“Can you see me clearly?”
“Aye.”
“Good. Sit.”
“I must go back.”
“No.”
“My brother?—”
“Is still fighting, and you bleeding beside him won’t improve his mood.”
I pressed folded linen against the cut near his temple and put his own hand over it.
“Hold that hard, and if you feel sick, dizzy, or suddenly think Gilda is charming, tell someone immediately.”
Another man came through the trees limping, and then another, until the space behind the shelters had become a rough receiving point for the wounded.
The battle itself was still beyond the clearing, but I could hear it now beneath the shouts and horns. Metal striking metal, horses crashing through brush, men crying out in anger and pain. Every instinct in my body wanted to go toward it, the old pull of the call for help.
Go in. Find them. Get them out. But this time, I forced myself to stay, because these people were my fire.
A woman screamed. I spun toward her, ready for blood, only to see her husband staring at a torn sack of barley lying in the mud.
I crossed the clearing. “Leave it.”
“It is winter grain.”
“I know.”
That was the cruelty of it. I did know. Food wasn’t replaceable here in the way it had been in my world, and a torn sack might mean hunger months from now, but a dead man couldn’t eat winter grain.
“Go.”
He stared at the barley spilling gold into the mud, then turned away.
The first arrow landed near the fire.
“Everyone not fighting, north now!”
The second arrow struck the roof of a lean-to, and what followed was worse. A burning bundle landed in the thatch, scattered sparks, and rolled into the dry grass.
“Water!” someone shouted.
Two women ran for buckets.
“No. The wind’s south to north,” I said. “If the roofs catch, the smoke follows the retreat path.”
Their faces went pale.
“Take the water to the path. Wet cloths for the children. Move.”
More fire landed among the shelters, and the camp changed within seconds as smoke began to flatten beneath the trees and drift north.
People coughed. A horse screamed somewhere beyond the southern barrier, then Wulfric appeared between the trees.
“Darcy.”
