the two big trees with weird trunks.”

“I see them.” Jorik answered as the Amentiae walked leisurely a few hundred meters away from them. They were coming from the east and seemed to head towards the south, but not in a way they would meet the soldiers.

Mahon and his unit stayed still for long minutes as the Amentiae patrol moved away, and until they disappeared behind another dense grove.

“Let’s continue.” Jorik said as he stood up. He led the unit a bit more towards the west, given the army on the east side seemed to be coming on them.

Half an hour later, they spotted another Amentiae patrol coming from the west. They managed to hide in time, and again the patrol was heading towards the third wall too, but not in a way that cut their path.

“They’re sending patrols back to their camp.” A soldier said as he sat on the ground, dropping his bag beside him with a sigh of resignation. “I’m too tired. We haven’t found any shelter yet, and the Amentiae armies are already coming back on us. We’re fucked.”

Mahon squatted down to the man and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “As long as they haven’t caught us, there may still be a way back.”

The man shook his head. “I’m done. I don’t want to spend the last hours of my life running around and hiding from patrols. We’re gonna get caught, anyway. I should have stayed with the others. Die fighting.”

“Another patrol!” A soldier yelled as he pointed to the west again where the previous patrol had come from minutes ago.

The group immediately hid again behind the trees they had chosen for shelter. Mahon dragged the downcast soldier out of sight, as the man hadn’t given any sign of wanting to hide.

“Pull yourself together!” Mahon slapped the man. “You’re gonna drag us all down if you continue to act like that.”

The soldier put his hand to his cheek, where Mahon had hit him, but didn’t say anything and stared into space.

“They’re coming towards us.” Jorik said, and Mahon left the daunted soldier and checked on the patrol.

There was a large group of probably thirty to forty Amentiae moving their way. They hadn’t seen them yet, but it was only a question of time given their trajectory.

“We need to leave before they spot us.”

The group crawled back out of the grove while making sure they were still out of sight of the Amentiae. Then they left further away, always keeping the grove between them and the Amentiae. They didn’t manage to get far before they spotted another patrol coming from the opposite direction.

This time, the Amentiae didn’t miss them, and they immediately charged while squeaking and groaning.

“It’s over.” The previous downcast soldier started while unsheathing his sword. “Let’s teach the…”

“Shut up and run!” Mahon interrupted the man.

For a second, the unit was confused about what they should do before they followed Jorik and Mahon running away, leaving the mad soldier on his own. They managed to run a hundred meters before they heard the battle cry of the soldier, quickly followed by his high-pitched death rattle.