Several hours had passed since they left the spider colony behind.
Owen had never once said that the others could come with him. Somehow, it no longer seemed to matter.
They had hunted together most of that time, the four of them. Elias still did most of the talking, and Marianne had turned out to be more than happy to talk back. The two of them had spent a good part of the last hour arguing over which of them had nearly been eaten by the spiders more. Eveline was quieter, but she had loosened up somewhere along the way. Every so often, she would say something dry enough that even Owen had to smile.
They had learned how each other fought, too. Owen knew now that he didn’t have to watch Elias’s side. Elias could hold his own behind that shield. Eveline’s swordwork was neat and disciplined, every cut where it should be. And Marianne used every inch of her spear’s reach to keep things away from her and pick them off from just outside where they could hit back.
Every now and then, Owen thought about the Infinite Arsenal.
A new Master Weapon Class. Waiting for him to choose it.
He wanted to look. He wanted it badly. But not like this, in snatches while walking, with three people right next to him. He wanted to sit down somewhere quiet and go through it properly. It had waited this long. It could wait until the end of the examination.
The trees thinned into a rough clearing ahead. Scattered trunks ringed a patch of open ground covered with dry leaves and small stones, and roots ran across it. A few fallen branches lay around its edges.
Owen saw movement among them.
Goblins. Four, maybe five, slipping out from behind the fallen branches and using them as cover as they came closer.
He summoned his sword.
Beside him, Elias’s shield and short sword appeared. Eveline’s sword was in her hand. Marianne’s spear was already pointing at the nearest Goblin.
"Gyaak!"
They came from several directions at once.
Owen met the first one. Fire ran down his sword, and he cut it down in one stroke.
Shhk!
To his left, Elias caught another on his shield.
Clang!
He turned it aside and struck back with his short sword.
Eveline went to meet one coming at them from the side, her sword moving in short, tidy strokes. Marianne kept another one at the end of her spear, jabbing at it whenever it tried to get closer.
Nobody said anything about who should take what. They didn’t need to anymore.
Owen turned toward the next Goblin, ready to strike.
It had stopped.
It wasn’t looking at him. It had turned its head and was staring off into the deeper forest, its ears pressed flat against its skull.
Owen thought it was getting ready to run.
Then the Goblin in front of Elias suddenly stopped attacking. It backed away from him.
The one facing Marianne did the same. She had left an opening, a big one, and it didn’t even look at it.
Within moments, every one of them was pulling back.
They didn’t regroup. They didn’t come at them again.
They turned and fled into the trees.
Elias stared after them, his short sword still raised. "What...?"
"They must have decided we were too much for them," Marianne said. She shrugged. "Smart Goblins."
"No." Eveline was frowning. "Look where they’re going. They’re all going the same way."
Owen followed her gaze.
She was right. Every one of the Goblins had fled in the same direction. Away from the same part of the forest.
Away from whatever was over there.
That wasn’t how monsters ran when they were losing. Owen had seen plenty of that. They scattered when they were beaten, every one of them in a different direction. These had all gone the same way, all at once, as though they had heard something.
Something that frightened them more than four armed people.
Owen let the flames die on his sword and dismissed it. He stood at the edge of the clearing, listening.
"Should we go after them?" Elias asked. "That was at least—"
Owen held up a hand.
Somewhere deep in the woods, far off, something cracked.
He turned toward it.
Another sound came. Louder.
Something was breaking through the trees.
Marianne stopped talking. Eveline’s hand tightened on her sword. Elias moved half a step forward and raised his shield.
Owen listened. It was coming from the same direction the Goblins had run from. And it was getting louder.
Whatever it was, it was moving fast. And it was coming this way.
* * *
Someone burst out of the undergrowth on the far side of the clearing.
It was a girl. Her clothes were torn, and her face was streaked with tears, and her hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat. She nearly fell as she came out of the trees, and caught herself against a trunk.
She saw them.
For a moment, she just stared at them, as though she couldn’t believe they were real.
Then she screamed at them.
"Run! You have to run! Go!"
Owen turned toward her. "What happened?"
She didn’t answer. She kept looking back over her shoulder at the trees she had just come out of, gasping so hard she could barely speak.
"Are you hurt?" Elias took a step toward her.
The girl shook her head wildly. "No— you have to— it’s coming, it’s following us, you have to get away from—"
Her voice broke.
"It killed Tobin," she said. She was sobbing now. "It killed him. It just— it killed him, and then it—"
She couldn’t finish.
A young man came stumbling out of the trees behind her.
He was white as paper and barely on his feet. He had one arm clutched tight against his chest, and the shoulder above it was all wrong, the cloth there dark and wet with blood. He swayed as he walked.
The girl turned straight back toward him.
Elias was already moving. He went to the young man and got an arm under him before he fell. Eveline went after him, taking the boy’s other side, careful of his shoulder.
Marianne didn’t move. She kept her spear up and her eyes fixed on the trees they had come out of.
Owen looked from the girl to the injured boy.
Whatever they had run into had killed one of them and nearly killed another. But he still had no idea what it was.
He looked back at the forest behind them.
Crack!
Something huge came crashing through the undergrowth.
The girl froze.
The injured boy turned his head to look over his shoulder, and what little colour was left in his face drained out of it.
Another branch snapped. Then another. The bushes at the edge of the clearing began to shake.
The girl grabbed the boy’s good arm and tried to pull him further into the clearing.
"We have to go!" she cried. "Please, you have to go, before it gets here, please!"
Owen understood. Whatever was coming was what had done this to them. It was what the Goblins had run from.
He didn’t know how strong it was.
But he wasn’t going to stand here with empty hands while it came.
He summoned his sword.
It formed in his hand, the familiar weight settling into his grip, and he let Fire run along it. The flames spread up the blade, and their warm light fell across the dry leaves at his feet and lit up his face.
Elias moved in front of the injured boy and raised his shield. Eveline and Marianne lifted their weapons. All of them were watching the trembling bushes.
Then it came out.
It pushed through the broken branches, and it kept on coming. Long. Far too long. The arms came first, impossibly long, and then the rest of it. A body that was almost the shape of a man, and all wrong.
Fresh blood covered its mouth and ran down its chin.
Its shoulders were hunched up high. Its arms and legs were out of proportion with each other and with everything else. And the way it moved was the worst thing of all, because there was something in it that was almost human.
Owen looked at it.
And for the first time, he felt real fear.