The smell of blood and stagnant water was everywhere and Idony was unsure if she was more terrified or fearfully annoyed anymore. The shriveled creatures that had emerged from the tall grass kept coming even as another of their number was torn into ragged halves by a blade of frozen river water. Most of them had the same rusting armor and tattered cloth on their bodies, others were the ones fused into their horses. Some had helmets still on their heads, but a few had rusted terribly, bulbous flesh pushing out from the creaking metal. Yet the increasing amount of the shamblers was not the only issue.

The ones who spoke were the real terror.

They also had armor, rusted but more scant than the other creatures. Their robes were not yet in total tatters, and many looked like they had been patched up repeatedly. They all held staves, although some were cracked and others were entirely missing their crystals.

But the issue was not their poor maintenance of their staves. The issue was that every time Shuang Que cut one of the other shamblers apart or Bo beat one into a pulp with the sheathed sword, the staff carrying ones would speak with their dry rasping voices in strange words. The ruined guts and broken bones would knit themselves back together with painful cracking and squishing noises and the thing would get back to its feet.

"Ab.... zer... myr..."

"Do something!" Bo yelled.

"I'm TRYING!" Shuang Que yelled back. Another wave of ice was melted by the burning glyphs the staff holders summoned. The glyphs oozed in and out of reality like gross pond scum, smudging the air they floated in.

Idony grabbed a stone the size of her palm from the ground and swung it with all her might at one of the speakers. The lobbed rock sailed like a great fat bird, ungracefully smacking into the eyeball of her chosen victim. Interrupted in it's terrible mumblings, its hand moved stiffly to its face to touch its eye. The others stopped as though some unheard order had been given and turned to look at their companion.

"RUN!"

Idony felt someone's cold arm quickly wrap around her waist and pull her upwards and she yelled in consternation as she was carried underarm like a sack of vegetables. Bo was at her side, but the person carrying her was Shuang Que who continued to move quite fast through the tall grass which then abruptly fell away into a flattened field, the ground rough and rocky with several more of the shambling shriveled people picking at a collapsed ox with too many legs near the river.

Shuang Que released her, hissing like an angry cat, "are they everywhere?"

The ox eaters looked up with red smeared mouths and gore soaked hands towards the source of the sound and Idony felt her heart sink.

There were heavy footsteps, distant but coming closer from behind them.

"We can run that way-" Bo pointed away from the river, the open field extending into a tangled looking meadow. In the distance Idony thought she could see a forest and a village but the hungry empty glares of the monsters close by kept her from looking for too long. She backed away from their view to stand behind Bo.

"No! Did you already forget, I can't go too far from this river. What are you going to do without me? You've been using that sword as a club!" Shuang Que snapped childishly, stomping his foot.

Idony looked down at the ground to search for any rocks, her chest feeling tight and yet empty. Why was she even here? She was tired and scared but too frustrated to let her fear stop her from doing something. She should not have to be doing these things. Older people were supposed to protect children, why did she need to keep doing these things? She tried to comfort herself that he was going to find her and take her to her mother and then they would all be together.

No.

Liu Xie was gone. He could not help her anymore, what was she thinking? Who was she thinking of? Nobody was going to save her or the others. She shook her head to loosen her thoughts, closing her eyes and feeling a heavy weight atop her, crushing her to the ground. "AH!" She panicked, digging her hands into the ground as heat poured over her back. The world rolled around her as strong arms gripped her waist and she was standing back up again. Blood oozed over Bo's scalp, going behind his ear down his neck as he clutched his head. The shamblers had somehow formed a tight circle around them, the speakers amongst them burning away at the ice that flowed from the river, turning the ground around them into mud. Shuang Que was yelling things Idony did not have the vocabulary to understand.

The tattered cloth on one of the shambling mass was splattered with ox blood, but she could make out a familiar shape upon it. "Bo! Bo! The bag!!!" She said.

"Huh what?" Bo asked, confused and wincing. "I don't... Zhu'er, it's not the time for snacks!" He swung the sheathed sword around to smack against the skull of one shambler, whose head burst like a ripe bone filled melon.

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"No! The thing! The magic charms!! The magic things!" She yelled, jumping away from one grasping hand.

"...OH!"

"Zhu'er, stay behind me," Shuang Que barked sharply just before his arm was gripped and yanked. Idony watched in horror was the limb seemed to easily tear off, a spurt of thick black fluid hitting the ground with a sizzle. The limb limply hung in the shambler's hand before it burst into thousands of bugs, falling to the ground in a pile and skittering back to Shuang Que, crawling up him and back to the stump. Shuang Que kicked the offending shambler hard enough it toppled over into several of its fellows, knocking one speaker over.

Idony looked back at Bo, who was struggling to take his bag off of his back, fingers fumbling with the draw strings and thin hempen straps before he roared in frustrated rage and tore it away. The abused blood-soaked-then-rinsed fabric ripped, bloodied fruit and the other bag tumbling outwards and several of the little charms bouncing on the ground and rolling away. Idony dived to the ground, grabbing one of the charms up and not knowing what else to do with it quickly flinging it at the nearest speaker she could see.

Her aim was off this time, hitting another shambler on its helmeted head with a loud clanging. Stillness rippled outwards, the shamblers pausing to look down at the thing, or at the dropped charms on the ground.

"A talisman?" Shuang Que himself paused to glance at it with brief fascination.

The little wooden circles, with their carving of a horse with a horn, that had seemed so unremarkable had managed to make them all pause when getting beaten with a sheathed sword or torn apart by ice and water had not. They gathered to the dropped charms, leaving a path open.

Idony with her small arms and hands reached past the scabrous legs and grabbed up a few of the fruit, one of the talismans, and the other bag, "go! Go! Run! Go!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, racing away and following the river's path.

"WAIT DON'T RUN AHEAD!" Bo shouted.

"RUN!" She yelled again.

Idony simply trusted that the other two were following her. She ran as fast as her small legs could carry her. The flat rocky land dipped and rose beneath her feet, larger stones threatening to catch her feet. But she continued running. She ran as her mind conjured a surrounding of snow fields with tall merciless trees and glowing yellow eyes. She screamed and ran faster, the dark sky stretching over her head with stars watching apathetically as the child below froze.

She dashed through a dense cluster of trees and stumbled into a landscape of ash and towers like forgotten bones.

Right in front of her a pale figure stood, glowing with a merciful light. "Come here, my dear," it spoke in Liu Xie's voice, reaching for her. "Come back to me."

Idony recoiled, falling backwards and looking up into a purpling sky.

Bo's face suddenly appeared in view, relief spreading on it. "Hey little sister! You're awake!"

She furrowed her brow, looking side to side and seeing on the river on her left and some scattered trees to the distance on her right. There was a small pain on her chest, and she moved her necklace's pendent so it wound not rest on the small bruise there. "What...?"

"You ran and tripped over a rock," Shuang Que's voice floated over. It sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a shallow well.

She sat up and saw both of the others were sitting down near her. Shuang Que was curled into a little ball, his face a strange mass of shadows without any distinguishing features. The more she looked the more uncomfortable she felt so she looked over at Bo. "...I tripped?"

"Yeah," he said, sitting back. "If it wasn't for us being so terrified it would have been really funny. You kinda spun in the air." He then offered her a fat round biscuit thing. She took it from him and bit into it, finding a crispy and somewhat tasteless inside. She decided after a moment and a growl from her stomach that the fact it had no taste did not matter. It at least tasted better than bark. "Hey, don't run off like that again ok? I know you were afraid but if there was anything out here, what if we didn't get here in time, huh?" He reached over to ruffle her hair and she ignored that to continue munching on the food in her hand.

"At least we're getting close to the bend in the river," Shuang Que muttered.

"What? Really?"

"Yes, it's not that far, but after she tripped and you decided to become a piece of armor for her head, I think it's just better if we rest a little bit before we keep going. Also I'm tired."

Bo tipped his head, Idony looked around for the bag she had been carrying but found it was in fact sitting on the other side of Bo. "Is that why you don't have a face right now?"

Shuang Que clapped, one of his arms still looked strangely doughy.

"Don't patronize me," Bo grumbled.

"I'm hungry," Idony said, trying to stop any potential arguments.

"Hold on," Bo opened up the bag and pulled out another tasteless biscuit to hand to her. He then sighed, reaching up to run his hand through his shaggy hair and make a face as some flaky dried blood fell out. Idony also made a face, since one of the flakes fell on her biscuit. She brushed it aside and shifted so she was leaning against Bo, who made for a serviceable pillow she decided. "So what happens after we get to the bend?"

"You keep going," Shuang Que shook his head. "You keep going to that mountain and you don't look back."

"Why can't you come?" Idony asked. She did not want Shuang Que to go she realized, they had only just become friends and everyone else was gone.

Shuang Que's faceless 'face' turned to her. Inside the writhing mass of darkness and black hair was a single golden reptilian eye that floated in the darkness. Discomfort wormed in her guts but she continued looking straight at it. "All my wrath is gone, everything I have right now is just borrowed, and fighting those things was... very tiring..." he explained in a kinder tone than what he spoke to Bo with.

Idony 'ah'd, ate another bite of her biscuit, and then asked, "so you're just going to sleep for a bit?"

"...Yeah."

"So we'll see each other again?" She asked.

"You're asking a lot of questions for someone who said she was hungry, can't you just eat?" Bo ruffled her hair again and moved his hand away before she could smack it away. "You're losing precious eating time."

"Do you want to see me again or something?" Shuang Que folded his hands into his sleeves.

"You're my friend, right?" She insisted, "so we're gonna see each other again."

Shuang Que helplessly shrugged, "why are you so insistent on this?"

She frowned, trying to find words for the reason. Unfortunately in both of her languages she could find none. "Because."

Because he was her only friend.