Valerie collapsed the second after she set the elite on fire from the inside out, which left Xigbar in the sudden and unexpected position of being the only one standing while everyone else was unconscious or too injured for it to matter that they weren't.

Xigbar bent down to check on List, since she was the closest. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was shallow, and the dark red of her shirt had hid just how much she was actually bleeding. Considering he'd originally expected to find her pulpy remains scattered against some rocks, she looked good, but her prospects for surviving the next fifteen minutes weren't great.

Valerie was pale as snow, but otherwise fine. She even let out a soft groan as Xigbar leaned her body this way and that to check for injuries. Her fingers twitched, but that was as far as she got for intentional movement.

"Xigbar?" Kaleb rasped.

At least he was talking, though he was trembling, and his face was tight with pain. He was wrapped in old, frayed bandages, several of which were currently soaking up more fresh blood from reopened wounds. Xigbar had briefly wondered if maybe Kaleb's bag had any supplies that could be useful right now, but if this was the state he was in, Xigbar suspected he'd already burned through what he had.

"Hey buddy," Xigbar said, grabbing the bag where it lay discarded. "Don't suppose you've got anything in here for gut wounds?"

Kaleb shook his head, and cast a fearful look toward the girls' fallen forms. A thought occurred to Xigbar then, as he held Kaleb's bag. Kaleb might not have any more medical supplies in his bag, but there was still plenty of other stuff, surely. And the bag itself was a treasure.

Throw in Valerie's gear, and whatever the elites had on them, and he could walk away from this mess with a tidy profit, neatly stowed away in Kaleb's bag for ease of transport. No one would be able to stop him, and odds were by tomorrow there would be no one alive to even miss the things he'd taken.

It had occurred to him purely out of habit, but now that it had, he couldn't dismiss it. He could leave. Make up some story to the dragon girl about being attacked by elites and losing Valerie in the chaos, or else just go his own way, following the river until he eventually crossed into Trandore and left Lochmire behind.

He glanced back down at Kaleb, the only one who would even witness his betrayal, and saw immediate recognition in the young man's eyes. He knew what Xigbar was thinking. Xigbar expected anger, or admonishment, or maybe pleading.

Instead, he was shocked to see a steadiness to Kaleb's gaze. He looked at Xigbar with neither scorn nor desperation, but a simple, patient question.

Well? His eyes asked. What's it going to be?

Xigbar looked at the bottomless bag in his hands. Looked at the elites, and all the high end enchanted equipment on their bodies. And he looked at the motionless, helpless forms of his fellow outsiders.

He sighed. Somewhere deep inside, Xigbar was certain he was going to regret this decision.

----------------------------------------

The wonderful thing about elites that, up until now, they'd never been able to appreciate, was that they always carried emergency healing supplies. Each elite carried two vials of elixir at the back of their belt, and injecting them with the vials' built-in deployable needles produced miraculous results. For starters, List didn't bleed to death from the sword wound in her gut. And Kaleb and Valerie were back on their feet and moving inside a few hours, though with an obvious stiffness.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The first thing List did when she regained consciousness was hug Valerie so tight it hurt both of them.

"You're here," List said. "You're here."

Valerie said at first nothing, just hugged her back even harder. Everything she'd been fighting not to think about came barreling into her at once, all the fear and grief and panic, immediately followed by a wave of relief that it was over. Every damn she'd built up to keep herself focused and moving came crumbling down, and she cried.

"I wouldn't be much of a big sister if I didn't come save you," Valerie said through the tears.

"You are never going to stop lording that over me, are you?" List asked, smiling.

"Never." And she said it like a promise. Like List could expect years and years more of Valerie gloating that she was the older sister.

Then they both cried. A few seconds in, List glared at Xigbar, daring him to comment.

He did not.

When the two of them finally stopped crying, Valerie hugged Kaleb instead. Earth Enziri or not, his ribs were still tender, and Valerie put just as much force into hugging him as List. He stifled a grunt.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Of course," he said, automatically.

Xigbar watched them all embrace, and a pensive expression passed over his features. They all looked awful. Valerie was even paler than normal, Kaleb was cringing in pain, and List looked like she'd sprinted through a thornbush made of knives. And yet, all of them were smiling. They were alive and together.

He'd done that.

List caught him looking at her while Valerie and Kaleb hugged, and glared.

"I'm not hugging you," she said.

"Of course," he said.

Kaleb met his eyes for just a second as he and Valerie broke apart, and he gave the animaborn an almost imperceptible nod of understanding. He knew, even if the girls didn't. Then Kaleb looked around, and frowned.

"Where's Arden?"

Valerie's expression fell, and for a moment, Kaleb and List feared the worst. "He's with Kiva and Jose. We need to get back to them. If they're still around."

List blinked. "Kiva?"

"Who's Kiva?" Kaleb asked.

"Some resistance fighter lady working with the dude with the big hat," Xigbar answered.

List's surprised look turned to confusion, and she gave Valerie a "Care to elaborate?" cock of the eyebrow.

"I'll explain on the way," Valerie said. "But the short version is that we missed a lot more than we thought."

And Valerie did explain, as well she could while they used more equipment from the elites to climb back up the cliffside. It wasn't easy, with List actually falling off once, but with everyone anchored to each other and the cliff, and with Kaleb doing everything short of putting them all on his back, they were able to clamber back up over the edge by dusk.

On the way up, and during the walk through the forest that still smoldered in places, Valerie filled List and Kaleb in on Kiva's turn as a resistance fighter, Jose's presence, and Arden's condition. They'd nearly reached where they'd left Kiva, Jose, and Arden by that point.

List asked, "What do you suppose they meant by having a quick exit prepped?"

"Whatever it is, hopefully they haven't taken it," Valerie said. "It's a—"

Kaleb shoved her hard to the side just before an axe flew through the space where she'd been a instant before. It tumbled past, shattering the trunk of the first tree it hit and embedding itself deep into a second. Everyone scattered as the sundered tree fell, kicking up dirt and rocks as it crashed down.

Valerie came up from a roll with her wristbow loaded, and List steadied her own tumble by driving the haft of her stolen halberd into the ground. Kaleb readied his shield, and Xigbar's daggers flashed into his hands.

A dark, hulking figure lumbered through the forest, moving toward them at a slow, deliberate pace. Agnizzar, Axe of the Chosen, reached behind his back, grabbing the weapons for which he had earned his name. The outsiders exchanged looks. They'd all been healed enough to make the climb. They had not been healed enough for this.

But it was here anyway. So, as four, they stood, ready to face it.