“We made it?” Sofie gasped with disbelief as the group looked down upon the rocky wasteland known as the Deadlands, the border between Kutrad and Eterium. “We made it! Oh thank god, we made it.” Tears of relief began to drip from her eyes.

It had taken another seventeen days of travel, several battles, and one very unlucky run-in with local wildlife, but they had finally made their way out of that accursed country. Against all expectations, their initial plan to use Olenset to mask their trail had actually mostly worked. They still faced the occasional ambush and couldn’t go near any settlements, but they’d been able to breathe again.

They had made it. No more arrows from the trees above. No more attackers hiding in the foliage, ready to leap out when they wandered by. The Deadlands had their own issues, but those couldn’t be worse than what they’d already been through.

“Okay Sofie, listen up,” Arlette said as she took the other woman aside. The young woman had returned to her strange version of normal after a few days, thankfully, and was back to being the nuisance they were used to. “Things are going to be different from now on, so we’re going to have to do things differently as well. The Deadlands are the primary route for smugglers who are trying to avoid paying for a permit to move their wares between Kutrad and Gustil, and there’s nothing that Eterians hate more than not being paid. There’s going to be patrols all over the area looking for people sneaking through, and we’re about to sneak through.”

“Couldn’t we just buy a permit?” Sofie asked, looking at the large sacks of coin on the three mercenaries, each packed and tied tight to prevent any audible jingling. “You seem to have a lot of money from all the people that you’ve killed.”

“No, this is nowhere near enough. This is only bounty hunter money. What we would need is merchant money, and we’re not even close enough to being that rich. Besides, we’ll need some of this to pay to enter Begale.”

“What’s in Begale?”

“Jaquet says that he has family there, some part of his clan that crossed over a generation before he was born.”

“After what happened before, that seems like a terrible idea.”

“This is different. Droajans take clan stuff incredibly seriously. They prioritize the clan over all else. It’s the biggest reason that they’re a loose confederation of city states instead of a more cohesive country. Each city has its clans and they’re always fighting with clans from other cities over one stupid thing or another, holding grudges for slights from three hundred years ago. If there’s a family from the Delon clan here, we can trust them to keep us safe for a bit.

“But we’re getting off topic here. The original point I was trying to make is that before any of that can happen, we need to make it through the Deadlands without getting caught by the patrols, and to do that we’re going to need to travel differently than we were before. That place is nothing but rocks, salt, and more rocks. The whole thing is almost a giant maze of crags, canyons, and crevices, and it’s easy to get lost so we have to stick together. We’re going to need to move fast, but more importantly we’re going to need to move quietly. Sound travels in the Deadlands a lot farther than you’d think. It echoes of all the walls. Any excess noises will give us away even if we’re obscured by a rock or hiding in a canyon. So from this point on, we don’t talk unless we absolutely have to, and only whisper at that. Understood?”

“Understood,” replied Sofie. “Do you think that more hunters are going to follow us?”

“Only the most committed, I would think. They’d have to buy permits or risk sneaking through like we are, and that’s at the risk of... uh...”

“Five years imprisonment for the first offense, twenty for the second, execution for the third,” Basilli chimed in.

“Wow, that’s terrible,” Sofie said.

“So let’s be quiet and not get caught, hm?”

“Right. Got it.”

*     *     *

Arlette leaned her back against the side of a small crevice, her mind working furiously. Things weren’t adding up, and she couldn’t figure out why. Jaquet sat down across from her and met her eyes.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked him.

“Aye. Maybe a trap.”

“What’s going on now?” Sofie butted in.

“It’s been almost a full day now. How many patrols have we needed to avoid?”

“I only saw two, but I figured you guys were just really good and I didn’t notice the others.”

“No, there’s only been two.”

“Should ‘ave been twenty o’ ‘em, a’ least,” chimed in Jaquet. “Somethin’s happenin’.”

“Maybe they want us to make it through,” Basilli suggested. “Maybe they’re pulling most of them back to set up a net and hoping we don’t notice.”

“But why?” Sofie asked.

“Maybe they want the bounty after all,” he surmised. “They’re members of the Eterian army. They can’t just enter Kutrad for no reason, so they’re drawing us away from the border so we can’t retreat to Kutrad if their trap fails.”

Nobody said a word as Basilli’s conjecture smothered their spirits. The Eterian patrols weren’t a bunch of nobodies. They were all made up of trained members of the Eterian army, and would have a much greater combat strength. Not only that, there’s likely be dozens of them, ready to overwhelm the three fighters with ease.

“What can we do?” Sofie wondered.

“We can not get caught,” Arlette replied. “And we can be ready. Be wary. Any noise, any movement, could mean that the trap has been sprung. We have to keep alert at all times, and react quickly.”

Silence settled back over the group as they each strained their senses to the limit, searching for signs of anything amiss, but they heard nothing but the wind.

*     *     *

Arlette was at her wit’s end, her nerves frayed to the breaking point. Three days they’d traveled since that conversation, and three patrols were all they had spotted. Alarms were going off in her head over every hint of motion, every imagined sound carried on the wind. Small rocks falling from nearby cliffs were the worst of them all, causing countless false alarms and slowly eating away at her mental fortitude. Nobody in the group was doing any better. Paranoia had firmly embedded itself deep into each of their psyches over those last few days, and the stress that built up with every eerily quiet moment was becoming too much to handle for anybody.

They were less than a day’s journey from the other end of the Deadlands, by her estimate. The enemy would surely want to strike before they made it all the way through. Arlette concentrated on the sounds around her but as always all she could hear was the soft whisper of the wind.

The four had nestled themselves for the night into a crack in a gigantic boulder they’d come across, which turned out to be nearly a perfect hiding place. The crack was small on the outside, wide enough for one person to squeeze through, but its width enlarged as one went deeper until it was wide enough for two people to sit down across from each other without touching. Not only that, the crack wound this way and that, blocking light from reflecting to the outside, meaning Basilli could create a small fire. The only way anybody would notice the light was if they were standing directly above them, twenty paces up where the top of the crack met the sky.

The Deadlands, though mostly living up to their moniker, were not entirely devoid of life. Saying that some fresh meat would do the party good, Jaquet had managed to catch some sort of lizard, chopped it into pieces, skewered it on some twigs from some sort of hearty bush that grew from the rock every few miles, and was now roasting it on a small flame created by Basilli. Arlette couldn’t deny that the meat smelled incredible after days of nothing but dry jerky. Her stomach rumbled in agreement.

The party tensed as another small rock fell, bouncing off the walls on its way down. Arlette forced herself to remove her hand from her weapon as the small cylindrical rock landed near her feet. She’d gotten to the point where any noise would cause her hand to grab the hilt of her sword without her even consciously thinking about it. Then she looked closer at the rock. It was far too smooth and symmetrical to be a rock. And it was on fire. It was a... candle? Arlette’s mind froze up at the unexplainable object, but suddenly small candle belched forth great clouds of thick smoke.

“They’re here!” Arlette cried, hacking as the smoke entered her lungs. She couldn’t see anything through the haze. Even her friends were nothing but dark outlines that she could barely make out with her tear-filled vision. Without warning another figure landed in front of her and sped off towards the exit!

“Stop them!” coughed Basilli as the figure sped past him. The four of them, hacking and wheezing, clambered out of their camp and chased after the lone figure in the moonlight, sprinting over and around rocks dotting the canyon they occupied.

“Wait!” Sofie called, but Arlette and the others ignored her. Jaquet raced forward, his enhanced strength powering his pursuit as he quickly closed the gap. The figure looked back, saw the Feeler gaining on it, and veered into a nearby crevice leading out of the canyon. Smoke spewed forth, making this gap just as inhospitable as the first. Jaquet turned to enter it.

“Hold on!” Arlette called. “Don’t split up! That’s what they want!”

Jaquet paused mid-enter and waited for her and Basilli to catch up, then leapt into the gap. Arlette followed as well as she could behind her large companion. Soon the crevice ended, opening into another nearby canyon, and they gained on the figure once more. Once again it ducked into a crevice and once again smoke spewed forth. This time Jaquet did not wait, instead charging directly into the smoke. A loud bang echoed from the fissure and to Arlette’s shock Jaquet stumbled back out, blood dripping from multiple places where pieces of stone had lodged into his body.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied. “We can’ le’ ‘em ge’ away!” Without another word, he threw himself back into the opening. Arlette and Basilli followed right behind.

“No! Stop!” cried Sofie behind them.

On the other side of the smoke they found themselves in a crevasse, wide enough that two people could walk shoulder to shoulder, but the path forward twisted and contorted. Arlette spotted the shadow turning a nearby corner and the group continued to give chase. Unfortunately the twisting confines of the crevasse kept the bulky Jaquet from building up speed ahead and catching up to their quarry, but at least it kept the three of them from getting separated. As they rounded another bend, Arlette’s vision picked up a small hint of brightness coming from the ground nearby.

“Look out!” she cried, bringing her hands up in front of her face just as a loud “crack” rang out and something slammed into her, sending her sprawling into the opposite wall. She screamed as pain shot through her right leg and she looked down to find a stone the size of a knuckle embedded into her thigh. She looked about to find her companions staggering to their feet, bleeding from scratches, cuts, and worse.

“Gonna kill ‘em,” she heard Jaquet growl over the ringing in her ears.

Together the three of them pressed onward, their bodies driven by a desperate fear. It was a matter of life or death, after all. If their assailant were able to completely escape and report their whereabouts, the trap would slam shut. This could only end one of two ways.

Several bends later, luck finally turned their way as the crevasse opened up into a dead end, a small oval naturally-formed courtyard where the only other way out was to climb. On the other side of the enclosure, pressed up against the canyon wall in shadow, stood their adversary carrying a large sack. Seeing their arrival, the figure dropped its sack and began to scurry up the wall in a panic.

“Ya aren’ gettin’ away!” Jaquet cried as he launched his halberd like a javelin towards the escaping silhouette. The form spun to face them, trying to jump away, but the halberd pierced its cloak and pinned it to the wall. Unable to continue its climb, it reared up and began to emit animalistic growls.

Part of Arlette’s mind couldn’t help but notice just how tiny the figure was. It made sense, though. Smaller people would do better out here, able to move through crevices that others couldn’t and hunt down any hiding smugglers. Either way, it didn’t matter. She pulled a throwing knife from her tunic and reached back.

“STOP! DON’T HURT HER!”

Arlette’s arm froze mid-throw, the dagger in her hand slipping out and clattering harmlessly on the ground in front of them. She turned behind her to find a furious Sofie standing at the opening to the crevasse, her lungs heaving in and out. The young woman stared at her with a mixture of anger and disappointment that Arlette could not understand.

“Wha’ are ya doin’, Letty? We need ta finish-”

“You shut your trap!” Sofie hollered. She marched past Arlette and interposed herself between the others and their target. “I’d expect this from bastard like you, Jaquet, but you...” She turned back to Arlette. “Is this what you are now? Is this how far you’ve fallen, where you’re okay with murdering children? I respected you! I believed in you!”

“Sofie,” Basilli said, “what are you talking ab-”

“Look! Look at her!”

Basilli observed a flame into being between them and Arlette’s mind tumbled into free fall. Pinned to that wall, desperately clinging to the rough stone, was a young beastgirl. Pitch-black hair fell messily down over dark brown skin, which only served to highlight the bright yellows of her irises as they stared back at her in terror. Black triangular ears folded backwards under a ragged hood and a black furry tail poked out of the back of a ratty cloak. The girl, who couldn’t have been more than nine years old, continued to growl and roar as best as she could, but her efforts to intimidate were undermined by the pathetic appearance of her stick-thin limbs and malnourished body.

“We don’ know tha’ she isn’ workin’ fer the patrols. She could ‘ave led ‘em righ’ to us.”

“Listen to yourself, you sack of shit! Look!” Sofie walked towards the sack laying on the ground, picked something up, and tossed it at their feet. Arlette recognized it as one of the sticks with lizard meat they had been roasting. The meat was half-eaten. “She just wanted some food. She probably hasn’t eaten in days! Do any of you have any idea what it’s like to be a child all alone in a terrifying place with nobody you can trust? Do you?”

A memory unspooled before Arlette’s eyes, washing over her mind unbidden. Tiny hands struggled against the omnipresent snow, trying in vain to climb towards the massive stone walls that stood at the top of the pass. A freezing wind whipped about, sapping away every last hint of warmth. Arrows fell all around, leaving a strange muffled thump as they struck the drifts. This was a game to them. Cold. So very cold.

“We ‘ave ta make sure. We can’ risk tha’ she’s workin’ for ‘em.”

"Kill her then! But kill me first,” Sofie proclaimed, staring at the three of them with unwavering eyes.

"I'd rather die than live in this fucking world where the only people who I had any hope for turn out to be monsters that kill children because of what if's and maybe's! Go on! Do it!"

“Jaquet. Stand down,” Arlette said softly.

“Letty, I’m jus-”

“Stand. Down.”

“...Aye...”

Sofie turned her back on them and approached the frightened girl.

“Hey sweetie... come on down from there. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

The girl’s attention turned to Sofie and she kept growling. Sofie showed no reaction, slowly reaching into her pocket and pulling out a large piece of jerky. The girl’s eyes tunneled in on the proffered meat and the growling stopped. Thoughts warred behind the child’s wide, yellow eyes. Her gaze flicked back to Arlette and the others.

“You don’t have to worry about them, sweetie. They’re a bunch of big meanies, but big sister Sofie will make sure they don’t hurt you, okay?”

The words seemed to physically strike the girl and she trembled. “B-big sis...?”

“Big sister Sofie will protect you from those meanies, okay? Now come down and have something to eat!”

All the child’s strength seemed to evaporate as she slid out of her beat up cloak and fell into Sofie’s waiting arms, tears streaming down her face as she bawled like no tomorrow.

“What’s your name, sweetie?”

“P-P-Pari...” the girl managed to gasp out.

“Pari... that’s such a nice name! Now just let it all out, okay? Everything’s going to be just fine.”

Arlette sank down to the ground and just stared into the middle distance as the weight of what she had almost done slammed home. A child. She’d been moments away from killing a child. Arlette had slain hundreds of people in her life. Spirits above, she’d probably killed over a hundred just since their escape from Poniren half a season ago! But there were codes, even for them. They could become blurred at times, but they were still always there. And the number one code of a mercenary had always been “Only kill people that are trying to kill you.” As soon as you went beyond that line, you were no longer a true mercenary. You were just a bandit with a job. It could be argued that the young girl had been trying to kill them, but even then...

She would have crossed that line, if not for Sofie. They all would have. Days upon days of being hunted, of seeing threats in every shadow, of hearing arrows in every gust of wind, had worn her down to the point that she’d nearly made that tragic mistake. How much longer could this go on?

A cough from Basilli broke Arlette from her self-recriminations. Pari shook at the sound and Sofie shot Basilli a look that, if looks could kill, would have reduced them all to dust.

“Hey, I just thought I should bring up the fact that sound travels really far here, and whatever those things were that went bang were really loud, so... the patrol is probably closing in on us right now.”

Arlette’s blood went cold. Of course, just because their “attacker” had turned out to be something else didn’t mean the rest of the signs were also false alarms. Everything that had gotten them riled up was still true, and now they’d just set off several sonic beacons proclaiming their presence to anybody leagues around.

“Right. Let’s make for the campsite and grab our things, then find ourselves the best defensive position we can manage. We don’t have a moment to lose!”

“Pari’s coming with us.”

“What? No. We’re about to go fight for our lives.”

“I’m not leaving her here alone!”

“Fine, but she stays hidden with you! We’ll discuss what to do with her later. Now let’s move! We don’t have time to waste.”

With that said, Arlette headed back into the crevasse. They had to be ready. The Eterians were coming.