Jarod was lost in a headspace that included no room for thoughts of anything except his fallen friend. He knelt beside Wilfurd, red blood already staining his clothes as he lay his arms against the man’s chest. Jarod was no stranger to death — jobs were dangerous and the chances of a well-trained doctor passing by were slim this far from one of the cities — but to have come so far, and gotten so close to rescuing Wilfurd, and to have lost it all at the last moment, was devastating. He’d failed at his task, at the promise he’d made to Esther’s kids. Wilfurd was dead.

  Bit by bit, the fatigue of battle and his emotions ran Jarod dry. His head pulled back as his weary body righted himself, a burn in his thighs from bowing forward for so long. He fell back on his hands and sat down with his legs in front of him, double vision replaying the scenes of destruction over the alleyway, now filled with the signs of death.

  Blue blood from the trifleys mixed with Wilfurd’s and what other red blood had been spilled in their final stand. The wood walls of the houses next to them were coated with it, as were the remaining five figures that yet lived in the garden alcove. Tex’ana stood over him defensively, long limbs and even longer glaive allowing Jarod to feel secure in the moment succumbing to his grief.

  Wilfurd’s injury might have been the most fatal, but it wasn’t the only one. Filgrin still hunched and limping from their earlier encounter, Nikolao’s armor was rent open to reveal nasty cuts beneath, and Tex’ana’s legs were cut up badly, torn cloth revealing hairy dark legs already scabbing over.

  Awareness of the outside world filtered back in as numbness reset his emotional state. He was so used to the terrible jibbering of trifleys that the sounds of normal townspeople cheering and calling out prickled his ears. He glanced up, eyes slowly coming into focus past the alleyway on the distant street where people he knew, people he’d worried were lost forever, were walking without fear, hugging each other.

  He felt a soft hand touch his shoulder behind him. Filgrin took a knee beside him, speaking quietly, as though Jarod had just woken up.

  “Ye did well lad,” the old bowyer said. “Don’t give up your grief, but find peace in what else we’ve done today. Wilfurd might be gone, but so many others will live.”

  A lump in his throat prevented Jarod from speaking. He breathed in deeply through his nose. The iron smell of blood was heavy on the air alongside dust and gunpowder. Jarod stood up with an effort, eyes kept on the open streets in front of him. “I need some fresh air,” he said.

  “Go on lad,” said Filgrin. “I’ll keep vigil for now. Go an’ clear yer mind.”

  Jarod nodded solemnly and walked out into the street.

  It was bright. Brighter than it had seemed all day, as though the sun were doing its part to keep the trifleys underground now, scaring them off with its intensity. All around, people were gathering in groups, running up to friends and family to celebrate making it through the experience. Alongside the celebration though, there was sadness, as spouses found loved ones lying face down in the street, or buried among the rubble.

  “I want to thank you for what you did back there.” It was Shelley, walking up to him looking intact, but shaken. “It’s thanks to the three of you that we’re alive. There’s no way I would have survived that many of the monsters if you hadn’t been there to hold them off. I wouldn’t be going back to my children and my husband without you.”

  “It really wasn’t anything,” Jarod said. “I was just doing my job.”

  “Oh don’t give me that Jarod. I see the weariness in your bones. You’ve been running on fumes ever since I first saw you at the mill. Don’t think I don’t see what you’ve done for me. For all of us.”

  Jarod heard the truth in her words, and a measure of the stress and guilt he’d been carrying drained out of him. “Thank you. Your words mean a lot right now.”

  Shelley smiled and wrapped an arm around his back to pull him in for a hug. “Oh, you men are all alike,” she said.

  Jarod couldn’t help but smile at that. “I should be thanking you too. We needed you and Filgrin finishing off as many as you did or we would’ve been overwhelmed from the start.”

  Shelley blushed and looked down to wipe her hands on her dress in embarrassment. “I really don’t know what came over me to make me join. It was foolish on my part, thinking I should join the fight like that. It was just… I was tired of sitting in the mill, just hiding from them. I felt like I needed to do something, like I couldn’t just let them run over our town like that.”

  “I know what you mean. I think it was the same for me.”

  The two of them stood like that for a while, leaned against each other, watching the life of the village spring forth again. Each provided the other with some unsaid support from an experience neither of them could fully articulate.

  Eventually, Shelley pulled away, turning towards the bridge. “I’d best be getting back to my family. They’ll want to know I’m safe. I take it this is enough repayment for your ‘crimes’?” She nodded to indicate Nikolao and Tex’ana, standing away from the crowd against one of the houses by the alleyway.

  “And then some,” he said. “I’m still going with them though. We’ll need numbers if we’re to follow those monsters into their burrow.”

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  “Just, be careful with them, Jarod.”

  Shelley was about to leave, but she noticed something behind Jarod that drew her attention away. Jarod turned and saw Esther’s two kids, walking down the street, looking sheepish and lost. The two of them saw Jarod and brightened someone, picking up their pace to approach him.

  The sight of the two kids brought a fresh well of tears to Jarod’s eyes. Wilfurd might not have officially been their father, but he knew how much the man meant to the two children.

  “Did you find him?” the girl asked.

  Jarod opened his mouth, but he knew already that he had no words for them. He didn’t know how to convey all that he’d done, all that he’d lost.

  Blessedly, he was saved from having to say anything by Shelley. “Well look at you two, so brave to have made it this far. Your dad must have taught you well.”

  The girl smiled shyly and nodded with short, fast bobs of her head.

  “Jarod’s sad right now because he lost a very close friend in the attack. Sometimes, adults get sad too, and that’s okay. Let’s give him some space and I’ll take you to the mill with me. I think we can pick up some sweets from the bakery on the way. Does that sound good?”

  The two kids nodded their assent as Shelley took each of them by the hand. Jarod bowed his head in thanks, still fighting back tears as the three of them left him alone.

  A gentle breeze blew down from the mountains, carrying away the scents of the evil that had transpired here. Jarod drew a long, slow breath to clear his head. He smelled the familiar sweet and clear aroma of the forest, tinged by the heavy smell of his own sweat. Gone though, were the sulfurous fumes of the blasting powder, even if all the remnants of their effects were visible everywhere he looked.

  His legs still felt the need for movement, so he ambled slowly up the road west, toward the edge of town. A few people called out, rushing up to hug him in relief at seeing another villager that had made it through the attack. He gave each a perfunctory greeting and hug, then continued his easy pace along the path.

  All around him, standing in defiance of the ruin that had been brought forth, were signs of life. A teenage boy running to reunite with his brother, all recollection of terror lost as they compared battle scars. Families, who may have lost loved ones, but who stood among the living, embracing what they still had. A daughter, grateful for her father’s sacrifice, for it meant that one of them might carry on.

  Jarod saw all these sights, and he felt himself moved. He and his companions, Nikolao, Tex’ana, Shelley, Filgrin, and especially Wilfurd, had allowed for this moment to happen. They had allowed that many more people to continue with their lives.

  It was sad, yes, that Wilfurd was gone, and he would still grieve for his fallen friend and carry the self doubt of what-ifs for time to come. But it was not all gloom, not all despair to be felt today. He may not have accomplished what he set out to do, but they had succeeded. They had driven off the trifleys and allowed the town to live for that much longer.

  A smile crept onto his face, a genuine one, as he carried on to the edge of town.

  The last house he came across was Warin’s. That was where he started today, manacled in the cellar as a prisoner. He approached the house easily now, thinking of how much had transpired in the time since he’d last been there. Warin, sitting on a barely-standing front porch with his wife, gave him a wave and beckoned him over.

  “Jarod, a pleasure to see you without your manacles,” the mayor said. “I take it you managed to escape from the surveyors? I don’t think they’re likely to bother us again anytime soon.”

  “Not exactly escaped,” said Jarod. He filled Warin in on what had happened. He spoke of the deal he’d made with Tex’ana, as well as the danger that still loomed.

  Warin’s face darkened as Jarod described what would happen with the trifleys. “How much time do we have until they return?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Jarod. “It won’t be today or tomorrow, but it could be soon. Filgrin might know more, but probably there won’t be information until we return from Chath.”

  “That is worrying news. We’ll have to take refuge in one of the neighboring towns. Maybe Eraford to the north will have room for us, or else the Blackpool Outlook, so we might be closer to the city. Unfortunately, I don’t believe many of our pack animals survived the encounter.”

  “Maybe some of the surveyors’ survived.” Jarod looked around, realizing something for the first time. “Where are they? I haven’t seen any around here since the attack.”

  “Gone as far as I know,” said Warin. “You can see the street littered with some of them, but most ran out of town as soon as the attack came. Couldn’t rightly say where. A few tried to force their way into my house where I’d gathered any stray villagers out and about when the attack came. Tried to accuse me of planning the whole thing.”

  Morine, Warin’s wife, spoke up for the first time at that. “We weren’t having any of that, not after what they did to our cellar. I gave them a piece of my mind, and we drove them right out. Last we saw, they were running off on foot into the woods.”

  Warin laughed and smiled warmly at Morine as he replied. “Yes, I don’t think we’ll see any of them back, horses or not.”

  His face grew sober as he continued. “I’ll handle organizing the move-out. I’ll check in with Filgrin on the trifleys, but I’m inclined to give our village the day to rest and the morrow to pack. Then we’ll find somewhere we can take refuge for the time being. Greta at Blackpool Outlook owes me a favor. I just hope it’s enough for this.”

  Jarod bid them farewell and left them room to plan where the village would go.

  He walked back toward the bridge, already seeing anyone who had wood and a hammer working to repair it. Some people were braving the loose wood to get back with family, but most people waited by the edge, passing lumber down the line to get to the workers.

  Nikolao and Tex’ana were talking amongst themselves, still in the same position by the alleyway as when he’d left them. They looked up as he approached, and Jarod walked over to them.

  “Thanks for your help, both of you,” Jarod said. “There’s no way we would have come out of this if it weren’t for your help. Do you want any help with your… friends?” Jarod didn’t mean to pause, but he wasn’t sure what to call the fallen surveyors. Their relationship seemed unclear to him still.

  Nikolao sighed loudly. “A thoughtful gesture, but as it were, there’s no time. We’ll need to leave as soon as you can manage.”