Orrock’s eyes drooped several times before his sensitive ears detected a subtle noise. His head jerked up just as Mohani was sliding to her right, preparing to leap.

She smiled like a child caught sneaking sweets. “You have to sleep eventually, Guar.”

“As do you,” Orrock grumbled.

The Agnise shrugged. “Perhaps. The simpler solution is to let me do my business.”

“I am not here for your ‘business,’ Agnise. It would be—”

Mohani shushed the larger creature. She straightened her back, rising slowly.

Orrock frowned. “What foolishness now?”

“Something is coming closer,” Mohani said quietly.

Orrock waved. He had not heard anything, and so assumed the Agnise was attempting a ploy to lower his guard. “Then go see what it is, and may Anyi protect your path.”

She crept slowly toward the nearest trees. “I am not leaving you here alone to be killed by some forest monster. Your life matters as much as my own.”

“Imagine my joy.”

“Shh! Wait here. It grows closer.”

Orrock watched the well-muscled creature creep out of the reach of his firelight. He kept a close eye on her vanishing figure as long as he could, until she was swallowed by darkness. He could only barely hear her moving, stealthily, back the way she had first attacked from.

Now was his chance.

Working quickly, Orrock gathered his scant belongings. With a wry, triumphant smile, he lit out in the opposite direction.

The Guar wanted to laugh aloud as he ran through the woods, making no attempt to hide his path. It wouldn’t matter; the Agnise were skilled hand-to-hand combatants, but not trackers. Mohani had stumbled upon him by sheer chance, he knew; probably on her way to the nearest Guar encampment, which lay much further to the south—or rather, it did ten years ago.

In any case, at this pace, he could put enough distance between them that Mohani would likely never find him again. He’d run until faint, and then perhaps ascend a tree to sleep so she could not surprise him—if she ever found him.

He was still congratulating himself when a scream split the forest in half.

Orrock skid to a stop. The scream had been Mohani’s. Part pain, part rage.

He stood silently, listening hard.

Not another sound.

A trap, he thought. Of course. She knew she couldn’t keep up so she was baiting him back.

Orrock’s brow furrowed. A solid theory, except the Agnise were not known for their craftiness. And no Agnise he’d ever heard of would cry for help. True, the scream hadn’t been a word as such, but the sound was unmistakable.

Mohani was in danger.

Orrock took a step back the way he had come, toward the campfire. She had said something was out there, closing in. He had dismissed that as part of a ploy, but now . . .

What if she was right?

Fighting an urge to curse aloud, Orrock struck out for his campsite. He reached it quickly, breathing hard, and dropped his pack to the ground, keeping only his staff in hand. He threw himself in the direction Mohani had disappeared.

The sounds of battle rang out as soon as he was beyond the light of the fire. Mohani’s grunts and shouts were clear, ringing above the chittering and yelps of some other creature—no, creatures. Many of them.

Mohani screamed once more, giving Orrock a beacon to follow in the darkness. Suddenly he was upon them, and he clutched the staff.

Dogrels.

Orrock’s lip curled and he roared, making the trees tremble. The diminutive creatures swarming Mohani paused only briefly before a cluster of them ran at the giant monk.

Dogrels disgusted Orrock. Scavengers with lizard skin and razor teeth. Each stood only as high as Orrock’s knee, and they travelled in enormous packs—born together from a thousand eggs. The first to hatch would summarily consume the others, leaving about a tenth of the brood alive. Even so, this left a family of a hundred or so dogrels that stuck more or less together for the rest of their lives.

This pack numbered at least fifty, though in the darkness it was difficult to tell. Orrock roared again and swung his staff in a wide arc, catching a handful of the scaly bipeds and sending them flying into the forest. The others danced nimbly out of the way on their clawed feet and dove at the monk.

Orrock shrieked angrily as the dogrels buried teeth and claws into his exposed legs. He longed for Mohani’s leathers. Even so, he saw that her clothing was beginning to shred, and her bare arms were streaked with blood matting against her brown fur.

Orrock dropped his staff, and used his hands to rip two of the dogrels off his upper thighs. They were climbing him like a mountain. These two he crushed readily in his mighty fists, dropping them limp to the forest floor. Holy Creator Anyi loved all his creation, but his creation was also allowed to defend itself.

Mohani bellowed as one of the foul creatures reached her face, scraping with its small, clawed fingers to get at her juicy eyes, a favorite target among dogrels. Orrock shook himself wildly, back and forth, once then twice, and succeeded in throwing off a few more of the animals. He lunged for Mohani and slapped the dogrel off her face.

Their eyes met for one heartbeat as the attack raged on. She seemed shocked he was aiding her; and perhaps even affected.

Dogrels did not know the meaning of retreat or surrender; they possessed only enough intelligence to make them pack hunters and trackers. No animal, no creature, was too big for them—or if it was, they didn’t know and wouldn’t stop.

Orrock opened his arms wide, letting the hideous animals crawl quickly up his monk’s tunic while Mohani batted and kicked at as many as she could reach. Three, four, five of the dogrels reached Orrock’s torso; he felt another two or three on his back. He brought his arms together as if hugging himself, trapping the dogrels on his torso. Orrock threw himself backward with a grunt, pushing his weight into the earth.

The dogrels on his back were crushed instantly, their birdlike bones snapping. At the same moment, Orrock squeezed his arms. The dogrels pinned beneath them squealed and fought, then stopped.

Mohani fell. A clutch of dogrels sprang for her, swarming her like ants. She thrashed about, flinging off a few which were quickly replaced by a few more. Blood coated the Agnise’s face and arms. The lower half of her pants were shredded to mere scraps, and blood flowed down her shins.

Orrock tossed the bodies aside and stood. “Brace yourself, Agnise!”

He met her eyes. She scowled at him before squeezing her own eyes shut. Orrock opened his arms and leapt.

The monk landed atop her with a sickening crunch. A dozen or more dogrels were smashed beneath him. Orrock rolled to the side, horns flinging up divots of dirt and dead leaves in his wake. On his knees now, he grabbed handfuls of the dogrels as they came at him or swarmed Mohani again, ignoring bites and scratches all across his exposed flesh. Mohani did the same, grabbing and snapping the little monsters between her fists as quickly as she could get hold of them.

At last the attack ceased. Orrock rose quickly and surveyed himself, then Mohani, then the forest around them. If there were any dogrels alive, they’d run off.

Mohani climbed slowly to her feet and swayed. She sneered at the broken bodies and mass of innards that surrounded them. “Too bad they are not delicious.”

“You are bleeding too freely,” Orrock said, inspecting the deep and many gouges in her flesh. “We must bind these wounds.”

Mohani reached for a tree to steady herself. “I thought I was your enemy.”

“You are my irritant. It is similar, but not quite the same.”

Grinning savagely, with blood staining her teeth, the Agnise reached out for Orrock’s neck. He batted it away. “Stop that!”

Mohani laughed—then crumbled at the knee. Orrock caught her.

“There is no time now for humor nor your mission. You will bleed to death. Precisely what the dogrels were planning. Come.”

He helped the Agnise stumble back to the campsite, where the fire had grown dim. He laid her out beside the coals.

“My hammer,” Mohani said, her eyelids fluttering. “Do not forget my hammer. If I die I must hold it.”

“You will not die,” Orrock said, though he was far from sure. “I will retrieve your hammer once you are bound.”

He went through his pack and pulled out the small bundle of curatives Obos had packed. Glancing at Mohani, he realized it would not be enough to staunch the mortal bleeding. Sighing, he knew there was one other source of the bandages needed to clot her blood and save her life.

Orrock pulled his orange robe over his head, revealing nothing more than the simple brown folded undergarment worn by all the Brothers of the Hands of Anyi. Mohani’s eyes stayed shut despite his near nudity; any other time, the Agnise would surely be assessing his body. A bad sign that his nakedness did not rouse her. He tore the robe into bandages and longed for the sun to rise.

She would not last the night.

# # #

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