Shrieks seems down. That’s the first thing I notice. His head appears too heavy for his neck and his spikes flicker dully. Relief briefly flashes through them as he sees our party, but it dies down quickly enough into the numbness that I can feel through the Bond. What’s happened here? Haven’t we won?

  “Shrieks? Who won the battle?” I ask, my eyes searching past his figure, delivering into the village itself. The buildings look intact as far as I can see, and Flower’s great tree doesn’t seem damaged in any way. But the village is bigger than it used to be and I can’t see everything. Narrowing my eyes, I focus on the gates on the other side. They’re open and look damaged. But if they’re open and Shrieks is waiting here then that means the battle must be over one way or another.

  Tamer, he greets with a subdued tone. We had several enemy samurans surrender. They are waiting near the gates for you to decide what to do with them. His eyes flicker over the two Warriors we’ve brought with us but he says nothing. He’s not normally verbose, but this is even more reticent than usual.

  “Is it safe in the village now?” I check with him. Shrieks twitches his tail in the suggestion of a shrug.

  Safe enough. There is no more fighting.

  “Alright,” I say slowly, then look away from him to my companions. “Dusty, Catch, can you take the prisoners with you to join the others, please? Fenrir, Hades and Persephone, go with them to make sure the Warriors don’t even think about doing anything. You can tell them that I’ll be along shortly.”

  The small group sends their acknowledgements and then turns to leave. The Warriors stumble along willingly enough – I can see the feeling of defeat flickering through their spikes. Perhaps they’d hoped that the main force had had a better showing against our own forces, but the reality seems to have hit them hard. Seeing all the corpses of their people piled up outside must have also been a bit of a blow to them.

  We start walking through the village. Bastet, Storm, and Ninja spread out, their demeanour watchful. Perhaps they fear that there might be hidden threats. I don’t think it’s necessary – Shrieks said that the village was safe enough and I trust his judgement. Even if he is in a mood I’ve never seen him in before.

  “What happened?” I ask him.

  Shrieks is silent for a long moment. Then he starts retelling the story of the battle in an emotionless report. The numbness threatens to crack as he explains how he attacked and killed the Pathwalker making what sounds like Core bombs. And abruptly, I realise why he’s reacting like this.

  I know him, I know how conscientious he is about the safety of his Pathwalkers. He does not try to stop us doing what we must, or even what we wish to do. But he does his absolute best to keep us safe. And yes, that includes me, even if I’m not female. I’m classed as a Pathwalker, and that’s what counts for him. So to have killed a Pathwalker intentionally…it’s got to be tearing him up inside. Even if she was trying to kill his own charges.

  The battle was brought to a close soon after that, Shrieks explains, not lingering on the Pathwalker’s death beyond a brief pause to collect himself. Several of our enemies surrendered; the others were killed either before they could or because they insisted on fighting until the end.

  “Do we have numbers? Of enemy dead and living? I’ve seen the bodies of our own people – I hope that there aren’t any more….”

  No, all of our people have been collected and laid out there ready for your decision of what to do. So far the count of enemy dead is sixty-nine. Of that, there are sixty-three Warriors dead and six…Pathwalkers. These numbers include the group your strike force defeated in the forest and those killed before they reached our gates. It does not include your recent battle. With your additional two Warriors, there are eighteen captured – five Pathwalkers and thirteen Warriors. Your black flying beast is currently out in the forest looking for any survivors or more bodies which have escaped our notice.

  I nod, glad to have an explanation for Noir’s absence.

  “Was he useful in the battle?” I ask. Shrieks twitches his tail slightly again.

  He came soon after I…not long before the end of the battle. His appearance may have helped the remaining enemies choose to surrender instead of continue fighting. But his eyes were useful when checking the village for survivors.

  “Alright, good,” I acknowledge Shrieks, though send Sirocco off to join him with a thought – two eyes are better than one and Noir isn’t exactly invulnerable. “Tree-whisperer had twenty-one Warriors with her and three other Pathwalkers. We killed all but two of the Warriors, so that brings the total enemy dead to ninety-two, of which ten are Pathwalkers and eighty-two are Warriors.” I sigh, feeling some of the same numbness that Shrieks does.

  We did the right thing in defending ourselves, I know that – surrendering would have just led to at least some of our people being killed, our village being destroyed, and everything I have built up here wiped away. Tree-whisperer probably would have taken our Pathwalkers to add to her own, and then either left the rest to fend for themselves or killed the Warriors first and then left the remaining Unevolved to live in the ruins of a village which had lost its heart.

  But still, seeing the sheer scale of the destruction, counting those who have died on either side of the conflict…. The aftermath is the worst part of battles, I think. Some might say that the actual fighting is the worst part – it’s frequently painful, almost always fraught and frantic, and there’s the risk of dying at every moment. But because it’s so desperate, there’s little time for thinking. We just have to do.

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  The aftermath is when thought comes in, and we start wondering whether maybe there had been another way. Whether perhaps if I’d been a little faster, a little stronger, a little smarter, I might have saved at least some of those who had died. Whether fighting was necessary at all, or if there could have been another alternative.

  The thoughts can drive a man mad, and I have to be careful not to fall into their trap. I’m not currently in one of my Soul Challenges, but I might as well be – the sucking morass of my thoughts is as strong, even if not quite as obvious as someone wearing my face or Lucy’s face shrieking accusations at me.

  And suddenly I realise that that’s exactly what’s happening with Shrieks. Under the numbness, there is recrimination. He was the overall commander in the fight for the village, so ultimately all decisions rest on his head. And from what I know of his character, the fact that six Pathwalkers died in the battle has got to be killing him, even if only one was from our village.

  I stop walking and Shrieks automatically stops with me. Turning, I face him dead on and put my hand on his shoulder. He looks slightly startled at my touch, raising his head fully for the first time since we encountered each other at the gates.

  “You did a good job,” I tell him earnestly. He looks like he’s about to interrupt, so I give a sharp shake of my head as a non-verbal signal to be silent. “You defended your village and your people. That’s what’s important.”

  He eyes me for a long moment, then I see his expression crumple as much as a samurans’ reptilian visage ever does. I sense him allowing the walls keeping his emotions at bay to shatter.

  But…so many died, he says weakly. My…brothers. My Pathwalkers.

  “I know,” I agree, allowing my grief to mingle with his across the Bond. We stand there together for a moment in shared grief. None of the samurans I’m closest to have died, fortunately. The closest was Leaf – a Warrior I spent some time with in the past. But still, all of these samurans were people I’ve worked with, talked with, possibly even argued with. Several of them have been on the council, and their places will need to be filled. And beyond that, they are my people because Tree-whisperer attacked my village. And there’s Honey, who wouldn’t have died if Tree-whisperer hadn’t encouraged the trees to attack.

  I don’t even know why she attacked, not for sure. I can theorise that she felt threatened by the rapid rise of my village or perhaps she had heard of my cave and thought that it held the secrets to a second Evolution. But I can’t know if either of those were her motivation to strike. And now I never will – she’s dead. There’s no guarantee that she told any of her sisters her true motives, and considering that nine of the fourteen sisters she brought with her are now dead, the chances of one of those remaining knowing her real reasons are slim.

  Ultimately, I don’t even know whether I care about it – or whether I should care. They attacked us, we defended ourselves. That’s it.

  “We did what we had to do,” I tell Shrieks firmly. “Tree-whisperer brought a force which should have been able to overcome us, and we defeated them with a third fewer casualties than they had. That is something to be proud about. Thanks to our preparatory efforts and our performance during the actual battles, we have proven that we are easily the match of even the lead village of the tribe! Tell me that that’s not an achievement, I dare you!”

  I even pause for a moment for him to refute my words. He doesn’t and I see a little more life returning to his dull eyes.

  “I know that we lost people, and even a single life lost is worthy of grief and regret. And I know that you are upset by the fact that Pathwalkers died. We recently attended a festival with all of these Pathwalkers and probably a good portion of the Warriors. That we’ve been brought to kill each other less than half a year later is a tragedy. But that’s not on us!” I urge, putting my hand on his other shoulder and looking him straight in his eyes. His muzzle is still pointed downwards, allowing me to do so. “It’s not on us, you hear? We didn’t attack them. They attacked us!

  “I sent them a Warrior with a verbal ransom note for their Pathwalkers – all they needed to do was send a delegation to bring some Cores and acknowledge that they wouldn’t take any action against us and they would have got their two Pathwalkers back with no loss of life whatsoever! But they didn’t. Tree-whisperer grabbed as many Warriors as she could and marched on us. I then gave her another opportunity to retrieve her Pathwalkers and return with no violence, and she didn’t take it. I even told the whole group that we would not pursue anyone who turned around and left – yet from the looks of it, no one chose to desert. And few even surrendered.

  “So Shrieks, you have nothing to feel guilty about. All of these deaths – of their own village and of ours – are on them. Not you.”

  I’m grateful to see the fire in his eyes rekindle. I let go and step back as he lifts his muzzle and takes a deep breath. Then, clicking his jaws together, he regains the air of indomitable competence which I am so used to him presenting.

  Thank you Tamer, your words are–

  Markus! Bastet cries.

  Urgency spikes from all three raptorcats and I turn to where I sense they are. I haven’t managed to complete my twist when a weight slams into me and I feel something press into my armour.

  Unbalanced, I stumble, the weight falling to the ground. I stare at it uncomprehendingly for a moment. The patterning of forest-coloured fur is unmistakable. As is the spear through her head.

  here!

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