Thirty had died among the villagers. Young, old, the army of the Rai did not care who fell before it. He saw children among the dead, though he did not understand how they had come to be out during the fight.
In the middle of the village he found the reborn, Nahac, pierced by spears as she charged the line of the Rai. She had fallen to her knees, then backwards, but the spears had kept her body upright. The body of her sister lay prone further down among the corpses of the Rai, smoke drifting from her helmet. Udinny joined him as he examined the bodies.
“Venn is treating the wounded,” said the monk.
“And Dyon?” The monk looked away, shook her head. “All we can do is dose him with Sleepwragg, despite the danger, but we are running out of it.” Udinny looked at the ground, not at him, and he had the strangest feeling she was only partly here. “Venn helps those who cannot be saved take the Star Path peacefully, without pain. Those that can be saved Venn treats and says will heal by themselves, given time.” Udinny smiled, snapping back to themselves. “If we had time.” Drumming, and discordant singing drifted over from outside the walls.
“Tell Venn not to do too much, do not let them hurt themselves.”
“This way they have,” said the monk, “it barely takes any power from them. They work with what is in the body to connect it to Ranya’s web.” She shrugged. “I do not understand it, but I feel it.”
“You feel it?” The monk looked away, shrugged again.
“Ever since I gave myself to the boughry, Cahan, my awareness of the forest has been growing.” She looked up at him. “I am changing, do not say you have not noticed?” He nodded, her ragged robe no longer touched the ground because she was taller than she had been, and thinner. Up close he could see a very fine but thick covering of hair across her skin. Not enough for most to notice. He had not noticed until recently, these changes had been slow and subtle.
“I am not sure how much time we have,” he said, but Udinny was not listening to him. She was looking at the reborn.
“I thought they could not die,” said the monk. She reached out as if to touch the reborn. Then stopped, as if she dare not.
“So did I,” he said, stepping nearer as Udinny crouched by the corpse. “I suppose they have got their wish.”
“Cahan,” Udinny cocked her head, “can you hear that?”
“All I hear is the Rai, outside the walls, making their noise.”
“Come closer,” she said. He did. Something there. Something little more than a whisper on the breeze, the barest scratch of a tiny creature moving along a leaf.
“Is it the reborn?” said Udinny. “I sense the web but they are not in it.” Cahan leaned in closer, put his head near the reborn’s mouth. Heard her more clearly. She still lived, in her way. And from her mouth words, drifting slowly to his ear.
“Out…” So quiet, so slow it was barely a word. “Out…” the whisper on the wind. “Take… them… out.”
“Udinny!” he said. “Help me pull the spears from her.” He dragged the reborn over onto her side. Udinny grabbed a spear and pulled. If the reborn felt anything she gave no sign. Her limp body slid in the mud as the monk fought against the suck of flesh against spear, the grind of it against her armour. “You hold her, monk, I will remove the spears.” Udinny nodded and they swapped places. Udinny sitting on the reborn’s body to hold her still while he used his greater strength to draw out the spears that had pierced her. She did not make a sound, not a groan, not a hiss of pain. When the spears were out the reborn only lay there, limp.
“We should take her to Venn,” said Udinny. Cahan nodded, picking up the body. She was curiously light even though she wore full armour. He ran towards the longhouse, passing villagers on their way to the village square where Sengui and Aislinn were calling them. They looked damaged, broken, different from the men and women they had been before the second attack. Ont walked past him, his stare focused somewhere far outside the village, the pretend Forestal cloak still about his shoulders.
“Ont!” The butcher blinked, as if waking when Cahan said his name. “Have the people strip the soldier’s bodies of armour, give the best to those who will stand in the front line.”
“They will come back?” he said, all his bravado stripped, his bluster bleached thin by battle. Cahan nodded, it would have been easy to score points then, to castigate the man for his short-sightedness and selfishness. But he did not, it would serve nothing but his own sense of importance.
“They will keep coming, Ont,” he said, the body of the reborn slack in his arms. “We must ready ourselves to escape into the forest”, Ont stared at him, “and we must keep busy, if people dwell on danger they can lose their wits.” The butcher blinked again, then nodded.
“I will tell Sengui and Aislinn,” he said. “We will keep them working until we can leave.” All the fight gone from him, he looked smaller. Cahan nodded.
“Thank you, branch leader,” he said, then took the reborn into the longhouse.
The floor full of bodies. The air full of pain. Venn moving from person to person, bent over, pausing by a woman. They put their hands on them. As they did Cahan felt the air shimmer, no one else reacted, no one else commented. The cowl beneath his skin fluttered. The woman before Venn stopped moving, stopped making a noise and then the trion stood, moved on to the next one followed by Furin. The Leoric had a smear of bright red blood on the white make-up of her face. He laid the reborn down and Venn came over, wiping their hands with a rag.
“Can you help her?” he said. Venn knelt and put their hands on her, the trion’s face twisted.
“They are dead,” said Venn.
“But she spoke to me,” said Cahan. The trion looked up at him.
“The others,” they said, looking back at the villagers arrayed across the floor. “I can feel the life running through them. I am a bridge, I work with the web to connect them.” They looked back at the reborn. “But her? Something animates her, but it is not life. I cannot help her.” They stood, about to say more when a scream cut the air, a sound containing more pain than anyone should have to bear.
“Dyon,” said Furin. “The Sleepwragg has worn off already.” She sounded tired, miserable.
“He cannot be helped?” said Cahan. Venn shook their head.
“I told him, Cahan, what you offered, to let him slip from this life and start his journey on the Star Path. But he will not go.” Cahan looked away, amazed at how hard people would cling onto life, no matter the circumstance.
“We cannot stand another attack, can we?” said Furin. He thought on that, licked his lips.
“Maybe one more,” he looked around the longhouse, at the dying. “The Forestals have returned, and they are fierce. But it would be better if we escaped now. I have told Ont to get people ready.” Furin nodded. Then looked back at the wounded villagers.
“Not all can be moved.”
“We cannot leave them,” said Udinny. “The Rai will not take our escape well. They will avenge themselves on any left behind.”
“Sleepwragg is a kind death,” said Furin, “if it is what must be, then that will be the last gift I will give those who cannot be moved. We may have enough.” Venn opened their mouth to say something, about to argue, but Furin turned to them. “You know,” she hissed, “what the Rai will do. We make hard choices now, Venn,” she spoke softly, “we must arrange the wounded into those who will die quickly, those who may linger we have to dose, and those we can move. Will you help me?” The trion looked shocked, their eyes widening. “You ease the path for those with no choice but to take it, but sometimes,” Furin touched their shoulder, “it is simply about how many can be saved.” She led Venn away, looking to Cahan, and mouthing, “leave this with me”. He nodded and left, followed by Udinny.
In the darkness villagers were stripping the bodies of the dead. Others were building travois and packing them with belongings. He saw some villagers standing over the body of the second reborn getting ready to strip her armour.
“Wait!” he said. The villagers stopped. “Strap her to a travois, leave her armour.”
“She is dead, Forester,” said one of the villagers, softly.
“She is reborn,” he replied. “They say they cannot die. So we take her with us. She is likely to walk again before we find a place to stay in the forest.” He did not know if that was true, or how long it took the reborn to come back to life, but it was enough for the villagers. They dragged the body away to one of the houses where the travois were being made.
“Planning on leaving?” He turned to find the Forestal, Ania. Her face hidden by her hood, a stick in her mouth that she chewed on.
“From the start I have wanted these people to run for the forest, now they finally understand why and will do as I ask.” The Forestal let out a small laugh, a crackle of winter leaves beneath the feet.
“Too late, Forester,” she said, and as ever she made the word forester sound mocking. “They have left it too late.”
“What do you mean?” She took the stick from her mouth.
“Ten of us left here, Forester, seven came back.”
“The Rai are in Woodedge?” She shook her head.
“Not Rai, were it Rai they would be food for trees and sprouting arrow branches from their backs.” She dropped her stick in the mud. “It was the same foul things got us before.” She spat. “We are of the forest, it accepts us, makes us part of it. But whatever hunted us could hide in it, until they were close and then it was…”
“Like you had eaten something rotten?” She nodded.
“Aye, and they did not fall to an arrow to the heart, they kept coming.” Cahan was silent.
“Blank eyes, like a cooked fish head?” She nodded.
“Hetton.” A blanket of fear settled on him, like snow in the darkness, muffling the sound around him. “How many?”
“I do not know, more than five, less than ten. They surrounded us, circling like hungry animals. Gildan died first. Chaf and Giddick gave their lives so the rest of us could escape.”
“Why come back here,” he asked, “why not escape further into the forest?” She looked up, bright eyes under the hood.
“I have fought, many times. Hit-and-run attacks, I know how it works. Relies on being faster than your enemy. They were faster than us, would have picked us off one by one as we made for…” her voice drifted off. Came back louder, surer. “If I’m going to die, Forester, I’ll do it killing Rai. Not running.” He thought about what she said, about trying to get through the forest and find somewhere safe with an army of Rai behind them. With the lurking horror of the Hetton picking them off as they went and he knew that he could not do it. He could not lead the villagers into the forest with the Hetton waiting.
But at the same time, to stay here was certain death.
“You’re almost out of arrows,” said the Forestal.
“Udinny,” Cahan turned to the monk, “go and get Furin, we must speak to the village.” The monk nodded, her face drawn as she walked away. “How many arrows do you have?” he asked Ania.
“Not enough,” she said.
“I will give you what we have left.” She looked away, towards the still intact tiltgate.
“You should send people out to gather fallen arrows.”
“In the dark? They would stumble about not finding anything until the Rai came and finished them.” The Forestal shrugged.
“Without arrows they die anyway.” He stared at her, she was a cold one but she was right. There was a delicate balance to be kept here, between the risks he must take for what Harn needed, and the risks that were too much for them all, and would cost him what morale there was left.
“I think I can get us more arrows,” said Udinny as she returned.
“That would be good,” said Cahan.
“Cahan.” He turned, Furin was there with Venn and behind them the villagers were gathering. They looked to him for answers, for hope.
But he had very little to give.