On the eighth night, I woke to pure chaos. The mules were screaming, Freaks were all around us. My men recovered as fast as they could, and the traders aimed their rifles, shooting into the dark. Between the crack of gunfire and cries of pain, I had no idea where anyone was. Gavin, the brat from Winterville, had climbed on top of the crates and was lying on his stomach, firing with complete calm. I spotted Fade fighting some distance away, but I didn’t see Tegan or Stalker. There was no time to search further, because three Freaks were on me.
I whipped out my knives and whirled into the fight. As my vision sharpened, I spied Tegan on the other side of the wagon. Morrow fought madly toward her side, his blade a silver arc in the dark. By his worried expression, he didn’t like how they were surrounding her. I didn’t care for it either, but Stalker was closer. Another Freak charged her back; she was already blocking with everything she had.
Though she was good with her staff, she wasn’t infallible. In a few more seconds, she’d go down. Stalker stopped defending and took four slashes across his back. He sprinted. I registered the precise moment when he realized he could save Tegan or land the killing blow, but not both. Not in time. A second later, he threw himself between her and the Freak that would’ve torn out her spine. He took both talons in the chest before Morrow and I reached them.
The Freak who went after Tegan from behind had a vicious scar across its face, received in some prior battle with human soldiers. It looked like a knife wound—and when it saw us—it loped off, more evidence that they were growing more cunning. This one preferred to live to fight another day. The rest of the monsters spun on us, but Fade and Morrow were there, fighting like wild things to keep them away. They died in piles beneath their furious blades.
Kneeling beside Stalker, I sealed my palms against the wounds. Blood bubbled up from between my fingers. The dawn showed signs of brightening into a sunny day, and he shouldn’t be dying. Tegan sobbed, calling for her medicine bag, but by his crooked smile, he knew it was no use. Stalker pulled my fingers away and clutched them tight, until our skin was slick and red. His breath grew wet and harsh, his eyes winter pale in his stark face. I drew him up into my arms, as if I could force him to live if I held him tight enough.
“You said I could never make it right … but this helps, doesn’t it? The world’s getting the better deal, her for me.”
Unable to speak for the tears thickening my throat, I stared down, memorizing his features. Though I couldn’t care for him like he wanted, he’d been my friend since we made peace in the ruins. He’d fought brave and true by my side. His ideas, his genius, had helped me build Company D, and I didn’t know how to win without him.
Stalker squeezed my fingers, his voice harsh and labored. “Promise, promise you’ll finish this for me.”
“By everyone I love, I swear it,” I choked out.
“I’d … ask you to … kiss me good-bye,” he whispered, “but—”
Before he could finish the wheezing words, I leaned down and pressed my lips to his cheek. He smiled, and it felt as if he were already gone, his body lighter in my arms. My heart broke over and over with each of his wet, rasping breaths.
His lashes fluttered like butterfly wings. “I could’ve made you happy, dove.”
“You did,” I whispered.
Not in the way he’d wanted, of course. But I had loved sparring with him, loved his pragmatic outlook, and his loyalty when he granted his trust. But he didn’t hear. The spark that made him Stalker had gone, leaving a limp body in my arms. All around the campsite, Company D protected me from the straggling Freaks, but the battle felt far away. I was gone too, weeping in silence. It wasn’t the way a leader behaved, but I was only a girl, mourning a fallen friend. So the battle raged on, but I had no fight left in me. My daggers lay useless at my sides.
“Let him go,” Tegan said softly.
When she hugged me, I went into her arms, my eyes smeared with blood and tears. We wept together, and I felt Tegan shaking. She’d hated him so much, then she forgave him, and now this. Though I’d believed him when he said he regretted so many things—and that he’d changed—I never would’ve expected such a sacrifice from him. Until the moment when he decided her life was more precious than his own, I’d have said he was foremost a survivor.
But in the end, Stalker chose to be better still.
And I had promises to keep.
Company D rallied and carried the day, and there were no more casualties. Remembering Fade’s words about being a strong leader, I pulled myself together and dried my tears. Yet the men had no trouble meeting my gaze, so I guessed they didn’t judge me lacking because I’d grieved for a friend. It seemed unlikely anybody could sleep—too much blood and death, too much danger lurking just beyond the wagons.
“We’re hours from Lorraine,” Vince Howe said. “Let me load your fallen man, and we’ll see him buried when we’re safe.”
I acceded.
That was a miserable march with sorrow gnawing through my backbone. Tegan wore a dead, awful look, one I recognized from when Rex lost his wife. She didn’t mourn Stalker like that, but shock had a hold of her, as if something this awful couldn’t possibly be true. I moved without thinking about where I put my feet, and six hours later, despite wagon speed, Lorraine rose ahead of us. In the morning light, it looked different from the first time we visited. Lorraine was a pretty town, a combination of Salvation and Soldier’s Pond. The houses were made of wood, but the ramparts surrounding it were made of stone, like a picture I saw in a book once; Edmund had called it a castle. They had a standing militia, but they didn’t patrol much. It was a common theme in the territory— people didn’t go out looking for trouble if they had a choice. They’d let the Freaks push them back, until they feared the wilderness like drinking poison.
If not for the men willing to brave the trade routes, these towns would be dead already. But for sheer appearance, Lorraine got high marks. It was more polished than Otterburn, less divided than Winterville. The buildings were old but well kept, of timber and stone. The roads leading up to town were made of dirt, but once the guard waved us past the gates, they had been swept, neat lines in the dust contributing to an orderly feel. People wore functional clothing here, both men and women. There wasn’t a lot of variation in the dyes, but working with Momma Oaks had given me some idea about fabrics, and they had skilled weavers.
Arranging a proper funeral took most of the day. Vince Howe paid the fees and found Stalker a spot in the town cemetery. The undertaker took his body from us, and the next time we saw him, he was encased in a wooden box. There were men hired specifically to bury it, and people came from town because Howe asked them to. But I had the hardest job, for it fell to me to speak the right words in saying good-bye.
My throat tightened. “Stalker wasn’t always a good person, but he was a fierce warrior, and he died well. Good hunting, my friend.”
The men echoed it with one final battle cry, and then the gravediggers shoveled dirt on his casket. Howe set his hand on my shoulder. “I owe you. I doubt we’d have made it back in one piece without your men. So let me show you to your lodgings.”
The last time we were here, they left us to fend for ourselves, but today, we received a heroes’ welcome. The townsfolk offered us the town hall for our barracks and ladies of all ages promised to deliver warm crocks of food before the sun set. Before that, however, the local pubs sent us jugs of watered wine. I didn’t want drunks on my squad, as they tended to be loud and uncoordinated, but if any occasion called for some indulgence, it was this one.
It had been a devil of a week.
Once we were settled in the great room, I gave the orders in a monotone. “Get comfortable, men. Try not to think about the ones we lost. They died as they chose. Not every man gets to say that.”
“True enough,” Thornton answered. “I hope I go out half as well.”
