“Stay close,” she says, and through the trees ahead, I see a glimmer of light. We’re reaching an open space, and the way she moves now—silent, careful, that spear thing at the ready—tells me she thinks there might be danger ahead.
“Nimh,” I whisper, keeping my voice low, almost inaudible. “Do I need something to use as a weapon?” There are plenty of sharp, broken sticks around. I don’t know what I’m going to do with a stick if things go bad up ahead, but I’d rather have something than nothing.
Without looking back she reaches down to one of the belts that circle her waist, draws a knife from a sheath, and offers it to me hilt-first, her fingers holding the very tip of the blade. I guess she really has decided to trust me, even if she clearly doesn’t want to touch me.
Maybe she thinks I have some kind of sky-sickness.
She doesn’t need to tell me to be quiet now. The sounds of the forest, a cacophony before, seem to have vanished here. I try to place my feet where she puts hers, easing them down gently as the two of us creep toward the light of several campfires ahead of us. But there are no shadows of people around them, no signs of life.
The fire lights Nimh’s face as we crouch at the edge of the campsite, turning her skin golden and animating her features with every flicker and shift of the flames. I follow her gaze as she scans the camp, and now I can see little canvas tents clustered around the fires, along with cooking pots, bags, and a couple of crates. It might be basic, but it’s a setup for several people—and none of them seem to be present.
I’d think they were all out searching for Nimh, but she’s not acting like someone who thinks her friends are just a shout away. Tension sings through her. She picks up a stone, hefts it to make sure I know what she’s about to do, then lobs it out into the middle of the campsite.
It clangs off a metal cooking pot, and nobody emerges from the shadows to see what made the noise. Slowly, gesturing for me to remain where I am, Nimh rises to her feet.
Though I’m itching to follow her, I crouch obediently in place as she creeps into the abandoned camp to investigate. One by one, she lifts the flaps of the tents. At first she’s careful, spear raised in her free hand, but by the end of her search she’s hurrying—she’s tugged down her veil from her face, breath coming quickly, open confusion in her gaze.
Eventually, she turns toward me, and I rise from where I’m hiding and walk out to join her.
“I do not understand,” she whispers. “A guard should have remained at camp, even if the others went looking for me. I cannot believe that—”
Something dark falls onto her cheek, and her hand flies up to it. When her fingers come away from her skin, their tips are a vivid red. As our eyes meet, another droplet falls between us, spattering softly against the dirt.
As one, very slowly, we tilt our heads back, lifting our gazes.
I don’t know if the gasp I hear is hers or mine.
A series of bundles hang from the trees above us, slowly twisting on their ropes. I stare, not understanding, as another thick, dark droplet smacks the ground between us.
And then, as if they’re coming into focus, the shapes above us suddenly resolve. And I’m looking at a nightmare.
Each bundle is a mutilated body. The firelight casts monstrous shadows on their faces and flickers in their dull, staring eyes.
A sound of horror tears itself from my throat and I scramble back, away from the things overhead—but Nimh is still standing there, staring, like a sculpture in stone. All around her, the sound of dripping blood hisses into the campfires.
Her camp, her people, have been slaughtered.
A flicker of movement behind her draws my eye, a shadow in the dark. Then movement erupts all around the edge of the clearing, and before I can react, at least half a dozen black-clad figures emerge from the trees. They walk slowly, deliberately, and silently—and they’re all armed, the edges of their knives and spears glinting in the firelight.
Beside me Nimh draws a shaky breath, adjusting her grip on her own spear. “You cannot win,” she calls in ringing tones. “You can still turn back.” There’s a tremor underneath her voice, a rawness, and the words sit there in the silence, then vanish into nothing.
The cat yowls and spits his defiance, and like the sound is a signal, the shadowy figures attack.
A man with a shaved head covered in dark stubble lunges for me, sweeping his long knife around in a quick arc, forcing me to stumble back toward the fire. He doesn’t make a sound, coming after me in two quick steps, and I throw myself sideways as I dodge again.
All I can hear is my own rasping breath as I spread my arms for balance, and that’s when I remember I’m holding a knife too.
His lips draw back in a snarl, teeth gleaming white in the firelight, and I take a step back.
He springs forward, grabbing a handful of my flight suit, yanking me in close. His hand clamps down on my wrist, squeezing until pain shoots up my arm. My fingers are weakening—I’m hyperaware of the hilt in my hand—No. I can’t.
Then there’s a screech by his feet, and he shouts, dropping me as the cat latches onto his leg, hissing and spitting.
I have to.
I slash at the man with my knife, and there’s a quick resistance and then a sickening give as the blade sinks into his gut. He stumbles backward, and I keep hold of my knife, yanking it free. It flashes red with his blood in the firelight as he falls.
I feel like someone’s squeezing my lungs, and I’m afraid that I’m going to pass out, because I just stabbed a guy, but an instant later I remember there are more of them, and Nimh’s somewhere behind me, and she needs—
I spin around, and find Nimh standing perfectly still, holding her spear aloft. Six bodies lie still on the ground around her, unmoving.
I’m caught in place, staring at her, somewhere between awe and fear. Then she turns her head to meet my eyes, and I swallow, my mouth dry.
“Nimh, I …”
A flash of movement behind her draws my gaze as a lone figure charges out from the trees, hand raised, blade aimed straight at Nimh’s back. I shout a wordless warning and hurl my knife at her attacker. It sails through the air to bounce harmlessly off a tree, but the warning is all Nimh needs.
She whirls around, and in a continuation of that same movement, brings her spear up and catches the figure under the chin with the blunt end of it. The hooded head snaps back and the assailant falls to the ground, where the firelight reveals the features of a girl about our age.
That’s when I think to turn my head and look back at my guy, but he’s not where I left him. He’s disappeared back into the forest, so I guess … I didn’t kill him? I’m caught between relief that I’m not a murderer, and fear that he’s still out there.
Everything in me is screaming to run, but I can’t move, and the harder I try, the more I feel like I might throw up. I’ve never seen a dead body. I’ve never hurt someone—not like this.
Swallowing my bile and my horror, I force myself to slide one foot forward and then the other, and with that shuffling step, my body begins to unlock. I’m shaking as I approach Nimh.
She still hasn’t moved. Her eyes are starting to glaze over, and I’m not even sure she knows I’m here. She must be in shock.
I want to pull her away from the grisly sight around us—the bodies in the trees might be her friends, even people she loves. She doesn’t seem to hear me, even when I call her name in a rasping half whisper, as loud as I dare with at least one of our attackers still out there. So I reach out, ready to take her by the shoulders and give her a shake.