They agreed to travel on foot again the next day, Thorn taking up Murtagh's things except for the hand-and-a-half sword he kept by his side. Halen was respectfully adamant about not riding Thorn, citing that in all of her two and twenty years of life, if there were to be any indication that she should be in the air, she would have wings of her own. "Not to mention," she had added, "We are at a disadvantage if the tracks we've followed thus far change. We'd have no way of knowing from the air."

Her logic there was completely sound. And not knowing what they were headed into, Murtagh and Thorn both agreed that it would be best if Thorn kept any eye out for any predators from above, and Murtagh would stay with Halen on the ground.

He had to admit to himself that he was not looking forward to the run. Halen looked to be in peak physical shape — not that he had noticed to be depraved. When she had worn her sleeveless tops, she had revealed toned arms. Which also made sense knowing she was extremely proficient with a bow and arrow. And while he couldn't see her legs, he had to imagine that someone who spent as much time trekking through the woods as she did had to be more than capable of even the most moderate physical exertion.

He, on the other hand, had not been modest when he had told her he had more or less let himself go. He couldn't remember the last time he had gone running, wielded his sword, or used complicated spells. He, at most, used magic to keep his fires hot in the frigid temperatures of the north or ward off any predators he was too lazy to kill with a blade — which was almost all of them, if Thorn did not get to them first. His body had more or less gone soft at this point.

So, no, he was not looking forward to embarrassing himself further in front of the woman.

"Ready?"

He must've made a face because hers broke out into a teasing smile. "If you start falling too far behind, just have Thorn come and get you."

"You little —"

She was already running, the sounds of her laughter carried away by the wind. Murtagh begrudgingly followed, ignoring that she seemed to be taunting him by going painfully slow and then speeding up at random intervals, only laughing when he cursed at her from behind.

But he forced himself to keep pushing forward, irritated at the thought of falling too far behind her. He inhaled through his nose and out through his mouth, his eyes trained on Halen's impeccable form and grace, even in the woods. She moved like it was nothing, using the rocks, fallen trees, vines over the small parts of the river like it was nothing. Her feet found every mark, and her breathing remained smooth, ever the slight strain, as one mile stretched into two, then three.

The weather, at least, was somewhat more favorable, overcast and grey, so while still warm, at least the sun wasn't beating down on them either. They stopped for breaks — usually to make sure the tracks hadn't changed — panting, Murtagh rolling his eyes as Halen shot him teasing grins. They didn't say a single word, conserving as much of their energy as possible. And yet he found himself connecting with her more — even if it was on a shallow level — than when they held an actual conversation. He didn't quite understand it, but he felt it all the same, the subtle shift taking place between them.

Halen suddenly slid to a stop and Murtagh felt himself slow down, noticing how tight her shoulders had become. Not wanting to make any sudden noise, he crept quietly to her side and saw what had given her pause.

There was a temporary camp here, appearing to have been scavenged, since its abandonment, by wild animals. Knapsacks were torn to shreds, scraps of dried meat and fruit thrown around the site. There were several blankets, two partially charred and burnt from where they must've fallen into the now extinguished fire. There wasn't a doubt that this is where Halen's friends had been attacked. How the one man had gotten back was a miracle of its own. He must've run nonstop to get back to the village to let the others know what had happened.

Murtagh hesitated before glancing over at Halen, who had been unnaturally still. Her mouth was set in a hard line, her eyes filled with fury as they took in the scene around her. He felt bad for her. This couldn't have been what she had been hoping to find. He let her think in silence, confident that now was not the time to ask how she was feeling or to give condolences.

She was trying to calm her breathing, to keep her emotions at bay. When she seemed sure that she would not crack under the pressure, she finally spoke, her voice steady. "You can track, right?"

"Aye."

"Then let's spread out, look for signs of where they may have gone or what might have happened."

He nodded, moving right and unsheathing his hand-and-a-half sword while Hal went left, loosely nocking an arrow. As he walked away, he realized then how precise her steps were as they both moved without making noise. If he did not occasionally turn around to assure himself that she was still there, he'd forget entirely.

Murtagh moved in closer to where they fire had been, likely where the men had been sleeping when they were ambushed, as Hal fanned out around the perimeter. Up close, his jaw tightened at the amount of blood nearby. It was an alarming amount, and he wondered if it was from where the man had lost his hand, although there was no sign of the missing limb anywhere.

The prints left behind showed chaos and confusion. He brushed aside fallen leaves and wind-blown dirt, crouching as he found the body prints from where the men had likely been sleeping. Four bodies, and…ah-ha. He found the fifth near a tree, a smaller print likely from sitting up and keeping watch. It was hard to decipher what may have happened in the ensuing commotion, but there was only one key detail that perhaps gave him some semblance of hope.

"Their footprints lead away from the camp."

Murtagh swore violently, turning as Halen seemingly appeared out of nowhere to stand behind him. Her lips twitched, her expression playful, before returning to its sober and tense state.

"I noticed the same thing," he said, his heart still racing under his tunic. "Did the prints lead out towards you? Because everything here is too chaotic to deconstruct into a semblance of something that makes sense."

"They do, except for one set, which I presume belong to Eli." Her head tilted as she examined the scene. She didn't move for several long moments and Murtagh watched her with a mix of concern and awe.

"Amon lay here," she began, walking around what remained of the fire pit and laying down. "He's a big man, so his prints are always deeper than the others." She looked over at him. "I bet Sam took first watch, he usually does because it takes him longer to fall asleep."

"His print was over here." Mimicking Halen, he sat down right where Sam would have been sitting, gazing out in the direction the man would have been facing.

"Do you see anything unusual from there?" Halen asked.

"No."

"Neither do I."

So they moved, lying down in two other spaces. Murtagh's next print was wide, as if the individual had slept on their back. He did just that, staring up at the bit of sky that he could see between the branches of the trees and still finding nothing out of the ordinary.

"Halen, I don't see —"

He paused, losing his train of thought as he spied something high up in one of the trees.

"Rider?"

He rose carefully to his feet, his eyes narrowing carefully. There, high up in one of the trees, was an arrow. There's no way it accidentally landed that far up, yet it seemed almost preposterous that there was any predator capable of getting that high up in the tree to begin with. Although the branches were thick and sturdy, there weren't many low enough to the ground to make climbing that easy.

So what had the man — whichever one it was — been aiming for?

Halen, who had followed his gaze, was now walking towards the tree with her head down. She paused a few feet from the base. Without lifting her head, she said, "There are footprints here."

Murtagh frowned, moving to stand beside her. Sure enough, there were footprints that seemed to appear out of nowhere. There weren't any nearby, indicating what direction they had walked from. Which meant —

"They were standing in the tree," Halen muttered as if in disbelief of the words, even as she spoke them aloud. "And must've jumped after the arrow was fired. But they should've broken at least an ankle from a jump like that."

Murtagh began clearing away at the area around the prints. Sure enough, upon closer inspection, there were narrow indentions in the soft ground. Not quite a full print, as if whoever it was had run on their toes and not on their full foot.

"They're fast," he said to Halen, who had kneeled down beside him to examine the prints. "They didn't bother putting their full foot on the ground, and their steps are short, much like you when you run. But the prints are not as deep as they should be, and even the weight of an average man should leave a deeper marker than this. Especially considering how much weight this kind of form carries."

Halen's expression was unreadable. "Eli said what they faced felt like pure evil. I thought perhaps he meant in terms of temperament. But now, I cannot help but wonder if he meant it wasn't human at all."

Murtagh watched her carefully before rising to his feet. Her eyes followed him as he held out his hand. "Come on. Let's follow their prints and see if we can find where they escaped to."

He had chosen his words carefully, not wanting to indicate that there was no hope yet to be found. What remained of the campsite was eerie, yes, but if their prints indicated that they had fled, then they very well may have found a place to hide.

Her face twisted in anguish and he felt his throat tighten, unable to comprehend how difficult this must be for her. But she put on a pained smile and took his hand, her eyes filled with appreciation as he lifted Halen to her feet.

They followed the group prints Halen had found where the men seemed to have fled the campsite. Murtagh could not help but notice how quickly Halen walked — anxious, he was sure. The further in they walked, the more something seemed to nag at the back of his head. Like something was wrong. Like he had forgotten something.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he really did run into Halen this time, not having realized she had stopped. He stared at her in confusion, about to ask her what was wrong, when he quickly realized that she was transfixed in fear, her eyes wide. He followed her gaze and immediately felt the blood drain from his face.

He reacted without thinking, putting a hand over Halen's mouth even though she had not said anything, and dragging her down to the ground with him, out of sight before they were spotted. However, he wasn't as graceful as he would've liked, and the sound of the leaves rustling underneath them sounded like thunder clapping in a void. The sound of eating stopped, the sound of a creature taking deep pulls of air, sniffing. There was a menacing growl and Murtagh could feel Hal shaking horribly in his arms. Her entire body was tense, and he could not blame her.

They had found the creature who owned the giant prints.

He had to think quickly, and he feared what using magic would do to his energy. He spoke quickly and quietly, casting wards over them both, hiding their scent and appearance just as a bloodied snout appeared around the bush they were hiding behind. Something wet touched his hand covering Halen's mouth, and he realized with dismay that she was crying. As if realizing what the threat of her sobs might do, she pressed her hand that wasn't pinned under his arms against his, and he feared she may suffocate herself at this rate.

They were still. Murtagh himself hardly breathed as the Lethrblaka appeared before them, turning its head and looking right where they sat, blinking its empty black eyes in confusion where it saw nothing but an empty space. Whether or not Halen knew what he had done, he couldn't be sure. But she seemed to read him based on his actions, and she kept frightfully still, making it harder to miss how terrified she was as her shaking worsened as the creature drew closer.

It sniffed the air around them, baring its teeth as it growled. Like it knew they were there, but was frustrated that it couldn't see them. Murtagh could see flecks of blood on its teeth, bits of animal gore and fur trapped in between.

He focused on maintaining the shields around them, praying it wouldn't be long before the beast moved on. Murtagh couldn't hold this magic forever like he'd been able to years before. Perhaps if he had at least been in better shape, and he cursed himself for becoming so lazy and irresponsible.

The Lethrblaka was relentless, and Murtagh couldn't understand why it seemed so fixated on sniffing them out. Like it was drawn to them. It drew closer, the sheer size of it even more commanding and intimidating up close.

And that's when he realized why something had felt off just moments before.

THORN!

It was like an illusion had been severed, and he realized it wasn't just that he hadn't even noticed that something had been blocking his connection with Thorn. The entire world seemed to implode with sound, heavy gusts of wind rushing around them as if they had been held back by an unknown entity. And the sheer force of all that air pressure dropping around them was jarring as his dragon burst through the trees, as if having heard the cry of his rider.

The appearance of Thorn distracted the Lethrblaka, who released a menacing scream that made Murtagh flinch and Halen shudder, finally breaking her position to clamp her hands over her ears. But Murtagh didn't give her a chance, jumping to his feet and yanking on her arm, breaking into a sprint as he pulled her away from the fight.

But they didn't make it far when the Lethrblaka's tail whipped out towards them from nowhere. Thankfully, both he and Halen had quick reflexes, and turned on their heels so that they could drop to the ground before they were hit and thrown off their feet. Scrambling to keep moving, they jumped back up and ran for it.

The fight between Thorn and the Lethrblaka sounded destructive, biting, scratching, and brute strength bearing down on the trees surrounding them. Murtagh's chest felt tight at the conflict roaring in his heart. He did not want to leave Thorn, who was buying them an opportunity to escape. What kind of rider would he be to abandon his dragon? But he could not leave Halen on her own. He trusted Thorn to come out victorious, and that would have to be enough for now.

Murtagh, look out!

He slid to a stop and only had a moment to register the growing shadow under he and Hal. He glanced up. The Lethrblaka must've slipped away from Thorn, heading straight for Murtagh and Hal with its wide jaw already open, ready to devour them both. Without thinking, he shoved Halen out of the way, standing alone as he raised his sword, but knew he would not get it up in time. He began to speak a spell to protect himself, but could not get the words out fast enough.

But where he was slow, Halen was fast. He had forgotten she had been armed, but her arrow was aimed true, hitting the Lethrblaka directly in the eye. The creature reared back from Murtagh at the last minute, screaming in agony as dark blood splattered from its injury. It's wing nearly clipped Murtagh in the jaw, but Halen, who had run towards him to get to the other side, took the hit instead, crying out as it tore open the material of her tunic, making a thin but deep cut on her shoulder. She rolled to an almost effortless stop as though she had planned it, and when she turned to face the creature again, she had somehow managed to nock another arrow. She fired again, this time hitting its other eye, blinding it completely as it writhed in agony.

Murtagh didn't hesitate, Halen having bought both he and Thorn more time. The dragon attacked once more, now with a greater advantage as the Lethrblaka tried to make sense of everything now that it had no sight to rely on.

"Halen, your shoulder —"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she assured him quickly. "We need to keep moving."

"We need to get to the river, a deep part of the river."

She nodded, gritting her teeth against the stinging pain of her injury. "Follow me."

She took off and he stayed right behind her, trying not to let his concern get the best of him as her tunic became stained with her blood. She ran with her bow low, an arrow loosely nocked just in case she needed to fire it immediately. But he could see how her arm was shaking even from that little bit of effort, and he couldn't imagine what the strain of pulling on the bow would do to her arm if the injury was severe.

There was a sudden, blinding pain in his thigh and Murtagh cried out as he dropped, all of his weight clamoring for his left leg. Sticking out of his right thigh was an arrow, but the head didn't go all the way through.

"Murtagh!"

She turned at the sound of his pain and rushed towards him. There was another arrow, this one missing Halen's head by a breadth. One more step… She froze immediately, eyes wide as she turned towards the direction the arrow had come from. Murtagh, shaking and clenching his jaw in pain, did the same thing. As the attacker stepped from the shadows, he felt the panic begin to set in.

"Halen, run."

"No, I'm not leaving you."

"Get the hell out of here, NOW!"

"Murtagh —!"

"Not ssso fassst, humansss."