It was hard to say who was more startled—monster or Hero.

Cara’s boot connected with something soft. The odd give jerked her out of her pain-induced torpor to see what she’d run into.

At first glance, it looked like a rabbit, with soft grey fur that just begged to be stroked. Half a fern fell out of its muzzle as it gazed at the human.

But Cara saw a pair of branching antlers, nestled firmly in the curls at the top of its rodent-like head, and her hands were yanking the sling from her belt before she quite realized what she was seeing.

“Bunyips!” she yelled to Dayton as her first rock hit the monster in the back. It fell with a shriek that sounded so much like a woman’s scream, she almost looked around for the monster’s victim.

Dayton showed up at her elbow and peered over her shoulder to see the crumpled body. “That thing made that noise? But it’s just a bunny—”

Cara shoved him back. He overbalanced and fell on his back with a crash and a curse.

“Stay back! They’re always in flocks.” Cara reloaded the sling and began to twirl it as she spoke, her head swinging back and forth as she scanned the bushes in front of them. “That shriek will bring the others—ah ha!”

Her next rock clipped an approaching bunyip on its nose. It fell back with a serpentine hiss.

“What are those things?” Dayton demanded. She heard him scramble back, and she hoped he had the sense to get behind a tree.

“Bunyips.” Her next stone struck another monster dead-on. It dropped like the sling stone. “They’re pests, but their breath makes everything go bad. The plants in a bunyip warren are always dead or dying—that’s how you know they’re here, even if they look like rabbits from a distance.”

Another slung stone skipped in front of the foremost bunyip, making dead bracken jump at the stone’s impact. “Damn. Missed. I’d have noticed the plants if I weren’t so gods-blessed tired. Yah!”

That stone felled another bunyip, but the rest of the flock hopped toward her like an unstoppable tide of deadly cuteness. Cara cursed. “Fall back! Don’t let them breathe on you.”

“What do you—”

Dayton’s indignant question was stillborn as the bunyips open their mouths as one and breathed out. Deadly vapor oozed from their tiny mouths, billowing into clouds of sickly green.

Any of the undergrowth that had managed to hold on to a few remaining leaves in the face of the approaching winter immediately dropped them as the green cloud enveloped them—along with a few twigs and branches for good measure.

Cara hit the ground, flattening herself as low as she could. The green cloud of pestilence passed over her head, like smoke rising from a fire. Tiny wisps of the cloud tangled with her packs, her hair, her legs, and she could practically feel them age and wear.

Her shin burned like she’d plunged it into Blacksmith Aaron’s forge, and she screamed with the pain.

But the cloud passed. The bunyips had used the cover of their breath-cloud to get even closer to Cara.

The nearest bunyip hissed, its breath pooling around needle-sharp fangs.

Cara raised herself onto her knees with a groan, practically throwing herself against the weight of the packs still strapped to her back, and began to take out the remainder of the pests.

Within five minutes, the battle—such as it was—was finished.

Carcasses of antlered bunnies littered a wide swath of dead brown moss and bushes. No more monsters emerged to avenge their fallen fellows.

Cara’s arm was sore in the way that meant it would grow to a true ache in the morning. But her arm was nothing—nothing—compared to the pain that engulfed her shin.

As her battle-fury rush of energy receded, it felt as though she no longer had a leg below the knee; surely it must’ve been burned to ash from the fire that burned in her wound.

Sweat beaded Cara’s forehead, and she swayed.

Dayton slowly emerged from whatever hiding spot he’d taken refuge in. “Cara? Are you alright? Did th-the bunyips hurt you?”

“No.” She grit her teeth yet again as a wave of burning fire rolled up her leg, into her belly and chest before breaking and ebbing back to her shin. “No, the bunyips didn’t hurt me any more than I was already. Do you think you can get a fire going again?”

“Sure, but didn’t we want to get under cover?” She could hear Dayton stomping through the brittle branches that had withered under the bunyip’s breath. He stopped behind her. “Cara, your leg! It’s bleeding!”

“Yes, I know.” She took a deep breath as another wave of pain took her.

“But you said the bunyips didn’t get you!”

“This isn’t from the bunyips.” A scream threatened to escape from between her lips, but she clamped her mouth shut from sheer force of will.

She took a moment to compose herself, to force her voice to a calm that she didn’t feel. “It’s from yesterday. It’s gotten infected. It needs to be cleaned, and bound, and kept dry.”

More pain. This time, a high whine slipped out, despite her best efforts.

Dayton’s lily-soft hand pressed against her brow. “You’re sweating, and your forehead’s hot. You’ve got a fever.”

Cara brushed his touch away and struggled back to her feet, finding a sapling to lean against. Her weight broke the fragile trunk, and she toppled with it. She did scream then, and a fresh bloom of blood appeared on her trousers.

Dayton’s hand came back to fiddle with something on her chest. She tried to swipe his hand away again, but her arm was frighteningly weak. More fumbling, and the massive weight on Cara’s back slid away. He’d been undoing the straps.

Cara sighed and rolled onto her back. The sun streamed down into the tiny glade, gilding the blue sky. It should’ve been much brighter outside than it was, with no strange black shadows at the edges of her eyes. Cara couldn’t hear anything but her own pulse.

“I’m going to go look for a dry place,” Dayton’s voice crashed into her ear, past the drum beat of her heart.

Cara felt his warmth leave her side, and she was left alone to burn and bleed.

She must’ve passed out, because the next thing she knew, her waist was wrapped by something that felt like a steel band that ended with Dayton’s hand on her stomach. Her right arm was wrapped around his shoulders, which were free of any of the straps she’d used to secure the trunk earlier.

“Found a place?” she croaked, struggling to open her eyes and see where they were stumbling.

“Yes. Now hush.”

They crashed through bushes and over rocks, almost falling several times. She screamed every time her foot jarred against a root, and she could feel a trickle of hot blood over her ankle in her boot.

“Almost… there…!”

And then there was coolness, blessed coolness of stone and still air.

Cara forced herself to peel back her eyelids, and she saw they were in a shallow cave. The entrance was framed with bracken that Dayton had broken in his effort to reach the space.

“I know it stinks, but I’ll get a fire going here in a moment. It must’ve been those devil-rabbits’ lair, but it’ll do for us now. Lots of firewood around, for a mercy.”

“Dayton?”

“Yes?” Dayton paused, both hands full of kindling.

Cara gave him a lopsided grin.

“I can’t smell a damned thing.”

And then the fever took her under.