I stayed up most of the night.

With most of the party asleep it had allowed me to actually wield the ax. I learned that I could destroy a bramble skeleton in one swing. The fence that Rix erected took her most of the evening, but it was strong enough that it kept the bramble skeletons out long enough for us to step over the waist-high fence and destroy it.

The watch order had gone Rix and me for most of the night. Justia had replaced Rix, and finally, Aelin had relieved me. I thought it was a way of trying to apologize to Justia. When I woke up Ether was lying beside me with her head on my shoulder. I was enjoying the warmth but could tell that the sun was coming up and we needed to start getting ready for the day.

The others didn't have a ration bar so we needed to see if we could find a source of food and I hoped I could do that before everyone woke up. I slowly rolled away from Ether, regretting having to leave her warmth but knowing it was necessary. Justia saw me getting up and walked over to me.

“Sleep well?”

I tried to suppress the blushing but wasn't able to stop the embarrassed smirk that parted my lips. “Yes.” I tried to think of something else to say but that was all I could think of. Instead, I progressed the question. “Did you two run into anything?”

“We saw three bramble skeletons.” She dug into her pocket and handed me the three crystals that she had collected from them.

I added up all of them, “That means we fought eight last night.” That came out to about one every hour.

I looked over at the fire that had died down to almost nothing. With the sun coming up we didn't really need a fire for light. Since we didn't have anything to cook, it didn't make much sense to try to keep it going. Especially if Rix could start one as quickly as she had the night before. At the thought of Rix I looked around the camp. Ether and Edward were still asleep but Rix was not lying where she had settled down after her watch last night.

“Where's Rix?”

“She got up a little while ago.” Justia nodded in the direction I was defining as north, “She went upcreek to look for some berries.”

“Good,” I thought about asking for the ax that she was carrying. It would help to have a weapon when I followed after our Shooter, but that would leave the camp without a weapon to defend it. Instead, I picked up the stick I had been using as a club and rested it behind my shoulders.

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“I'm going to go see if she needs any help and if we can get enough to feed everybody.”

“Behave yourself.” Justia glared at me.

“I always do.” I held up my hands as I began walking away. I nodded in Aelin's direction, “I guess that means I’m leaving the two of you to watch over this place.”

Justia gave me a disapproving glare.

“It's not like I'm wanting to try anything. We need food and there might be something up there we can eat and I'd like to try to get back before grumpy over there wakes up and starts demanding his Royal breakfast.”

That drew a small chuckle out of Aelin. Justia looked a little more relaxed around me and it was nice to see that side of her.

I started my way up the creek. As I walked up the bank I began to wonder about whether or not the bramble skeletons would actually try to cross the river. It wasn’t long before I heard rustling in the underbrush to my left. I decided to test out what would happen as soon as the monster ran out of the bushes.

I began walking backward until I stepped into the water. It was knee-deep in the middle, but I didn't want to get my jumpsuit wet, so I jumped backward onto the other bank. The bramble skeleton ran up to the edge of the water and began flailing its thorny arms trying to get to me.

I wondered what would happen if they got wet. I jumped back across the creek and landed near the bramble skeleton. It turned and rushed towards me. I slapped the charging monster with my club and knocked it into the creek. The bramble skeleton began flailing as it sank to the bottom of the creek and attached itself to the creek bed.

It was still flailing and it looked like it was firmly attached to the ground. I walked out until the water was just lower than my shoes. I watched as the monster's motions slowed down. I waited until it stopped moving completely. I expected that it would explode into a cloud of dust. Part of me was worried that the creek would carry the crystal away but after waiting for a few minutes the monster still had not moved.

I decided that it was worth checking on so I waded out into the middle of the creek and reached down into the water to grab the monster by the head and pulled. Even with my increased power stat, it still didn't want to move. I braced myself and began tugging at it as hard as I could and by rocking back and forth, I was finally able to rip the bramble skeleton out of the ground. There were roots that had sprouted under its feet that had been anchoring it. I tossed the monster on the creek bed and waded back out of the water. I picked up the stick I had left on the creek bank and began poking the prone monster.

It wasn't moving, so I felt safe to inspect it. The entire monster was stiff, which was very different from the pliable branches that I had encountered when I had fought them last night. If I had to guess I would have said that the monster was dead, but dead monsters vanished. This was all very confusing.

I thought about crushing the area in the pelvis where the crystal was but I was genuinely curious about whether the monster was dead or just stunned. I looked around for a little while and found a stick with a crook on the end and hooked the monster on that so that it was far enough behind me that if it did wake up, it wouldn’t be able to hit me.

I slung the stick on my shoulder and continued my search for breakfast.