Nana Rette leaned into answering Danto’s question. “It flows into this world via Eve, just like everything else. We could never touch the pure energy of the gods, let alone hope to use it. Only through Eve can any of us be bestowed with a knack or learn a talent.”

Danto’s entire face furrowed. Galen thought he’d never seen his friend thinking so hard. But after a moment, what Danto asked was, “Do you have a knack, Nana Rette?”

The old woman sat back and merely looked at Danto for a long moment. When she eventually answered, it was with a caution very unlike her.

“I do. It’s very much like the one your friend there has.” Nana Rette’s gaze shifted suddenly toward Galen.

Caught in her gaze, Galen froze. What she’d said last night, when he’d first met her, returned full force.

She did mean Eve. I’ve been touched by Eve?

Nana Rette turned her gaze back to Danto. “Similar to yours, Dannie, although I think it isn’t Eve exactly who’s set her sights on you.”

Danto blinked down at Nana Rette. “Me? I don’t have any knack.”

“Don’t you, Danto?” The old woman’s words were soft, but something Galen couldn’t define prickled through them. Her question seemed almost an accusation.

“Stop tormenting them, Nana.” Slouched on the cart’s seat beside Nana Rette, Wilm spoke with a weary irritation. “Could we not just ride in peace for a while? The hens make enough noise all by themselves.”

“The truth is the truth, Max.” But for once Nana Rette settled and fell silent. For a second miracle, so did the raucous hens fluffing their rainbow-hued wings through the wooden bars behind her.

Galen spent the rest of the day’s ride re-examining everything Nana Rette had said, trying to tempt the recalcitrant narrator into giving him more direct answers, and trying to fit everything into a coherent whole. The only thing he managed was to give himself a headache.

They made camp that night at the same traveler’s rest where Galen and Brin and Danto had stopped on the way north. Wilm begged for them to travel as close to nightfall as possible, so they didn’t make a fire in the stone ring and instead ate cold rations and drank from the rain barrel before preparing to sleep. They put Nana Rette in the little lean-to, with Wilm just alongside on his bedroll. The three militia arrayed their own bedrolls across the cold firepit from Wilm and the lean-to.

The sunset cast long shadows from the trees surrounding the camp toward the road. The picketed horses huffed and muttered, reassuring sounds in the growing darkness. The hens, still caged and on the unhitched cart, chattered with something like contentment. Once Nana Rette seemed asleep, Wilm crept from his bedroll and covered the cage.

“They’re easily set off,” Wilm whispered as he returned to his bedroll, although certainly Galen and the others hadn’t objected. “I’d like to actually sleep through just one night.”

As both the day’s heat and light faded to a cool night, some of the tension across Galen’s shoulders released. He drew first watch, so as Danto and Brin also settled down to sleep, Galen stood in the quiet dark and tried to think about nothing—not the things Nana Rette had said, not the guilt over not being home which habitually crept into his mind, not the fact that every day brought him closer to being back where he should be but didn’t want to be.

And always, of course, circling through all of those other things was wondering why he even cared about things like responsibility and duty when most of the people he felt those things about were probably not even real.

After Galen roused Danto to take second watch, he burrowed wearily into his bedroll. Sometime later, Danto would in turn wake Brin to take over. Galen didn’t plan to be conscious for that.

Sometime later, a muzzy light sleep wrapped Galen. He could half hear his dreams and yet knew he was dreaming, not awake but swimming toward it. What he rose toward was an utter stillness and silence, one where night insects and birds had settled in for their day’s rest but the daytime critters had not yet awakened.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Beside Galen’s head, something shuffled. He swam further up from the depths, waking in earnest now.

Something’s not right. What woke me?

“Who’s there?” Brin’s voice was low but firm and directly over Galen’s head. The toes of a boot dug into Galen’s shoulder.

He didn’t think that was accidental.

Galen grunted and opened his eyes. For a split second, he saw nothing but inky blackness. Then an eerie half-light filtered through, a combination of silver moon sinking over the treetops while golden sun formed a slender line across the eastern horizon and glowed between the trees across the road toward the river. The result was a diffuse, dream-like light and shadows of gray or darker gray with soft edges.

Brin loomed above Galen, who still lay flat on his back. She held her bow in front of her, an arrow nocked and aimed toward the trees somewhere beyond where Danto snored to Galen’s right. Galen couldn’t actually see Danto at all—the misshapen lump of his blanket looked as if Danto had wrestled a bear during the night.

As Galen struggled to sit, something whirred, like the flight of a quick-moving bird. He heard the thump first, right beside his ear.

[Unknown Enemy uses Ranged Attack on you. Hit!]

[You take 4 damage.]

Pain exploded in his shoulder. Galen sucked in a surprised breath, but beyond that he couldn’t move.

Surprise round. And this time, I’m one of the surprised.

Another whir, this one closer and overhead—Brin firing her arrow.

Dice whispered. Galen prayed for a good initiative roll. Brin’s square on the tactical map lit up first.

Not me, but I’ll take it.

“Galen! Danto! We’re under attack!”

Brin never looked down at Galen. Taking up the slender metal spear that she now carried instead of the borrowed, rudimentary wooden ones Galen and Danto had, she scooted backward into the cover of the trees. Galen glimpsed her form slipping from tree to tree.

Flanking them.

Whoever “them” was.

The blue square on the mini-map flickered out on Brin’s square and lit up on Galen’s. Paralysis seeped away from his limbs. Relief flooded him, but he just as quickly realized he didn’t know what to do.

Keep sitting here. See how fast they kill you.

His END scored sucked. That four damage had already dropped him to twelve hit points. Depending on how many attackers there were and how well they rolled, “fast” could be a single round.

Galen stumbled to his feet. His injured arm touched the ground, and the jolt of pain doubled him over. Warmth spilled down his arm, turning cold.

You are in deep trouble. Move your ass!

“Danto! Get up!” Blindly, Galen grabbed his spear off the ground. Leaning on it, he stumbled into the trees, following the general direction Brin had gone.

Wilm. And Nana Rette.

But Galen couldn’t help anyone if he was dead.

You shouldn’t be here to begin with. You should be home.

Bright fear tightened Galen’s chest. He reached the limit of his movement and leaned against a tree. Ending his turn, he held his breath and watched the tactical map.

Blue faded. Three red squares, somewhere out in the woods, lit.

Galen glimpsed Brin’s determined shadow ahead of him, paused in the act of stalking off in a very specific direction. He glanced into the campsite and witnessed Danto slow-motion thrashing to get free of his bedroll. An arrow stuck from the dirt between him and Galen’s abandoned blankets. A second one fell near the first, dust puffing from the impact.

None of them hit Danto. Red lights on the map faded. Blue returned. The combat marched through more turns.

Across the empty firepit, Wilm rose to his feet, a small, delicate-looking crossbow in his hands. With a twang, it fired. Wilm lurched a step backward, but from the trees rang out a bark of pain.

[Unknown Enemy takes 6 damage.]

On his feet finally, with a blanket tangled around one ankle, Danto stood hunkered over, his head turning side to side, his golden curls rumpled and wild. He took a step toward the same tree line where Galen huddled, stopped, and lunged back to scoop up his spear, wrong end up.

But he was moving. By the end of his turn, Danto would be in the trees and out of the enemy’s sight.

When his turn came up again, Galen peered toward where he’d last seen Brin and followed as far as his movement allowed, clutching his spear with his good hand and trying to ignore how his other arm simply hung there. Gray spots swam across his vision.

The attackers’ turns came and went. Nothing happened that Galen could make out from inside the night-dark woods. No damage messages rolled past, at least.

Crashing through the underbrush preceded Danto’s arrival. Catching up to Galen, he grabbed Galen’s arm—the dangling, useless one with the wounded shoulder, of course. Pain like a dazzling light obscured Galen’s vision. He fought the urge to vomit.

“I saw blood. Are you hurt?”

Galen couldn’t, so he didn’t answer. Healing wouldn’t be terrible, but it made more sense to take down the enemy first, if they could. They definitely didn’t have time for any of Danto’s fumbling with bandages.

“Brin.” Galen managed to force the one word through the turn paralysis and twitched his body in that direction, hoping Danto would get the message.