Florian affixed a new peg to his leg, replacing the broken fragments of the old one. He sat beside his savior, the one who had used something like magic to mow down Hellwolves with nothing but a dozen throwing knives. Honor demanded that he guard the defenseless man as he lay on the ground, but responsibility pulled him away from the man and towards the children he had sent back to Dover.

Warring with his thoughts, Florian breathed a sigh when he heard Joe call out. “Mister Florian! We came back for you!”

Little Jake echoed the sentiment with an emphatic shake of his tiny fists, “Yeah!”

Florian laughed with incredulity. He’d given far less credit to the children’s bravery than they deserved. They looked positively ready to beat a Hellwolf to death – not that they could. Decision made for him, Florian motioned for the three kids to join him at standing watch over the man.

“Who’s this?” Joe asked, inspecting their savior. The man was dressed in a purple silk tunic and black leather pants, but not the kind of pants you might see on a biker. No, these were completely out of character for a 21st century Earth, even if it had been thrown into ruin. The man looked like some kind of well-off resident of some medieval kingdom.

“Great question, Joe,” Florian summoned his best teacher-voice. “I don’t really know, but he saved my life, so we’re going to make sure that he doesn’t get eaten by those monsters. Do you guys think we can do that?”

Though the question had been targeted towards Joe, it was Jake that answered. “Yes!” Florian laughed, happy for the company. Still, it didn’t totally dispel his worry. Not much was known about the Hellwolves, but he knew that their senses were tuned to hunting people. With the bodies of the three older men and women – bodies that were hardly recognizable as having once belonged to people – the Hellwolves would have a scent to hone in on.

Still, they remained unaccosted for what seemed like an hour. Florian glanced over at the man, seeing no change. The man’s clean-shaven jaw remained open, no matter his attempts to close it, and the drool slowly started flowing. Ellie, the little seven-year-old girl that had fled with Joe and Jake, had made “ewwwwww” noises, but she quickly adopted the job of trying to get the man to stop doing so. It would have been hilarious, but Florian was kept busy scanning their surroundings.

It was quiet, unnaturally so, and it kept him on edge. The wolves kept away for the moment, but there was no telling when they’d return.

A rustling to his side gave him a heart attack, but Ellie’s exciting shouting meant that the man who had saved him had woken up. Despite helping Florian earlier, Florian found that the man’s eyes held suspicion.

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“Are you okay, mister?” Florian asked, not quite sure how to address the man. Florian knew for a fact that the man was older than him, but his face held an ageless quality to it, placing him anywhere between an old twenty and his early forties.

The man’s eyes widened, and he tried saying something, but it was utterly incomprehensible. It sounded like no language Florian knew, much less English. “I didn’t get that. Do you speak English? Or maybe Spanish?”

Florian’s conversation partner shook his head no, appearing to understand the question. “You can’t talk?” Florian asked.

The man nodded his head again, his face screwing up in frustration. Maybe his collapse had damaged his vocal cords somehow? Not that Florian knew the first thing about how the human body worked, but it wasn’t outside reason to him. “But you can understand what I’m saying?”

Another nod. Florian smiled; they were making progress. Still, the other man needed to be able to talk for Florian to ask exactly how he had made his knives glow, among other things. “Will you be able to talk soon?”

The man shrugged, the gesture apparently transcending cultural barriers. It was like playing a game of Twenty Questions. The realization tickled, and Florian’s grin grew. “Are you from around here?”

Nope.

“Did you take a boat or plane to get here?”

Nada.

“A helicopter?”

Nothing.

Florian was nonplussed. The man couldn’t speak English by his own admission – though how he understood it, Florian didn’t quite understand, but he was willing to suspend disbelief given recent events – but simultaneously hadn’t come to England through any transport that could actually get him there.

“Fuck it,” Florian muttered. “Did you use magic?”

This time, the man nodded. This time, Florian wasn’t the first to react; the children had beaten him to it and were hastily whispering among themselves, Ellie leading the conversation by recalling a storybook about magical princesses and unicorns.

“Do you have a unicorn?” Ellie asked the man, her face crestfallen when the man shook his head that, he indeed did not have a unicorn.

Florian, though he had long suspected that the man was able to do something the rest of them weren’t, felt his hope soar. Always one to strike while the iron was hot, Florian continued his line of questioning. “Do you know what the Hellwolves are?”

The man looked back at him with confusion, not responding to the question either in the affirmative or negative. Florian pointed to the wolves the man had slain; the extra information apparently was apparently enough. The man nodded yes.

Who in the world was this man? Had he not been just, for all intents and purposes, exiled from Dover, Florian would have invited the man back with him and give him to the singular schoolteacher that had remained with them to teach him English. Alas, that wasn’t going to work. He hadn’t even finished university when Worldbreak struck, and while his command of the English language was adequate enough for a Business major, he had no illusions about his skill.

“Do you have a place to stay, mister?” Florian asked, doing his best to corral the children and prevent them from interrupting with their own questions. Even Joe, ever the stoic, seemed about ready to burst.

No.

That was good, Florian thought. “Would you like to travel with us? I can teach you English and tell you about how England is faring, and then you could tell us what you know about magic and the Hellwolves,” Florian offered. The man thought about it for a moment before shrugging and nodding his head.

Perfect.

Well, almost perfect. Florian needed to figure out exactly where they were heading first.