The mountains lasted for what seemed like forever. Rab and Nem kept going all day, eating as little of their food as they could manage, and spent a second night on the cold, rocky ground. They had learned a little bit from the first night, though. This time they picked their spot before the sun went down. They found an open space against a tall cliff, where nothing could come at them from one side, and which was far enough from any caves so that spiders weren’t as much of a worry.
Rab set the torches out in a wide half-circle around them which left them in a patch of light while the stars wheeled across the sky. Rab told Nem to sleep, and he stayed up most of the night watching, getting ready to wake Nem, grab everything, and just run into the darkness if a mob took an interest in them.
The night seemed even longer than the first, and one Ashman spawned just outside of the circle of light, staring right in at them. Rab didn’t say anything to Nem – he just watched it, holding his breath and hoping. The light did seem to help. The mob shuffled towards the two of them, but just as Rab was getting ready to grab Nem’s shoulder to wake her up, it shuddered against the torchlight and turned around, wandering out into the night again.
Rab must have fallen asleep, because one moment he was carefully watching the night, and the next he was staring up into the sky. A Night Eagle was circling, looking down at the two villagers. Night Eagles mostly took animals like chickens or small pigs and sheep, but it seemed curious at the sight of the two villagers all alone down below. Rab wiggled over towards Nem and tried to cover her up as much as he could.
I’m the only target here, he thought at it. I’m big and heavy and you can’t pick me up, so move along.
It kept circling for a long time, but eventually it sailed away just as the first red light of dawn touched the sky.
It was past noon when they finally saw green trees ahead of them again.
"It's a cliff, and there's a forest!" Nem said.
They both ran forward to see.
When they reached the edge, there was a surprise waiting for them.
"A village!" Nem squealed.
"It's a village," Rab agreed.
He could hardly believe it. All this time there had been another village just a few days walk away, and nobody even knew about it.
Or at least nobody had ever told Rab about it.
It looked about the same size as home, and they could see people working in their gardens. They were tiny from so high up and far away. But it looked peaceful.
"Let's go!" Nem said. "We can be inside tonight!"
Rab suddenly felt unsure about the whole idea. He'd never heard of anyone taking in wandering villagers before. He was more or less sure they’d never told any stories like that. But on the other hand he'd never actually heard of wandering villagers before either.
There was just no way to know what the village would do when they saw him and Nem.
"Why don't we watch for a bit?" he said. "We can get an idea about what they're like."
Nem sighed.
"I have one potato and a loaf of bread left. What about you?"
Rab checked, even though he already knew the answer.
"Two potatoes, a carrot, and three torches."
"Plus the sword," Nem said.
"And that," said Rab. It was still sitting there in his inventory.
"I don't want to be outside any more," she said. "And we don't have much food. What are we waiting for?"
Rab shook his head. There was no reason to worry her.
"I just think we should know who they are before we go and ask to stay with them."
Nem frowned.
"This was the whole plan, wasn't it? Find somewhere new? Now we've found a place."
"I know."
He couldn't really put words around it, but he felt like waiting was the right thing to do.
"We'll get there before dark, really."
"Ugh," Nem said and walked over to a nearby rock. She sat down in the sunlight and sighed. "You watch them. I'm already bored."
There wasn't much to see. It was people working, talking to each other, and going in and out of their houses. Rab lay down in the grass with his head sticking out over the cliff, and just watched.
Eventually Nem lay down beside him and started watching too.
"I count fifteen people," she said
"Sixteen. Someone went behind the big house a while ago."
"So the same size as home. We'd make them eighteen."
It was sort of peaceful, sitting up on the mountain and watching everyone do their work.
But the sun was getting low on the horizon.
"Getting late," Nem said. "I bet we can spend tonight in that big house."
She stared at him hard.
"Okay, fine," he said and stood up. "Let's go."
"Thank you thank you thank you," Nem said. "I can't sit still all night again. It's boring and scary at the same time, and I'm tired of it."
But Rab was still worried.
Can we go into a new village? Is that even possible? How will they feel about strangers?
Nem seemed to just assume that they'd be welcome. Rab was a little less sure about that.
What would the Council have done if a couple of new people had just wandered in, asking to stay?
He didn't know what the answer would be, but he didn't think it would have been an easy yes.
On the other hand there was only one way to find out.
"Okay," he sighed. "Let's go."
But they hadn't even made it fifty blocks before Nem stopped, and Rab almost tripped over her.
"Do you smell something?" she said.
Rab felt his stomach tighten up. He sniffed the air.
"I... maybe," he said.
"I smell smoke."
They stared down at the village again.
"There," Rab said. He pointed.
They could see a fire at the edge of the village.
"Oh no," Nem said.
She started running.
"Wait!" Rab yelled.
He ran too, and he was bigger than her. He grabbed her robe and pulled on it to stop her.
"What are you doing?" she yelled. "Let go!"
"You can't run into the middle of that! Not again!"
She glared at him,
"I won't hide this time!"
They could see the Ashmen now, moving between the houses. It wasn’t even fully dark yet, but they were everywhere down there.
There were more fires, too.
"What do you think will happen?"
"I'll tell them to fight! Not to run and hide!"
Rab shook his head.
"You won't even make it to the first house. Look at them all."
The village was full of Ashmen. They were everywhere. There were Bonewalkers again too, moving through the paths.
"So what do you want to do?"
"We wait," he said. "We can't help. We would only die too."
"You've got the sword! Go use it!"
He pulled it out and held it up.
"I don't know how! I can't even hold it. It just doesn't work."
She glared at him and then looked down at the fires in the village.
"We can't just do nothing," she said.
They stood and watched.
"There's nothing we can do," he said again, after a while.
The whole village was in flames now.
I can't believe I have to see this again, Rab thought.
Nem's face was pale, and she was shaking.
"We can't just stay here," she said. But they both knew it was useless now.
"We have to."
He hated saying it, but he knew that he was right. Going down there would just get them caught up in it again. He didn't think they would be lucky a second time.
"So you're scared?" Nem said.
"I'm being grown up about it," he said.
She didn't like that answer, but she didn't argue, either.
"So what do we do?" she said.
"It's time to set the torches out. Maybe somebody will see them."
She stared down at the mobs crowding through the village. They couldn't see any villagers at all.
"What for?"
"Somewhere to run to, I guess."
Something else was moving down in the village. It flickered like flame, but it moved through the village like a mob. Rab didn’t know what it could be. He wished again that he’d spent more time listening to Orb’s stories.
Rab started putting out the torches in a circle again. He could already see an Ashman that had congealed from the gray rock dust, just a few dozen blocks away. They'd left it pretty late, so he hurried.
Nem sat in the middle of the circle and stared down at the village.
When Rab sat down next to her she shuffled over, away from him.
Nobody came out of the village all night. They could see the mobs starting to wander away near dawn, as the fires went out. Eventually nothing moved down in the village at all.
Nem spoke for the first time when the sun started to peek up over the horizon.
"Nothing," she said. "We let them all die."
Rab sighed.
"We didn't do anything. What good would it do if we went down there and let them get us, too?"
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She stood up and looked around.
"None, I guess."
She went over and started picking up torches. Then she turned around and stared at him.
"I would have tried if I were you!" she said. Her face was dark.
"Really? You against a hundred Ashmen? Me against a hundred Bonewalkers? What would have happened?"
She pointed at the village.
"You think that's better?"
"Better than dying for no reason at all, yes," he said.
"Maybe we could have rescued someone. Anyone!"
"We couldn't..."
"I wasn't afraid to try!" she yelled.
Rab wanted to yell back at her. I'm not a coward! But somehow that would make it sound like he was.
"It's not about being afraid. It's about being stupid, if there's no way to win."
She glared at him.
"So now we're alive. Do we go down and see what we can find to eat?"
Rab knew that he'd done the right thing. But that didn't mean it was a good answer.
"We think about what we can do," he said. "If you have an idea, tell me."
She frowned and didn't say anything else. She looked like she was thinking hard.
By the time the sun was all the way up, they were ready to head out.
"Come on," she said to him and started walking down the hill again.
He had to walk quickly to keep up with her.
They walked into the village. It was totally silent. A few little fires still burned here and there. Nem walked ahead of him, looking around, and didn't do much but grunt when he said anything.
She was obviously searching, so he followed her and kept his mouth shut. He looked around, too. Maybe someone had hidden like he and Nem had done.
He hoped. It would be good to be able to help somebody.
But they found nothing. The village was just like home had been. Empty.
They found more food in a couple of houses, and some torches.
"Maybe there will be another sword. One for me," Nem said.
The village was creepy, Rab thought. There was nobody here, and nowhere to stay safe. He didn't like the idea of spending the night here.
He didn't even really want to keep poking around through the ruined buildings, even though he knew that they should. It felt… disrespectful somehow.
"I think we should keep going," he said to Nem.
"What if every village is going to get burned down?" she said.
He's been worrying about the same thing. Even finding a village didn't suddenly mean they were safe now.
What were they supposed to do? Eventually they would run out of food.
He shook his head.
"No more waiting," he said. "If we see a village, we go in and warn them. Right away."
Nem nodded.
"Good," she said. "You need to practice more with that thing."
He rolled his eyes but spent some time trying to control the sword. He’d heard the stories about Players fighting Bonewalkers and spiders. Orb had made it seem easy. The stories made slashing and stabbing sound like they were the simplest things in the world.
But actually doing it was different. It was like the sword didn't want to be in his hand. Like it was trying to escape.
Nem was frowning at him.
"I don't think I could protect myself with this," he said to her. "Never mind both of us."
"So what else can we do, then?"
"Find a village. Tell people."
A Cleric or a Librarian was bound to know better than them what to do, anyway.
They packed up everything that they had found and walked to the path out of the village.
"Which way?" Nem said.
He pointed forward to the open fields. He wanted to stay away from the dark forest, where there could still be mobs. Prowlers or Bonewalkers could stay in the darkest places all through the daytime.
But Nem was staring into the trees.
"I just saw someone!" Nem said. "In the woods!"
Rab hadn't thought about that. What if someone had figured out that they could leave the village? Running into the woods might be a good idea.
"Which way?"
"Right there," she said. "I saw someone's clothes move."
"Could be a Bonewalker," he said. "Be careful."
They walked up to the edge of the trees.
"Hello?" Nem yelled. "Is anyone there? We're here to help."
They waited but nothing happened.
"Hello?" Rab said loudly. "We're not mobs. We're villagers too."
Then something did happen.
There could see brown villager robes between the trees.
"It's a child!" Nem yelped, and started running.
"Wait!" said Rab. He was still worried about any mobs that might be left.
Nem ignored him and ran into the forest.
"Nem!" he yelled.
He had a terrible feeling that he would lose her too. Then what?
He was about to run in after her, but she came quickly out of the trees again, leading someone by the hand.
It was child. Much smaller than Nem. A tiny little girl who looked terrified.
Nem brought her up to him. She stared at the ruined village, and then up at both of them.
"What's your name?" Rab said gently.
The girl stared back and forth. Her eyes were round and wide and scared.
He shook his head.
"She's too upset to talk. Let's look for more food," he said.
"We have to take her with us!" Nem said.
She put her arms on the girl's shoulders and stared at Rab. He suddenly realized Nem actually thought he might say no.
"Well of course, but we still need food," he said. "Actually now we need even more food, I guess."
The little girl looked around at the ruined houses, then held both her arms up to Rab.
"She wants you to carry her," Nem said, still frowning.
He picked her up, and let her wrap her arms around his neck, and bury her face in his shoulder.
Rab had a sudden urge to cry, but he stopped himself.
"Let's go," he said.
"We don't know her name," said Nem while she followed them.
"She'll tell us when she can."
Rab saw some food on the floor of a wrecked house and they went in.
"What do we call her? We can't just call her that girl." Nem said.
Rab looked down at the back of her head, which was shoved into his shoulder.
"Lyb", he said. "We can call her Lyb."
It was the name of his friend from the village. She was going to be a baker. She hadn't been there the next morning. Like everyone else.
"Lyb," said Nem. "Is it okay if we call you that?"
Lyb's little head didn't look up, but it nodded.
"Okay," Rab said. "Food. And whatever else we can find."
He made them do a careful search, back and forth through all of the buildings. They found a little more food, and by the time they were done Rab badly wanted to leave.
Something felt wrong about the village. It had felt that way since the first time he saw it. He didn't like being there.
"Come on," he said, and led them out of the village.
The grassy plain went on and on, and there was no sign of another village.
It ended in a swamp that stretched out as far away as they could see.
"Ugh," Nem said. "I'm not walking through that."
Rab didn't want to either, but there was dark forest on both sides, and he didn't like the idea of going into them at all. Too dark, too many places that things could hide. Something still felt weird, and he wanted to stay out in the open. At least that way they could see whatever was coming.
So they went along the edge of the swamp, trying to find some good dry ground. But there was nothing else. Eventually they stood on a bit of land that stuck way out into the water. It was either go back, or go through.
"Well that was a great plan," Nem said. "Now we have to spend all day with our feet soaking wet."
"Let's just go," Rab said. "I want to get through it before the sun goes down."
There were spots of dry land in the swamp, and they tried to stay on them. But now and then there was no choice - they had to step into the mucky brown water and slosh their way through to the next little bit of land.
He carried Lyb the whole way, even though the extra weight was overheating him. He kept looking back, expecting to see something coming after them, but there was only swamp and sky.
By noon he was hot and tired and hungry. He saw a little patch of dry ground with trees and bushes, and even a little beach.
"There!" he said. "Let's eat there!"
He felt like he was burning up, and he needed to sit down and eat something.
They sloshed up onto dry land again and sat down.
"I hate the swamp," said Nem. She squeezed water out of her robe. "It smells."
Rab put Lyb down and flopped onto his back.
"Let's just rest a minute," he said. "I need to catch my breath."
He thought they were pretty safe. There were thick bushes and trees on all sides - nobody could see them. But they couldn't stay too long if they wanted to get out of the swamp before it got dark. Who knew how far that was?
"Here, Lyb," Nem said, holding out a piece of bread. Lyb shook her head.
"She won't eat anything?"
"Not a thing," Nem said. "You let us know when you're hungry okay?"
Lyb nodded and bent over the water, watching the little bugs zipping around.
It made Rab angry to see Lyb poking at things in the water with a stick, out here in the middle of a dirty swamp. She should be in her village, being taken care of. She was too tiny to be out in the world.
Then it's up to me to take care of her, he thought. It seemed like an awful idea. He could barely take care of himself.
Something about the swamp was overheating him. He felt like he had a fever.
Just a few more minutes of rest and he'd be able to get going.
He closed his eyes, but when he heard a branch snap in the bushes he jumped back up to his feet, staring around.
Through the bushes came an old woman, bent over, covered with dark rags. She wore a crooked hat on her head.
The second she saw them, her eyes opened wide in shock.
"Witch!" Nem whispered. Lyb stood up and turned around to look, and for a moment they were all quiet.
Rab had seen one before. A witch had walked past the village when he was little, and he had run with the other kids to see her. The old woman had never even looked at the villagers, she had just kept trudging along until she disappeared in the trees.
Witches were in the stories, though. They made potions, and cast spells. Sometimes they fought Players in the stories. They were basically mobs, and it seemed like they lived all alone, doing whatever terrible things it was that they did.
The witch stared at them, and they stared back. Her eyes were wide and angry in her wrinkled face.
The witch finally broke the silence.
"You!" she shrieked. "What are you doing here?"
Rab stood up. His legs felt shaky. Witches were supposed to be bad news, but that was in stories. Nobody actually knew. Maybe for real, they would be different.
"Hello," he said. He was trying to be polite. "We're looking for a new village."
"Abomination!" the witch yelled over top of him. Now there was no doubt about her anger. Her eyes were furious, but she didn't come any closer.
She just pointed at them.
"Return to your place!" the witch said. "You do not belong here!"
"I'm sorry," he said, "Our village was..."
The witch grabbed at her robe, and then threw something. Rab watched it curve through the air. It was going to hit Lyb or Nem.
So he jumped.
The little bottle exploded against his hands, covering them in sick green goo.
It burned his skin. He yelled out in surprise, then turned to Nem.
"Take Lyb! Go that way!"
He pointed towards the sun.
Nem backed up and then stopped.
"Go!" he yelled again.
Whatever was on his skin was getting inside of him. He could feel it starting to make him sick.
Nem grabbed Lyb's hand and the two of them ran off into the swamp together.
He could only see one way to make this work. He had to look confident.
He grabbed the sword with both hands, brought it out of his robes, and held it up high so that it reflected the sunlight. He hoped the witch wouldn't notice the way it wobbled.
Then he screamed and ran at her, looking like he was going to finish her right there.
He must have been a terrible sight, with his arms dripping poison goo. The witch stepped backwards, looked panicked, and then turned around and ran back into the deep swamp between all the weeds.
He stopped, and listened. He thought he could hear her feet splashing as she kept running.
Then he dropped to his knees and shoved his arms into the water, scrubbing at them to try to wash the poison away.
When he stood up again he kept the sword out, in case the witch came back. Then he headed off towards the sun, hoping he could catch Lyb and Nem before they got too far away.
He was already feeling woozy. It was getting worse. He hoped he'd gotten the nasty stuff off before it was too late.
After a long time, he stopped in the swamp. There was no sign of the girls.
He had lost them.