The night was so dark that Rab could barely even see them.

"Up the hill again, run!" he yelled. Nem started climbing up the blocks, and he followed behind her, looking backwards and watching the huge crowd that was coming towards them in the dark.

Then an Ashman leapt towards him out of the darkness, reaching for his arm.

He swung the sword at it without thinking, just blindly slashing, and the mob flashed and disappeared with a distant moan.

It worked!

He could hardly believe it had actually worked for real.

Two more were in front of him. Nem was moving too slowly.

"Faster!" he yelled.

"I'm trying!" Nem said and scrambled up the hill.

He slashed both of the Ashmen, and they flashed and jumped back, but disappeared when he hit them again.

The massive crowd coming towards them was only a few blocks away now.

Rab turned and ran, picking Nem up and climbing with her under one arm.

"Put me down!" she yelled. "I can make it!"

He didn't have enough breath to say anything, so he just jumped up the hill faster than he ever thought he could move, and they finally started putting the mobs behind them. When they reached the top of the hill he put Nem down and pointed at the door again.

"We go around the edge, and down to the door," he said.

Nem nodded and ran. She was faster on flat ground, and he kept up with her.

He could tell the crowd was starting to climb up the side of the valley near them now. The shining white limbs of a Bonewalker flashed towards him, too close. They just needed to have enough room to get down to the door again. He didn’t know if they could do it. The crowd swept along below them like a river, matching their pace.

"We need to go faster," he said between breaths.

"I have little legs!" Nem yelled. "This is as fast as they go!"

But they were nearly at the other side now.

More mobs were starting to climb up towards them, and towards the door, too.

"Down!" Rab said.

They both jumped two blocks at a time down, and landed in front of the door with the mobs only a few blocks away.

The door wouldn't move. He couldn't open it.

It was made of iron. Who had ever heard of an iron door?

"Hurry!" Nem yelled, staring at two Bonewalkers rattling towards them, just a few blocks away.

"You try!" Rab said. "I can't make it work!"

They switched places and Rab swung his sword again right away. The Bonewalkers were harder than Ashmen. His sword clanged against them, and they slashed back with their rusty blades. Rab jumped back and then stabbed again. One of them flashed and disappeared, but the other was already raising its sword, and two Ashmen were lurching up behind it.

"What is this?" Nem said. She sounded frantic.

"I don't know, I've never seen a door like that!" Rab yelled. He swung again and again, hoping that Nem would figure something out. Mobs flashed and disappeared, but each time there were two more for every one that he took out.

Eventually his swing barely touched a creature, and it swung it's arm down hard on him.

It hit him in the shoulder. There was a burst of pain. He almost dropped his sword. If the Bonewalker’s weapon had been sharp instead of dull and rusty he would have been in trouble.

He stabbed, and the mob flashed and was gone, but another one hit him in the side.

He gasped. It hurt!

There were too many. They would just bury him in a pile of them before he could do anything.

He slashed again, and another one was gone.

An Ashman hit him in the side clumpy fists. Rab yelled out loud with the pain. It was awful!

He stabbed and it disappeared.

His side and his shoulder burned, and he could hardly breathe. There was another one right in front of him. He stared at it and tried to raise the sword again, but his arms were weak.

Just then, Nem's hand grabbed his robe and pulled him backwards, hard.

He fell through the open door and landed mostly on top of her, but she jumped up and pushed the door closed again.

The iron door clanged shut. Almost instantly, there was the sound of fists banging against the metal.

"I think we're good," Nem said.

Then she saw his face, and gasped.

"You're hurt!" she said.

Rab pushed himself up, and stood with his back against a workbench. Gray, blurry faces stared in through the little windows in the door.

When Nem tried to put her hand on his arm, he pulled away.

"Just let me rest, I'll be okay."

He wasn't sure that he would be, though. He was weak and shakey. Plus something else.

He was scared. This wasn't fun. They could hurt him. Or worse.

The sword didn't just fix his problem. It wasn't as simple as that. In some ways it made him more likely to get hurt.

But Nem was looking so worried that he said, "Really, I just need a second."

He couldn't tell her about how he felt. Then she really would think he was a coward. He worked to slow his breathing, and to try to calm down.

There was more thumping from outside. The door didn't even move. It was strong enough to hold them back.

"How did you do it?" he said. He could hardly believe they were actually inside and safe for the first time in days.

"There's a button," she said. "I hope they're not smart enough to figure it out."

"Smart mobs we don't have to worry about," Rab said. "I hope, anyway."

"Let's move away from the door. If they don't see us, maybe they'll forget what they're doing."

It was worth a try. They were in a big square room, with lots of rare things - ovens, a chest, workbenches, and a few items that Rab didn't even understand. Player things.

They sat on the floor together and tried to calm down. After a while there was no more sound of fists thumping on the door.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"I can't believe Lyb was really... that thing," Nem said.

Suddenly Rab laughed. Or at least it was a noise sort of like a laugh.

"What's funny?" she said. She looked like she couldn't imagine anything ever being funny again.

"I just realized why the Witch ran away. She knew what Lyb was. That's who she was yelling at! She probably thought I was full of terrible magic!"

If only she'd known that he could barely even hold the sword without dropping it.

Nem frowned.

"The Witch was afraid of us because we were with something even worse," she said.

Rab sighed.

"I guess so. I'm going to call that lucky because I don't know what else to call it."

"I haven't slept in days," Nem said. "And now I see a bed."

There was definitely a bed, right there next to the chest.

"Go lie down," Rab said. "I'll look around, but I won't go far."

Nem didn't argue. He was happy to let her rest, but he still wanted to make sure they weren't going to have a run-in with a Player. He’d never heard of anyone actually meeting one in real life. It was just story stuff, but all the way out here, who knew what could happen?

But it didn't look that way. The chest only had a few random bits of dirt and stone, tree and vegetable seeds, and things like that. Rab might have worried if it was filled with gold and weapons and rare ores, but this place didn’t seem lived-in.

When he looked over at the bed again Nem was already fast asleep.

When she woke up later he had set out breakfast - some of their last carrots and potatoes. He'd taken a break to sit in a corner and really calm down. It took a long time before he could stop shivering. But then he'd gone exploring. He told her about the tunnel entrance he'd found.

"I can't see the end," he said. "But it heads away from the valley out there, and I think we should go somewhere far away. I think we should try it."

Nem chewed on her carrot and shrugged.

"I just want to find a new village," she said. "But do you think Lyb will come back looking for us?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

She nodded, but she still looked worried.

The tunnel went far, far back through the mountain. It was lit with torches, and it was so long that after a while they couldn't see where they came from at all. They couldn't see anything down towards the other end either. Eventually they came to another tunnel that crossed with theirs. Looking left and right, they couldn't see the end of that one, either. All they could see were torches heading away into the distance.

"I say we keep going straight," Rab said. They could always head back here again if they didn't like where it ended up. At least they were safe from mobs. It was well-lit and exactly one block wide.

He felt about as safe as he could remember being for a long time.

Something in a villager feels best with walls all around, he thought.

But the tunnel just kept going. Eventually they stopped to eat their last food. Rab broke his bread in half and offered a piece to Nem.

She shook her head and kept eating her carrot.

Rab realized that she looked older. She definitely wasn't the same now as the little girl she had been in the village.

I guess something like this will do that to you.

He didn't feel the same now either.

When they got going again, it wasn't very long before they saw something up ahead. It was sunlight, shining through a door.

"There it is," he said. "I hope it was worth all that time."

Plus they were going to start getting hungry for real if they had to head back again.

Nem was ahead of him. He had let her step over him when they ate. She started running.

"Wait!" he yelled, but she didn't listen.

The last thing he needed was her stepping into a trap. So he ran after her. They both pounded down the tunnel until they reached the end.

Nem stood at the door, on her tiptoes, looking out of the window, and Rab stood behind her, looking over her head.

They saw a long green plain stretching away into the distance. Far away there were more mountains, and a big, curving river through the middle of it all. Beside the river, there was a village. It was bigger than any village Rab had ever heard of.

"That's a lot of houses," Nem said.

"Anything outside the door?" Rab said.

She shook her head.

"Then I guess we go."

From the outside it was a lot like the entrance in the empty valley - set into the side of a mountain, but with no light outside of it. It would be hard to see from the village. They closed the door carefully after they left, and Rab looked around, remembering everything so that they could find it again if they needed to.

He saw Nem examining the village as they walked down the slope to the grassy plains.

"Any smoke?" he said. He didn't think there was any.

"No," she said. "But what are we going to do if we see some?"

He wanted to say run, but he knew that wasn't a good answer. Especially now that he was apparently the only villager in the world who could handle a sword.

"We tell them," he said. "We tell the villagers right away. We warn them about what to watch out for."

"So we're bad news," she said.

"The Firethrall and the magic doorway are the bad news," he said. "You and I are the good news."

"How?"

"We're alive," he said. "We mean that the mobs don't have to win."

She looked up at him and smiled a little.

"You're the good news. I saw you fight them. You can kill Ashmen. You killed Bonewalkers! You're probably the first villager ever who can do that."

But he never wanted to do that again. Not ever. He knew he couldn't say that to Nem though.

They walked down to the village. There was a farm near the path, and a farmer tending his wheat. When he saw them coming, he stopped and watched. When they got near to him, he frowned.

"Can't say I've ever seen anyone manage that trick before," he said. "How did you do it?"

"You mean being that far outside of the village?"

The farmer nodded.

"We're not from here," Nem said, grinning. "We saw your village and we wanted to have a look at it. It's not bad, compared to the other villages we've seen."

The farmer just watched them walk by with his mouth hanging open.

"That actually wasn't very helpful," Rab said to her.

"Sorry," she said. "I'll let you do the talking when we meet their council."

Kan the Priest stared at Rab and Nem, and sighed.

The council had heard their whole story. Nobody looked worried. The village's council here was Kan, and a Blacksmith named Lum, a Librarian called Alm, and a Farmer named Ron. Four was a big council, but this was a big village.

Nem was frowning at all of them.

"We will discuss your story," Kan said. "Please wait here."

They walked out of the house, and left Rab and Nem all alone.

It was nice to be back in a proper house again - the torches and the wood and the doors were all just like home.

But Rab couldn't relax. Nobody had said they were welcome to stay. Nobody had even seemed all that surprised to see the two of them.

"They don't believe us," Nem said.

Rab didn't think that was it.

"They didn't seem surprised at all. It was like they've heard this before."

"Then why aren't they doing something?"

"I wish I knew."

He looked out of the window at the villagers.

"It's just like home," he said.

Nem was still frowning.

"Home wasn't safe, was it? They need to get ready."

"I can't make them," he said.

"They didn't even care when you showed them you can use the sword," she said.

Rab thought that they had looked worried about that, more than anything.

When the door opened, just two people came back in.

"We would like to move you to another house," Kan the Priest said.

Nem stood in front of him, looking like she wasn't going to move for anyone.

"Why?" she said.

"This is where the Council meets," Lum the Blacksmith said. "But we want to be able to ask you more questions."

"You've heard about the Firethrall and everything else. What else do we need to talk about?"

Lum looked amused at Nem's defiance, but Kan just stared at her.

"We don't want you talking to people and spreading scary stories," he said.

"They're not stories," Rab said.

"They will scare people, that's what we care about."

"Maybe they should be scared," Nem said.

But it didn't do any good. They took them towards a house at the edge of the village. A huge iron Defender lumbered along beside them. Rab thought that was going too far – the village was treating them like they were the problem.

"I guess you'll have lots to talk about with your friend in here," Lum the Blacksmith said when he opened the door and motioned for them to go in.

"Our friend?"

Lum gave them a funny look and shut the door on them.