“Kallum.” My voice cracked. “The coop is burning. I have to?—”
“Go. Fast.”
I ran.
The heat hit me before I reached the door. Flames rose up the back wall, smoke pouring through gaps in the boards. I yanked the coop door open and the hens exploded outward, squawking and flapping, scattering into the smoke-filled dawn.
“Go,” I told them. Stupid. They couldn’t understand me. But I said it anyway. “Go. Find somewhere safe.”
They disappeared into the chaos. Maybe they’d survive. Maybe the foxes would get them. Maybe they’d burn anyway when the fire spread.
But I’d given them a chance. It was all I could do.
Back inside, the smoke was thicker. They weren’t trying to break through anymore. They weren’t trying to take the farmhouse.
They were burning it down around me.
“Kallum.” My voice was raw. “They’ve got fire. They’re burning everything.”
“I see it.” His breathing was worse now. I could hear him running. “Get to the north door. I’m coming around the back.”
“Turnip can’t walk.”
“Then carry him.”
“He weighs two hundred kilos!”
“Then drag him. Anhara. You have to move. Now.”
I looked at Turnip. He looked back at me.
“Okay,” I told him. “This is going to hurt. I’m sorry.”
I grabbed his front harness. The one Torek had made for him when he was small enough to need leading. It still fit, barely. Turnip had grown into it over the years.
I pulled.
He squealed. That hurt sound that cut through me every time. But he tried to help. His front legs scrambled at the floor, pushing, dragging his hindquarters behind him.
“Good pig. That’s good. Keep going.”
The smoke was thicker now. Coming through the walls. Through the cracks in the windows I’d boarded up after the last assault.
The farmhouse wasn’t burning yet. But it would be.
Everything was going to burn.
I dragged Turnip toward the north door. Every step was agony. His weight. My exhaustion. The smoke filling my lungs.
Kallum had the Regalia. Kallum was coming. I just had to get out.
The north door was still intact. The explosion from the last assault had taken out a section of wall, but the door itself had held. I reached for the handle.
“Anhara.”
Kallum’s voice. Not through the comm.
Behind me.
