“Yes, cousin,” Baeddan says, putting a discolored hand on Rhun’s knee.
Arthur thinks Rhun seems the elder of the two, the more weary. It breaks his heart and hehatesit. He’s filled with a longing to find some comfort for Rhun, sharper than it’s ever been. For a breath, nothing matters except making Rhun Sayer smile. It’s the bracelet—it has to be—binding them together, but when Rhun climbs the ladder, Arthur forces himself to ask Haf if she’ll be all right, and at her affirmation, he follows Rhun.
His friend curls on the bedding with his back to the edge, dark hair a messy cloud of curls.
Arthur says, “We should go down and join Mair. I think we should all be together now. It’ll make us stronger, heal faster. Remember more.”
Rhun shakes his head.
Grumbling a sigh, Arthur sits next to the pile of mattress and quilts. He sniffs angrily. This is not a position he ever wanted to be in. He draws up his knees and props his arms over them, using his forearms as a place to lay his head. He waits, falling into a drowsy peace, until Rhun hasn’t shifted or changed his breathing in several minutes.
Then Arthur carefully stretches out beside Rhun, back to back. He barely breathes, too aware of Rhun’s body, angry about it, angry at himself for being angry, and finally falls asleep holding himself tense and straight.
•••
ARTHUR RUNS HARD, LEAPING FALLENlogs and shoving through snapping branches, while the creatures dog his heels. He hunts for open ground to turn and fight, but there’s no time, no place. A skeletal rat-boy jumps onto his back, ripping at his hood, and shrieks with laughter as he uses Arthur’s hair like reins. Arthur flips one knife and slashes up at the tiny monster. His knife cuts, but the creature holds on. It slows Arthur, and other bone monsters claw at him.
Grunting, he spins and slams backward into a tree, crushing the monster on his back. He’s free for only a moment before another grabs his thigh. Arthur kicks, stabs downward with his long knife. The blade slides in too smoothly, and Arthur pops the rat-skull head off.
Laughter all around.
He runs again.
His pursuers are tiny and white, all knobby knees and elbows, some on two legs, others on four, with bloated stomachs, concave chests where the ribs press out like ladders. Their heads are the skulls of what they once were: rats and squirrels, owls, dogs, all with teeth and black hollow eyes. Some wear ragged capes of fur or feathers. They’re all half rotted.
The darkness hides leaves and slippery deadfall, and it’s all Arthur can do to stay on his feet and ahead of them. He’s no thought to direction, just getting away and leading them away from Mairwen.
His heel catches and he stumbles, drops a knife before impaling himself, and hits the ground hard. Rolling fast, he swipes with his remaining knife, bares his teeth, and growls. The bone creatures cackle like tiny ringing bells, clapping and dancing around him. One, fish-belly pale with a young deer skull, holds up the fallen knife, and then they swarm.
Arthur yells, tries to leap up, but they’ve got his legs, and two jump down from a tree onto his chest. It blows his breath away, and he struggles to suck more in again. He can’t roll. He can’t move. Then there’s a cold blade at his neck, and the black, empty eye sockets of a raven skull.
This cannot be the end. He will not die here, so shortly into his run. He will not die by these damned tiny monsters.
But his head rings and his chest burns. They’re tearing at his coat, tugging open ties to push it open and reveal his wool shirt. One whines something, like words.
Another answers, then another.
Arthur’s breath is evening, though his heart pounds and his head aches. He still holds one knife in his left hand as he watches the bone creatures. They surround him, at least twenty, hissing and whispering to themselves. He has to risk it, or they’ll bury him here.
In a single motion, he flings his knife up and slides to the side. Their knife at his throat cuts, but he barely feels it yet. His knife slashes the bone boy at his head and Arthur is free, grunting under the onslaught of grasping claws reaching for his arms and legs and chest. One has his hair. Arthur kicks with all his strength, sending more of them flying back.
Then he’s up and about to run again, except the bone creatures scatter.
A part of him knows the most likely reason they fled is because something worse is coming, but he leans into a tree anyway, puts his arm against it and his forehead against his arm, and breathes deeply. Pain spreads in a perfect line across his neck, but the wound barely bleeds, he can breathe, and he can turn his head, so it’s shallow.
Carefully, Arthur puts his back to the tree and looks around. He’s alone, surrounded by gnarled black trees dripping sap that glints reddish in the moonlight. Like blood. But the smell in the air is floral and sweet. Arthur steps toward his dropped knife. It’s caught between roots. His back aches from blossoming bruises, and he’s amazed he hardly noticed the pitching, tangled ground while he was down on it. Jerking his knife free, he sheathes it, and the other. His quiver is cracked and useless, from slamming into that tree to remove the bone creature, or from his fall, he doesn’t know. Taking out the handful of arrows, he tucks them into the back of his belt as best he can. It’ll lose him time when he needs to draw them, but at least he’ll have them. He backtracks slowly for a few minutes to find his bow if he can.
Too soon, he realizes it’s impossible. This is only the way he believes he ran, and he’s not sure when he lost the bow. It might be all the way back at that tree Mairwen climbed to orient them.
He doesn’t say her name out loud, though he wants to, just to remind himself how it feels.
At a quiet noise to his left, Arthur spins, knife raised. He stares through the shadows, unblinking, as if the longer he stares the more likely he’ll be able to see through the darkness to whatever shifted leaves.
A light flickers.
It moves like a living thing, like someone coming toward him through all the tangled forest with a small white candle.
Ducking behind a tree, Arthur keeps his gaze on the light.
