Mindblind came to, feeling rain on his face and grass beneath his back. With a great deal of effort, he managed to open his eyes and sit up. His vision swam, and he could feel the knots beneath his hair when he reflexively rubbed his head. A glance up revealed the reason for his current location.

By some twist of fate, when the slaver had knocked him out, he’d fallen through the large double window upstairs. It swung open in the wind, illuminated by fitful light from the lanterns inside. From there, he must have bounced off the roof of the back room of the brothel, to the ground below. The back door stood open as well, banging against the frame.

He had no idea how long he’d been out, but he couldn’t hear any sounds of struggle from within the brothel. With his senses returning, he managed to stand, feeling mud slithering down his back and buttocks. By the time he reached the back door, he was walking steadily, although he had a pounding headache.

A few groans were the only sounds he could hear as he passed through the dimly lit storage room into the brothel. The scene was much as he remembered it, with the guards lying dead. The slaver he’d knocked through the railing sprawled lifeless on a decorative table. The Madame was unconscious behind her counter, though she was moving a little and groaned as Cerebus walked past. He couldn’t see any bruises or blood, and assumed that she’d fainted.

He climbed the stairs, his eyes focused on the door to Delly’s room, which still stood open. It quite nearly cost him his life, because two doors down from her room, a woman popped out with a dagger in hand.

She pulled her stab, missing him as he put up his arms in a weak defense. “You’re not one of them,” she guessed.

Still wary, he answered, “No.”

The woman had coal-dark hair, cut short, and wore only a long shirt that barely reached her upper thighs. The garment was soaked through, probably from the rain, and did little to hide her small breasts, which were still quite substantial for her petite frame.

Even as he evaluated her, her eyes took him in as well. Her eyebrows popped up for a second when she glanced between his legs, and she let out a curious little grunt.

“How long have they been gone?” He finally asked.

“A few minutes. I managed to jump out a window before they could grab me.” She saw his eyes focus on Delly’s door again, and shook her head.

“They took her?”

“No,” she answered, her eyes already telling him what he didn’t want to know.

Cerebus hurried to Delly’s door, and found her lying on the floor in a pool of blood, next to an equally lifeless slaver.

The woman walked up next to him and said, “She took one of the bastard sons with her. Stabbed him in the tripes.”

Even though he knew that it would probably anger the Madame, Cerebus lifted Delly to the bed, and covered her with a sheet. The woman who ran the place would just have to buy a new bed. He wasn’t going to leave her lying on the floor.

“She’s probably one of the lucky ones,” the dark-haired woman remarked.

Anger flared in him as he spun to see the woman holding a towel. He fought down the burst of emotion, because he knew that she was right. He accepted the towel to get as much of the mud off of him as possible before dressing.

“I’m gonna go get dressed,” she said, echoing his thoughts.

Mindblind avoided looking at the lifeless body of the prostitute on the bed as he dressed in his wet, clammy clothing. The other woman returned as Cerebus was pulling on his boots. Now dressed in dark clothing, stiff with leather slabs that served as protective armor, her feminine charms were mostly hidden. She walked close and whispered, “Time to go. The law just showed up.”

Cerebus had to agree. He wouldn’t put it past Reed to accuse him of conspiring with the slavers. He had to wonder why the woman was so keen to avoid an encounter with the law, though.

Fortunately, the position of Delly’s door on the balcony meant that they were hidden from view of the lawmen talking to the awakened Madame. With the window that he’d fallen out of only a few steps away, Cerebus paused to see what his old rival planned to do.

“Why aren’t you going after them?” The Madame asked. “My girls have been taken – my guards murdered. There may be more dead upstairs.”

“Yeah, they’re going to jump right to horse to seek justice for whores, thieves, and a half-breed,” the woman standing near Mindblind said in a sarcastic whisper.

“We have no idea who perpetrated this crime, and only a vague notion of which direction...”

That was all Cerebus needed to hear. Reed wasn’t going to do a damn thing.

Not that he’d really expected otherwise.

He headed for the window, the woman right behind him. None of Reed’s men were behind the building – yet another sign that he never planned to pursue any course of action, other than making a show of investigating. The drop to the roof, and then the ground, proved no trouble. Mindblind’s height meant that he had only a short distance to fall when his arms were fully extended. The woman proved quite agile, bouncing down to the ground near him with all the grace of a cat.

The pair crept away from the building at a quick pace. When he turned toward the town, she said, “Are you nuts, half-breed? You’re the first one they’re going to suspect.”

“Gotta get my sword and armor from the inn.”

“You going after them?”

“Yep,” he growled in answer, the tightly contained, slow boil of anger at Delly’s death giving him direction and conviction to do exactly that.

“Want some company?”

Mindblind paused and looked back for a moment.

“They’ve got my sister,” she said, answering his unspoken question.

“Good chance we’ll get killed.”

“Better chance that they will,” she hissed in response.

He grinned, liking her answer. “Yeah, we can watch each other’s backs.”

“Don’t go to the front door of the inn. I’ll take care of getting your stuff,” she said as she led the way. “What’s your name – unless you want me calling you half-breed the whole way.”

“Mindblind.”

She let out a grunt of surprise. “If you think that’s better. Okay, Mindblind, you can call me Raven.”

The rain slackened as the two of them neared the inn. Raven asked him what room he was in, and then led him to the back of the building. Once there, she pulled off her shoes, and ascended the wall like a spider, somehow finding finger and toe-holds between the stones of the chimney and the boards of the wall.

As remarkable as that feat was, Cerebus was even more surprised when she held on to the window sill with one hand, and popped the window latch with the other, using some tool she’d pulled from a pocket. In less than a minute, she was within the room above.

Raven tossed down his sword, shield, purse, and armor, her aim perfect. She then closed the window and climbed down with the same effortless ease that she’d ascended. “C’mon, I need to get some things from my kip. Those fucks will be heading south, so it’s along the way.”

“Good enough for me.” Cerebus belted on his sword, and slipped his shield over his arm, but carried his armor for the moment. He decided that getting out of town was probably the prudent course at this point.

She must have known the muddy trails that passed as roads in the area, because Raven moved unerringly along her way. Mindblind could barely see, as the storm clouds still obscured most of the moonlight that might have lit the path. Eventually, a pair of large structures emerged from the gloom.

Raven led him toward the side of the dilapidated farm house, which had obviously been long abandoned. “It’s going to be a bit of a tight fit for you, but I think you can make it.” She then knelt down and moved a pair of boards, revealing a hole in the stones that built up a cellar entrance. In a matter of seconds, she vanished inside.

Cerebus indeed found the fit tight, and doubted that he could have made it through in his armor. In the end, he alighted on the cellar floor with only a few annoying scrapes, just as a lantern flared to life.

“We may as well rest for the night,” she suggested. “They aren’t going to get far with the roads turned to soup by the rain, and we aren’t likely to get another chance to sleep without setting a watch.”

While she went to replace the boards and a tarp that obscured the entrance, Mindblind took in his surroundings. She had a couple of wooden boxes for storage, what looked like a fairly comfortable sleeping pallet on the floor, and a curious red stone sitting in what looked like a firepit, though it was obvious that no fire had ever burned there.

“It’s magic,” Raven explained when she returned. “Pinched it from some wizard. He was nice enough to have left instructions with the lot of them. I’ve got six scattered in all my kips. Keeps the place warm, and you can cook on it without smoke.”

“Surprised that nobody has found the place.”

“Guy that built it went crazy one night and killed his whole family. Hacked them to bits, then dived off the roof onto a fence post. Everybody thinks the place is haunted, and I help that out whenever anybody snoops around.”

With that, she pulled off her overshirt, revealing that she still wore the long shirt that he’d first seen her in. It was still soaked, and still did little to hide her charms.

Not that she made any effort to do so.

With a complete lack of shame, her pants followed, and then the shirt. When she stood clothed in nothing but a soaked pair of panties, she turned back and smiled at her guest. “May as well get out of those wet clothes, or its going to be a pretty miserable night.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, though the look in her eyes suggested that miserable was the last word he was likely to use to describe this evening, if she had anything to say about it. An image of Delly passed through his mind, bringing with it a pang of guilt, but he bottled it up with the rest of his emotions. To linger on those emotions was to let them control him.

Delly had always told him that he needed to loosen up, let women find out who he really was. Even though she obviously enjoyed his visits, she always made sure their relationship stayed at a reasonably professional level. As she did the last time, she always asked when he was going to get around to finding some woman to poke for free.

Maybe now was his chance to fulfill that wish.

He pulled off his shirt, and kept his eyes on her as she let her panties fall to the floor. A nest of curls as dark as those on her head adorned her mound. She put her hands on her hips and cocked them to the side, offering a crooked smile. “See something you like?” When he nodded, she said, “Saw something that interested me back at the Cat, too.”

Cerebus remembered her glance back at the bawdy house, and removed the rest of his clothing while she hung hers from nails on the floor joists above. She let out a purr when he dropped his pants to reveal his hard cock.

She sauntered toward her pallet while he found nails to hang up his clothing, her eyes locked on his bobbing erection. When he joined her at the pallet, she wrapped her hand around his cock and said, “I’m still worked up, because I got interrupted before I could have any fun at the Cat.”

Mindblind growled and stroked his hands over her taut ass. “Didn’t know they had men there.”

“They don’t,” she said, and then gave him a slightly harder squeeze.

When the realization of that statement dawned on him, his eyes widened.

Raven licked her lips and said, “That made you throb. Ever seen two women get each other off?”

“Nope.” He let his left hand glide to her breast and pinched her nipple.

“Love it, but I could never get along without cock.” She nodded toward the pallet and said, “Lie down.”

The pallet was a little prickly from whatever the mattress was stuffed with, but relatively comfortable. He’d barely settled onto his back before Raven straddled him, and squatted down. She was in no mood to waste time, and bent forward over his body, supporting her weight on one arm. Her other hand, she used to guide his cock.

Cerebus grunted as she rubbed the tip of his organ against her nether lips. Once it was slick with her wetness, she eased her hips back and groaned. “Fuck, that’s big,” she breathed in a rush, once the head of his cock had popped inside her.

She squeezed him tight – hot and wet around him – making him want more. He tried to lift his hips, but she rose up with him, not letting him penetrate any farther until she was ready. After a couple of deep breaths, she shifted the position of her knees, taking him deeper into her slippery canal.

With every inch of him that pushed inside her, she let out a groan. Her mouth hung open, and she breathed heavily, steadily engulfing his manhood. At last, she sat up straight on his cock and growled.

He stroked his hands over her legs and hips, drinking in the sight of her impaled on his cock.

“So fucking full,” she breathed, and then started rocking her hips back and forth, stirring his cock inside her. She gasped and groaned, letting her head loll from side to side as pleasure flooded through her.

He’d never had a woman take control before, as almost the total of his sexual experience came from prostitutes. He was more than content to watch her as she rode him, her hips moving in circles, back and forth, and bouncing off his loins. Though she felt amazing, he didn’t feel as though he was going to come any time soon.

Raven’s movements grew more frantic, her breasts jiggling from her efforts. She braced one hand on her thigh, and the other slipped between her legs. Her sounds of pleasure grew louder as her fingers circled over her clit.

“Oh that’s good. Fuck yeah,” she cried out, her expression growing tight, and a rosy flush rising in her skin, all the way down to her breasts.

He could feel her juices dripping down his balls, a testament to just how wet she was. The tight embrace and satiny smoothness of her pussy was beginning to cause the first tickles of approaching orgasm within him, but she was well in the lead.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” She squealed, her ass slamming down onto him with each exclamation. Then, she descended one final time, and let out a high-pitched mixture of a growl and a groan.

Raven trembled atop him; her walls clamped down on him tighter than anything he’d ever experienced. She sucked in a great gasp of air, and then let it out in an explosive breath, her mouth remaining open afterwards, and her eyes tightly closed. Her fingers still twitched fitfully over her bud, every touch causing her to lurch from a sharp jolt of ecstasy.

She lost control in the throes of her orgasm, and Cerebus took advantage of it. He flexed his muscles, thrusting his cock up into her clenched canal.

Her eyes shot open, and she let out a half-cry that ended in a croak. She fell forward onto her arms, but they were too weak to support her. Even as her hot, flushed breasts pressed against his chest, he bent his knees and grabbed her ass.

A loud, staccato scream erupted from her as his cock drove up into her. Held fast in his grip, there was nothing she could do to resist the onslaught. After several rapid breaths, she revealed that she had no intention of resisting.

“Yes – fuck me,” she growled.

After that, she could manage no articulate sound. She growled and gasped, her cries animalistic – almost feral. Her tight expression matched her screams as he took her with all the strength and speed he could manage from the awkward position. Between her vocalizations of almost painful pleasure, Cerebus could hear every thrust of his manhood into her saturated pussy.

Her scream when she climaxed a few seconds later could have very well been mistaken for a death cry. His ears protested at the volume and pitch, but he smiled, nonetheless. Her muscles tightened to rock-hardness in his grasp for several more thrusts, and then went completely limp.

A cough shook her, and then she panted for breath, though her struggle for oxygen was interrupted by his still-thrusting manhood. After a few more strokes, he relented, leaving his cock buried deep inside her, but releasing his grip.

Raven managed to catch her breath, and at last could revel in the feeling of his cock throbbing inside her as shocks of orgasmic energy continued to shoot through her. She moaned and twitched, sometimes moving her hips just enough to make her climax spike again.

Finally, she drifted down from her heights, and let out a long, satisfied moan. “Damn, that was good,” she breathed.

“Hell yeah,” Cerebus growled in response.

“Do you... Do you ever come?” She asked in a languid voice, and then chuckled.

“Close.”

Reaching deep into reserves of strength, Raven managed to lever up onto her arms, and then sit upright with him still inside her. After a shiver from the lingering effects of her orgasm, she lifted her hips just enough for him to slip free. She crawled over him, and lay down on her back in the scant space remaining on the pallet.

“I want it,” she said in a breathless, sexy voice.

Cerebus rolled the opposite way to push up onto his hands and knees. At the same time, she scooted into the center of the makeshift bed as he made room for her to do so. When he rose up onto his knees, she bent her legs, grabbed her ankles and pulled them back until her knees were pointed at her ears.

“Do it. Give it to me,” she demanded.

Eager for that release, he moved to kneel in front of her and guided the head of his cock through the wet curls around her sex. He watched his erection vanish into her depths, groaning from the tight squeeze, and then grabbed her hips.

Raven groaned every time his balls slapped up against her, the power of his thrusts causing her whole body to rock and her breasts to jiggle. He knew that he wasn’t going to last long, driving his cock home so hard and fast in this position.

“Give it to me,” she reiterated in a growl.

He did exactly that, giving her all the speed and strength he could muster. Droplets of her juices squirted out around his fast-thrusting organ, further wetting the dark hair between her legs, and spattering on his body.

The itch in the tip of his cock intensified, slowly traveling down the shaft. He lost a little of his rhythm as he neared the point of no return, emitting a series of loud, grunting growls.

He slammed his cock home, his body colliding with hers in a sharp smack, and let out a long, loud grunt. His shaft pulsed as spurts of thick white cream filled her pussy full. Only his grip on her hips – and then her knees when she released her ankles to unfold her body – kept him upright. He didn’t think he was ever going to stop coming as he watched her rub her tummy and lick her lips.

“Damn me, but I needed that,” she said after a while.

Mindblind chuckled, and then winced when she mischievously clamped down on his softening organ. He pulled free with a sharp growl, unable to endure her gripping walls any longer in his sensitive state. He sat back hard, and then leaned back on his arms.

Raven brought a dollop of his cream to her lips, the viscous offering already seeping from her gaped canal. She moaned, and then smiled. “Just wanted to thank you for coming with me. There’s no way I could have done this alone.”

“No... No problem,” he responded with a weak smile.

“Besides, I really did need some cock – badly – and I’d heard you with Delly before. She doesn’t scream like that when she’s playing for customers, so I knew you were doing something fun for her.”

When his expression darkened upon hearing Delly’s name, Raven quickly added, “We’ll get the fuckers and make them pay.” She scooted over, giving him room to lie down.

Mindblind collapsed onto the pallet, exhaustion seemingly taking control of every inch of him in an instant.

“Get some rest. We’re safe here.”

He didn’t have much choice. He fell dead asleep a mere minute after lying down.

****

“Think I’m gonna have to pinch a new mattress before I use this kip again,” Raven remarked when Cerebus sat up after awakening from an increase in light and a change in the sounds of the cellar hideaway. “We pretty much did that one in. Whole place smells of sweat and sex.”

She glanced down at his cock and licked her lips. “Worth it though.”

Mindblind chuckled, and noticed that she’d placed a bucket filled with water next to the mattress. A scrap of cloth hung from the side.

“That one’s for cleaning up. Got some for us to drink, too. It’s right around dawn. Sun hadn’t popped up yet when I was out.”

Noticing that her clothes were wet, he asked, “Still raining?”

She nodded. “Lousy traveling weather. For them too, though.”

Mindblind grabbed the cloth and went to work washing away the abundant evidence of the previous night’s tryst. They could leave the road and make far better time than the wagons bogged down in the mud. It was about the only chance they had of catching the slaver’s caravan.

Once he’d cleaned up and dressed, Raven handed him a small pack. “A few essentials. I keep a couple in every kip. Should be enough for us to survive, if not comfortably. Ready to go?”

“What do you think our chances of finding them are?”

A crooked smile spread across her face. “The slave traders always take the same route south. They avoid the few places where the law might harass them, and the most expensive bribes. People have started calling it the Weeping Way. Weird for any of them to come this far north during storm season. They don’t like our weather. We’ll find them.”

Cerebus responded with a nod and a grunt. He didn’t know exactly what they were going to do when they did find the slavers – he just knew that it wasn’t going to be pretty.

The walk was dreary and dismal from the start. Even off the muddy road, the thick grasses of the plains made traveling unpleasant. The rain came down at a light, but steady pace, soaking them both to the skin in only a short distance.

“There – see that?” Raven noted, pointing toward the road. “Those ruts are a lot wider than normal.”

“Yeah...” he said, not making the connection.

“Draxnians use wider wheels on their wagons. The place is dry, with lots of spots that are sand. The wider wheels help keep them from bogging down as bad.”

He and Raven both turned at the same time, recognizing the sound of a horse moving at a fast pace.

“C’mon,” Raven said in a low voice, and tugged him farther away from the road. She ducked down into the tall grass, facing the road, and Mindblind joined her.

The riders came into view a minute or so later, horses in full gallop. Cerebus’ eyes narrowed when he realized who the lead man was.

“Reed,” he growled, as he stared at the man’s back.

“Who?”

“The captain of the Lakenshire guard.”

“Know him, huh? Must be suicidal, going after them with only three. Wonder what made him change his mind?”

Mindblind doubted that he had. Reed was of old Egorian noble blood, and considered most people beneath him. The only people he really protected in Lakenshire were those rich enough to provide him with the lifestyle that he thought he deserved.

“Have to pardon me if I don’t care who wins out in that case,” he said as he stood back up.

“Ha! I like you,” Raven said, and then twitched her eyebrows suggestively.

“Let’s get going. Whatever Reed is up to, it doesn’t change anything.”

She nodded her agreement, and the pair set out again.

****

Nightfall was approaching, and the rain had never stopped. Mindblind was constantly blowing puffs of air at the huge drops of water hanging from the end of his nose. If it wasn’t for an image of Delly lying cold and dead on the floor of her room, he’d have turned around and gone straight back home.

“Stand of trees over there. Looks like there’s some evergreens. Good a place to spend the night as any. Bad idea to travel after dark out here. The plains cats can eat you before you even know that they’re there. They stay away from fires, though.”

Cerebus was about to say that he didn’t know if a fire was a good idea, but then saw smoke. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw yet another thin, twisted column fighting to rise against the rain.

She saw him looking around and said, “Bandits, the plains barbarians, and a lot of people living in dirt houses. Nobody will even notice another fire out here.”

He had to acknowledge the wisdom of that, and followed her toward the trees. Luckily, the rain was light enough that the evergreen boughs provided a relatively dry spot beneath them. The thick litter of needles would provide cushioning as well – so long as they picked out the sticks and pine cones first. Once they set up the small tent that he carried in the pack Raven had provided, the evening might be tolerable.

It certainly wouldn’t be pleasant, because neither of them were going to get more than a half a night’s sleep.

A fire proved to be no trouble, with plenty of dry tinder and fuel around. Of course, that meant that they’d have to keep a close eye on it. One errant spark could have them sitting in a fireball, no matter the rain that was still falling.

“You’d think that this would have blown itself out a bit in that thunderstorm,” Raven complained as she pulled some jerked beef and hard traveler’s bread from the pack that she carried.

“Haven’t seen a break in the clouds. It’ll keep raining until daybreak, at least.”

She handed over some of the rations, and then took a bite of bread. “First watch, or last?”

Mindblind tore loose a bite of the beef and answered, “Doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep much, and I already had more than I wanted when they tried to bash my skull in.”

“I’ll take first, then. Easier for me to stay up than to get up.” She took another bite of the bread and made a face. “If we don’t find them first thing tomorrow, we can take a little detour and grab some decent food from this little farm town that’s not far away.”

“I’ve got a little coin left.”

She laughed. “I said grab. They’ve got more than enough, and they’re old bluebloods. They grub around in the dirt all day, but they still think that they’re better than everyone else. They’ve got it coming.”

He wasn’t in any mood to argue morality with her, and hardly adverse to saving what little money he had. He of course agreed with her that most of the old nobility still in the country weren’t worth a pile of dung. Given half a chance, any one of them would step on you.

Raven sat close to him as they finished their meager fare in silence. He had to wonder what was going through her head. She was more than attractive enough to have any man she wanted, but she seemed at ease around him. As he thought about it, he felt an odd sort of kinship with her as well.

“You from Lakenshire?” He asked her after washing down the last bite of his meal with some water.

She shook her head. “A bit north of Fightershaven. Place doesn’t even have a name, so far as I know. Just took my sis there because Yasmine treats her whores better than any other madame. Got tired of pinching all the bread we lived on while she fucked anything with a dick, so I took her someplace where she could take care of herself and keep her cunt filled.”

“Don’t get along very well with my sisters, either.”

“Half sisters, I assume. We’re probably a lot alike. Outcasts. Lowborn. The scum of the earth in most people’s eyes.”

“Their problem, not mine.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, you can think that. You can even believe it, sometimes. You wouldn’t have took off if you didn’t think that you were gonna get blamed for what happened at the Cat.”

He shrugged, a little irritated at first, until he took a closer look at her. Her expression was distant – bitter. She was venting. “So, what’s your story.”

“Mom was a whore. I was nine when one of them killed her – busted her head open for the coppers he’d paid her.”

She let out a snorting chuckle. “Thief with a lame leg took us in, and we earned our bread by pinching for him. Once we turned sixteen, we earned our keep in his bed, too. I took better to his teaching, Yani took better to repaying him. Died of something about six years ago. We got it too, but we lived, and I took over his kip.”

Mindblind took it in and found that it put the trials of his own life in perspective.

Most people shunned him, and his sisters teased him – often hatefully – but his mother and stepfather didn’t treat him any differently than any of their other children. His brother nearly worshiped him, and the few extended family members that he’d met had accepted him as well. A far cry more than what she’d had growing up.

“Rasp stank to high heaven, and he was a taskmaster, but he taught me everything I know. Always knew when I was doing good, because he’d pinch us some new clothes or something, even with his gimpy leg.”

Her voice softened a little as she spoke of the lame thief in almost fatherly terms. It helped explain to Cerebus why she’d warmed to him so readily. She was used to far worse, and he was a rare median between the world she knew, and the one she could never walk in.

She shook her head, almost as if snapping out of a trance. “Sorry. Damn rain always makes me like this, especially when I’m stuck out in it.”

Feeling as though he owed her a little in return, Cerebus relayed his own history, as his stepfather had told it to him when he asked. “Mom and Pops lived up along Normandal. They were supposed to get hitched in a few days when the goblins raided the village and took her. They had her for five days before Pops and his brothers found her.”

He could remember the barely controlled rage in his stepfather’s voice when the older man had told this part of the tale. “Three of ‘em killed two warrior goblins and six reds with knives, hoes, and scythes. None of ‘em really remember anything but seeing red when they did it. Hung ‘em upside down from a tree.”

Raven smiled, obviously approving of the brutal violence. Truth to tell, so did he.

“They got hitched when Mom pulled out of it.”

“Not many men like that...” She began, and then suddenly snapped her gaze behind her, though there wasn’t anything but low-hanging pine boughs to see.

A second later, he heard it. It sounded like a female voice – a scream to be more exact. If it were any farther away, they never would have caught the slightest hint of it.

Raven stood up, checking her knives and daggers with quick pats, and said, “That’s my sis.”

“You sure?”

“Trust me. One of them is humping her, and she’s playing along. I’ve heard it often enough until I took her to the Cat.”

Suddenly wide awake, and coursing with nervous energy, he stood next to her and cinched up the buckles on his armor. She dumped her skin of water on the fire, and then kicked the dirt from the shallow pit that he’d dug on top of it as well.

Without another word, they set out into the darkness and rain, side-by-side, with naked steel in their tightly clenched fists.