They move in a caravan of injury. Todd’s right leg is a wooden post and he is a bipod: swinging the extremity and hopping along on it.

  Randall swallows another lesser healing pill and shambles, favoring his right side. Meanwhile Sue Ann is carried on the shoulders of Joe and Candra while the feeling slowly returns to her foot. Finally, Joe holds one arm close to his body, waiting for it to heal. Without sheaths to put them in, the swords are dangerous to carry; so Randall carts Sue Anne’s katana in his other hand.

  The five of them leave the double doors of the mansion and skirt around the last few partially eaten rat bodies in the street. They follow as Joe points his sword down a main artery and whispers for them to take that path. Glowing fungal fronds emerge from the stones and light the way every twenty feet or so. A moon rises over the valley, pale and gold in the sky.

  With every other jolting step, Todd shakes out his frozen limb. Blood wiggles the venom loose from his tissues, and while the pain is greater, his limberness begins to return. He cycles cosmic energy throughout his whole self in stuttering tides in order to maintain his vitality. Taking a page from Joe, his [mercury rod] is attached to the haft of his ixwa, extending its length into a short spear.

  When the group inevitably comes across a pair of beasts, Candra curses and Sue Ann is set down on the hard ground with Randall to watch over her. The two creatures are of thigh height, heavily armored, and scaled like a pangolin. A single sharp horn protrudes from their noses, and short stubby legs gallop as they charge. Joe and Candra step up to either side of Todd, then Candra leaps ahead. She’s hurled eighteen feet in an instant, then she bends in half and slams her scepter down on the flank of the rightmost beast. It swings its head at her, but she contorts her body to avoid it and then is yanked backwards to return to her original position. She staggers back into place.

  Todd targets the other horned pangolin and sprays it in the leading leg, causing the beast to trip and fall headfirst with a thump. That’s one, momentarily disabled. With little time to maneuver further, the three of them receive the first beast by surrounding it. The animal rushes directly at Todd in their center, so he holds his spear firmly and jabs it ahead of him. With a nasty case of tunnel vision, he aims directly for its horn. The weapon glances off the keratinous protrusion, scores the beast’s eyebrow, and finally stabs into its shoulder where it lodges between scales. The [mercury rod] bends with the impact, and Todd finds himself in range of the beast. It bucks, swinging its head around wildly.

  Staggering backwards until he falls on his ass, Todd does the only thing he can think of. He clenches the base of the horn with his left hand and holds on for dear life. His largely unhealed hairline fracture flares up, but he holds his body away from danger.

  Thankfully, his friends have already stepped in. Joe shatters armored plates like dainty china every time he swings his sword, and Candra’s scepter reverberates as she pummels the torso of the beast. The creature lets out a honking wail and lifts up on its hind legs.

  Todd clambers back up and snatches for his weapon. He reaches it after a moment, and yanks it. The spear is stuck.

  “Are you kidding me,” Todd mutters.

  He pulls on his weapon like a lever, forcing the monster down again and holding its head in place. Candra darts into the opening and brings her weapon around and directly into its forehead. With sonic blending liberally applied to its mesencephalon, the beast collapses once, tries to rise to its feet, and then collapses again.

  Todd waits until it’s down and digs his foot into the shoulder, dragging hard at his ixwa until he tears out a scale and it comes loose. At the same time, Joe and Candra have already moved on to the other horned pangolin, which kicks and thrashes as it guns for Candra. They pincer it, battering the creature and alternating so that it does not bear down on either of them. Grabbing his ixwa by its proper handle, Todd hurries to join in. There’s still a bit of armor stuck to his weapon’s point, and it only knocks off once he stabs it twice into the small plates of the beast’s back. At an awkward angle, the hanging [mercury rod] jostles his armpit with his strikes.

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  As the animal turns towards Candra and her shield, a flank of broken protective covering exposes itself. Taking the advantage, Todd spears the giant pangolin in the vulnerable spot. The head of his blade digs in deep, and elicits a bleating grunt from the monster. It wrenches its body, trying to pull off – and a sucking sound marks the tip’s exit from the beast’s abdomen. Its head blurs, and Todd falls on his tailbone again as he avoids the thrusting nasal spike which comes his way.

  In the end, the pangolin weakens. Confused and beset on all sides, it slows until Candra delivers a massive wallop directly onto its skull, and it finally dies.

  Todd breathes heavily. He channels energy to smooth out his spear’s crooked handle, and observes the bodies.

  “Jeez,” he mutters.

  “Oh nice!” Candra bounces, “level ten!”

  “Really? Sweet,” Todd congratulates her. “Did you get anything special?”

  “I think… no, just the two points,” she pouts.

  “Nice work. But we shouldn’t slow down,” Joe pronounces. “Get up everyone.”

  “You know, I bet someone could make really strong armor out of these things,” Todd muses.

  Joe shakes his head. “Yea, probably. Too bad.”

  Todd doesn’t argue. Joe is right, they need to continue. Sue Ann is lifted back up, and the group heads onward. Randall tries speaking nervously, and the others hush him quiet.

  More mobility is returning to Todd’s leg. The medicinal energy from his earlier pill fades completely, and the pain in his arm only spikes when he rolls his wrist. He shuffles through his bag and finds his [dire corvid marrow] pills, then swallows his second dose. One pill remains.

  In time, they are ambushed by naked rats. Randall is forced to fight two handed to defend Sue Ann while the others face the wave directly. Todd tries to conserve his cosmic energy, but lets off an involuntary [water spear] to stall one of the beasts. They clash. Now that he’s fought the rats so many times, it becomes easier to predict their motion; their bites, their leaps, their dodges. He kicks and thrusts in every direction until the way is clear again. Reaching down, he plucks a broken tooth out of the sole of his boot.

  Without any major injuries, the squad gathers itself to proceed. Along their trek, they stop twice more to handle a feathered mink and a cluster of centipedes. Soon, the streets begin to thin out. The rounded buildings become spaced out and sparse.

  Suddenly, Joe’s gaze turns upwards.

  “Get inside!” he calls out. He drags Sue Ann along with him.

  Todd stares dumbly into the air as he tries to find what spooked Joe, then he realizes what he’s doing and chases after them. The five pile into a small hut.

  “What was it?” Sue Ann asks.

  “The flying thing,” Joe replies. “I didn’t get a good look at it. It was big though.”

  “Great,” Candra gripes.

  They stay there for a long several minutes. They quietly chat about their most recent scraps and discuss ways that they could improve. Eventually, Joe sticks his head out the door and checks to see if the way is clear.

  “Okay. We’re almost out of town. I want to move quick if that thing is out here.”

  At this point, Sue Ann is nearly walking under her own power. She hobbles, hanging off of Candra alone. Randall’s gait has slightly evened out, and all of them are making better time as they go.

  Low short walls have started to appear, surrounding solitary buildings. They seem to demarcate small gardens or yards. Along the way, the group passes by bloodstains and a faint dusting of yellow powder. By consensus, they circumvent the powder with a large arc.

  Shortly, they are beset by a tall, two legged animal with a humped back and a bloodhound’s face. Randall calls it a ‘camel ostrich’ in surprise, and then the thing runs at them. It’s jaw slavers and its tiny arms flap uselessly along its sides. Candra winds up, pivots and hits it in the face like a baseball. Stunned, the beast falls into a jumble. Immediately, Todd and Joe leap onto the downed creature stabbing and hacking without mercy. Its thick hide resists until Todd cycles cosmic energy into his arm and jabs the same spot repeatedly until its flesh parts. He punctures a lung, and the wheezing beast stops struggling. Joe smashes it in the crown of its head.

  “And that’s level ten,” he suspires.

  “Aw. Killsteal,” Todd blurts out.

  “What?” Joe asks.

  Todd turns away in embarrassment. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Joe swaps his weapon into his off hand, and holds the first one out to help Todd up. Todd does the same and takes it. He lifts to his feet.

  Open space stretches out before them, a great no man’s land of scorched clay. Solitary huts pockmark the nearby area, but empty out the further one goes. The cliff face which bounds one edge of the valley stretches out and slowly recedes into the ground, and the street underneath them stretches out into a road that heads off into the distance. Out in that direction, a series of low hills obscures the bottom stretches of far woods: their destination.

  Figures move in the night, alone and in small mobs. It’s unclear how or if they can be avoided: the only shadows lie under the lip of the cliff.

  Closing his eyes, Todd girds himself for a long and bitter journey.

  “Come on everybody,” Joe sighs, “we’re burning moonlight here. Let’s go.”