It doesn’t take long before another monster arrives and interrupts their respite. It approaches from the far side of the fallen tree and barks at them as it tries to circle the obstacle.

  There’s a struggle. Joe and Todd put it down.

  Todd drags a haunch behind him and looks at Joe. “I hope they thin out.”

  “What.”

  “The monsters. I hope they thin out.”

  “Yea. Same. But can you do this all night if you have to?”

  Todd yanks on his beast leg to catch up to Joe. “I’ll make it ‘till my turn.”

  “I’ve really been surprised by you, Drips. I’m not going to say I expected you to chicken out or something, but you’re better at fighting than I’d have given you credit.”

  “I still suck.”

  “No. You’re learning.”

  “It’s just that in a way, I’ve waited my whole life for something like this to happen.”

  Joe scowls.

  “Not that I’m enjoying it,” Todd stammers, “it’s just that, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “Well I was definitely not expecting this,” Joe grunts. “I was expecting to get my degree, get a job, and do something normal.”

  “Start a family?”

  “I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe. I don’t know if I’d be a good dad.”

  “I think you’d be a great dad, man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Really.”

  “Yea, yea. This is far enough.”

  “Drop it here?”

  “Sure.”

  “It occurs to me that we can’t keep doing this. If we have to leave the camp behind every time we kill a monster, that means leaving the sleeping people alone with one person.”

  “Shit. What’s the alternative?”

  “I don’t know. Leave them there?”

  “I think we can leave 4H… damn. Sue Ann. Yea, I see what you mean.” Joe rubs his chin. “I don’t think we have a choice though.”

  “Maybe if Sue Ann and I do the carrying?”

  “Yea. Of course. That’ll work.”

  Joe and Todd return to the campfire. The others wait for them expectantly.

  Todd addresses them. “We didn’t see anything else out there.”

  “You should try going to sleep now. It’s going to be dawn soon,” Joe advises. “We’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

  Since it’s ready, they all take deep droughts of hot water from a shared bowl. Then, reluctantly, Candra slips into her tent. Randall goes more eagerly into his. The canvas flaps close behind them.

  Todd and Joe spread out into the night, at oblique angles to the camp. Sue Ann remains to feed the fire. Todd shivers and rubs himself to warm up. He bounces on his feet, and hops from side to side. He resigns himself to an uncomfortable next few hours, and stares into the dark.

  Beasts come prowling four times. The first visit, they only scavenge. They find the slain creatures and gorge on carrion. The second event is more fraught. Todd is flanked by a feathered mink, and it sneaks up on him silently. He catches it only as it is just about to leap on him. His last-second skill blast saves him. As Sue Ann hears it, she runs out to conjure her own ability. The two of them hold off the mink until Joe sprints over. Then, once it’s surrounded, the beast turns and runs away.

  Todd is surprised. So far, none of these animals have shown much of an instinct for self-preservation. He doesn’t like the idea of a smarter monster being out there.

  The third encounter happens on Joe’s side. He handles it before Todd can even get over to join him. The skewered goat-creature lies on the ground at Joe’s feet. His shield arm shakes from the impact with its horns. Todd and Sue Ann drag the body out into the woods with all the others.

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  The next attack comes hours later. Todd has started to lose focus, and the rays of dawn are striking. Warm air wafts between the trees and a haze of smoke hangs over the clearing.

  A crash of horned pangolins careens through the woods. They announce themselves from a distance and so Joe, Sue Ann, and Todd have time to intercept them. Todd shuffles in place, uncertain. He carries his wooden breastplate on his arm as a shield.

  Six beasts emerge charging from the trees.

  “Uh, Joe?”

  “Drips, it’s your shot.”

  Todd extends his arm and waits for the opportune instant, then conjures a [water spear] into the legs of the leading monster. Just afterwards, Sue Ann issues up a [phantom maul] and assaults another horned pangolin with it. The two beasts collapse, and their fellows smash into their upraised backsides. It’s a near complete traffic snarl.

  Joe raises Candra’s scepter in the air and howls. He rushes forward into the fray, Todd and Sue Ann following and uneager behind him. Todd regrets his ixwa as he shifts it in his palm. He should have grabbed Joe’s sword. Unfortunately, two beasts avoid the heap of their compatriots; slowed down, they verve about and trot around the sides. Todd engages one of them, ill equipped to bypass their armor. But Sue Ann is worse off, so he doesn’t grant himself any sympathy. He catches the horn of a beast on his shield and his arm creaks. He stabs at the creature’s face and gouges a line over its mouth.

  Meanwhile Joe whirls like a hurricane, striking at the heads of felled beasts. He acts with helter-skelter urgency, his blows often missing the mark.

  Todd draws a blank at first. He tries stabbing at the eye, but it protects itself reflexively. He bashes its nose with the rim of his shield, and it blanches. However, he’s no closer to killing the thing. Blocking again, he is shoved back an inch. He retaliates by kicking the beast in the shoulder, and its body rocks with the force.

  Stupid idea!

  Todd pushes forward, jamming his shield in the horned pangolin’s face. He shoves to the side and ducks down low. Once there, he grabs onto the flank armor of the beast before it can turn on him. He squats down, cycles cosmic energy through all of his thirteen strength, and heaves.

  The beast stumbles one step sideways and then tips over onto its back. It’s stubby legs wiggle in the air as it struggles to right itself. Todd doesn’t give it the chance. He pounces on its vulnerable underbelly and gives the thing the pincushion treatment: from spleen up to lung.

  “Hah, hah,” he pants, rolling off of the dying beast.

  He isn’t given a break. Another beast sets upon him. At first, Todd tries to repeat his maneuver, but the animal is skittish and quick on its feet. It nearly gores him.

  “Screw! You!”

  He boots it in the chin, vengefully. Then he whips his shield around and smashes the lip into its horn. Their clash devolves into a shoving match, and they jab at each other ineffectively.

  Their stalemate is ended when another beast breaks off from fighting Joe and attacks Todd from the side.

  “Oh, crap.”

  Todd backpedals rapidly, trying to keep both monsters in front of him. The problem is that this gives the creatures room to build up to a jog. They jostle each other and crash into his shield. He fends them off one more time, and then turns and runs. They chase. Todd leads them on a broad loop through the trees and back towards Joe.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry!”

  He spins on his heel, slides to a stop and sprays one pangolin with his skill. It trips. He skips around the other as it charges him and kicks it in the ribs as hard as he can. It teeters.

  At this point, they’ve made enough noise that Candra wakes up. She flips open her tent in bleary-eyed disarray, curses, and then launches out. She picks up Joe’s sword along the way.

  Todd kicks at the monster’s back haunches and drives it away from him.

  “Damn it, roll over,” he swears.

  The second, hydrated beast rises to its stubby feet and begins limping towards Todd. In short order, he’s caught between them again. As he jabs at them, his ixwa skitters off of their little armor plates.

  Frustration rises. He stubs his toe kicking one of them in the throat. His shield arm aches. He hikes up a knee to avoid getting horned in the shin. He sweats profusely.

  But he holds, holds long enough that Joe and Candra destroy the rest of the creatures. They arrive to save his skin.

  Todd batters his opponents with one last burst of energy before Candra shatters one beast’s neck protection, and Joe brains the other. Todd pushes from behind his shield, jerking the pangolin’s head up and to the side. Then Candra squares off and stabs it in its wounded part.

  And that is that.

  “Oh my God,” Todd groans. “Thank you. That was terrible.”

  “Hey, you got one,” Joe points.

  “Barely.”

  “It’s just a bad matchup for you. 4H, you doing alright?”

  She nods. “Yes. I hate those things.”

  “Thanks Candra. I’m sorry we woke you up,” Todd says.

  Candra smooths out her hair and frowns as her hand finds the burnt part. “Like I could sleep through this. It’s morning. How long was I out?”

  Joe shrugs. “A couple hours.”

  “Well I feel awful.”

  “Yea. I think that’s as good as we’re going to get you, though. We should wake up Toast, get all these things cleared out and start thinking about second shift.”

  “You’re going to go to sleep after that?”

  “Hey. We handled it.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Listen, it’s not going to get any better –”

  “We would have been safer if we’d stayed –”

  The discussion devolves into bickering as the tired young people vent their grievances and ill spirits. Todd gets swept up too. He doesn’t even know what he’s arguing about, just that he’s angry. Finally Sue Ann calms them down and ends the dispute.

  Somewhat ashamed, they waken Randall and start the process of disposing of the horned pangolins. It takes them nearly half an hour to do so safely. Thinking ahead, Todd convinces them to keep one, in order to harvest its scales for the crafters. The agreement is not unanimous.

  Joe chops more firewood, while Todd and Sue Ann prepare for bed. The sun rises.

  Todd strips off his gambeson and crawls into Randall’s tent, bone-weary and sore. He finds little comfort there. The ground is lumpy beneath the bedroll, and the canvass does little to block the outside noise. He tosses. He turns. He adjusts. Minutes pass, and Todd wonders if he’ll ever drift off.

  The sound of the crackling fire and the wind lulls him. Before he realizes it, he’s fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep.