Bren was still standing when Irla reached him, but only just.

  He had one hand clamped over his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers in a slow, steady trickle. The other hand held the arrow, white-knuckled around the shaft. His face was pale under the grime and the faint sweat-sheen of exertion, but his eyes were clear, focused in that way James had come to associate with the hunter when things went very wrong.

  Irla’s expression went flat for exactly one heartbeat. Then every bit of softness vanished and her healer’s focus snapped into place. She crossed the distance between them in a few quick strides, skirts swishing around her ankles, fingers already glowing with that now-familiar, soft light.

  “Sit,” she ordered.

  Bren tried to protest, but Maude was already at his other side, pushing insistently at his uninjured arm. She might have been smaller than him, but right now she was all iron. Between the two of them, Bren wound up on a log near the fire, jaw clenched, breath hissing through his teeth as the movement disturbed the wound.

  James forced himself to look at the wound properly and not at the way the villagers were staring, eyes wide and frightened. The arrow had punched clean through the meat of Bren’s shoulder and out the back, dangerously close to the joint. It was a good shot. Too good. No one in the clearing could have made one like that. They didn’t even have bows.

  He swallowed once, pushing his own unease down, and let Irla work.

  “Hold still,” she murmured, more to herself than to Bren. She laid her fingers just above the entry wound. Mana moved, brushing over James’s awareness like the soft breath of wind through leaves.

  Irla took one steadying breath. Then she widened her stance, whispered the trigger phrase under her breath, and cupped her hands.

  “Aether Drop,” James heard her say.

  Light collected between her palms like water, clear and shimmering, thick with power. It clung to her fingers and then dripped downward in slow, heavy drops, sliding over the ruined tunic and into the wound. Where it passed, Bren’s flesh quivered, tightening and smoothing. Blood slowed, then stopped.

  Bren panted, blinking hard as the pain ebbed. He flexed his fingers experimentally, then rotated his arm with a grimace.

  “That,” he said hoarsely, “was not pleasant.”

  Irla sagged back on her heels, the glow around her dimming. Her hair clung damply to her temples, and her chest rose and fell a little too quickly. James stepped forward, catching her elbow before she toppled.

  “You good?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded once, then again, more firmly. “I will be. It was only one wound. I have enough left for a few more scrapes.” Her eyes slid to the arrow in James’s hand. “But I would prefer not to have to use it again today.”

  “Seconded,” James muttered.

  Around them, the clearing started to breathe again. Pebble, who had been clinging to Marla’s skirt and sucking anxiously on two fingers, relaxed enough to bury her face in her mother’s leg instead. Murmurs spread as people saw the wound sealed and Bren still upright. Relief was a small, fragile thing, but it was there, fragile as new leaves.

  James held the arrow carefully by the shaft, away from the blood. The tip had been wiped mostly clean. Still, it gleamed dully under the weak daylight, a sliver of sharpened stone that didn’t belong here. The fletching was neat and tight, feathers bound skillfully in an even spiral.

  No one in this village knew how to make something like that.

  He felt the weight of eyes on him, waiting for him to say something that made this less terrifying. For once, he had nothing soothing to offer.

  “We need to talk,” he said instead. “Let’s go. Now.”

  Marla’s mouth tightened, but she nodded, already shifting Pebble to one arm so she could clap briskly with the other, her voice snapping out in brisk orders. “Everyone back to your work. We are not panicking over one arrow. Mira, check the fawns’ fence. Elira, garden. Trell, Alder, keep an eye on the children. You two, stop staring and go fetch more wood, the fire’s low.”

  The noise in the clearing shifted from anxious murmurs to the familiar sounds of work. It was thinner than usual, strained at the edges, but it was something. James let himself be grateful for that.

  “Bren, you can walk?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Chieftain.” Bren rolled his shoulder again with a wince. “Hurts like the void, but I’m good.”

  “Good. Marla, Rogan, inside.”

  They filed into the first longhouse together, the one that still smelled faintly of smoke and cured hides, of old stew and sleeping bodies. The bell-flowers outside chimed gently as a breeze stirred them, their sound soft and incongruously cheerful.

  Inside, the dimness wrapped around them like a cloak. James waited until the leather flap fell shut and the outside world dropped away, leaving only the steady breath of four people.

  He sat down on one of the furs, cross-legged, and gestured for the others to join him. Bren lowered himself carefully, expression pinched. Rogan folded down like a mountain deciding to sit; the floor creaked faintly in protest. Marla settled herself opposite James, Pebble still clinging to her, though the little girl had started to look more curious than afraid.

  For a moment, nobody spoke. Dust motes floated in the thin light coming from the smoke hole in the roof. The arrow lay across James’s palms, alien and wrong.

  “Tell us exactly what happened,” he said at last, looking at Bren.

  The hunter nodded slowly, eyes dropping as he replayed the morning.

  “I went out before dawn,” he began. “Same as always. Took the usual route east, by the old fallen tree and the stone that looks like a crooked nose. For the first while it was normal. Birds, rustling, nothing strange.”

  He hesitated, jaw working.

  “Then… I started feeling watched. You know how it is, Chieftain, when something has its eyes on your back. The hairs go up. I heard something once, to my left, then to my right, but every time I looked there was nothing. No broken twigs, no branch snapping. Just silence where there should have been noise.”

  His fingers flexed unconsciously, remembering the weight of his knives.

  “I thought it was a beast at first,” he admitted. “One of the subtler ones, maybe. But as I moved, it moved. Every time I changed direction, it kept behind me. It was careful. Too careful for a beast. I tried to lose it. Used the new skill, the one I got in the tunnels.”

  “Evasive Momentum,” James said.

  Bren nodded. “Yeah. Kept my movements sharp, changed pace, ducked under branches, doubled back a couple of times. For a while… I thought it worked. The feeling faded. I went another hundred paces, maybe, and started to relax. I was thinking about rabbits, not enemies.”

  He huffed a humorless breath. “That’s when the arrow hit.”

  Marla made a low sound, her hand tightening on Pebble’s back.

  “It came out of nowhere,” Bren continued quietly. “No warning. One moment I was swallowing, the next my shoulder felt like it had been bitten by a steel wolf. If I hadn’t turned just then it would have gone through my chest. As it was, the force knocked me into a tree. I pulled the arrow, ducked, and rolled. The next shot hit the trunk instead of my head.”

  He met James’s gaze steadily. “Whoever it was, they were trying. They weren’t playing.”

  Rogan’s big hands tightened on his knees. “You see them at all?” he asked. “Any glimpse? Height? Shape?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Bren shook his head. “Nothing. I saw where the arrow came from, but by the time I got my bearings, they were gone. Fast. Silent. Not like any hunter I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a few.”

  James exhaled slowly, turning the arrow in his hands. The feathers were some pale grey, shot through with faint iridescence, unlike any bird he recognized. The shaft was straight and smooth, no tool marks visible. Whoever made this had practice.

  “We don’t have bows,” he said aloud, mostly for Marla’s benefit. “We don’t have anyone who can make something this precise. Which means this is from someone else. Someone who lives close enough to stalk one of ours.”

  “Could it be a wandering tribe?” Marla asked. Her voice was calmer than the tight set of her shoulders. “On our march from the mountains we met a few, but none this deep in the forest. Those people are weeks away from here.”

  Rogan grunted. “Hunters don’t wander this far just to stab a stranger and run. Waste of effort.”

  “And no one takes that kind of shot without a reason,” Bren said. “You don’t loose an arrow from the trees unless you’re sure you’re ready for whatever comes next. They weren’t.”

  “Testing us,” James murmured. “Seeing what we do. How we react.”

  Silence settled again. The idea hung between them, heavy and unpleasant.

  Pebble shifted in Marla’s lap, sensing the mood even if she did not understand the words. She patted her mother’s arm in a clumsy, earnest way. Marla kissed the top of her head without taking her eyes off James.

  “So,” she said. “What do we do?”

  James looked at the arrow one last time, then set it down carefully on the fur between them like an accusation.

  “Our first problem,” he said, “is that we are blind. We don’t know who they are, what they want, or how many are out there. Bren, Rogan, and I are going out after we’re done here. We follow the trail as far as we can. We can’t afford to sit here and hope this was a one-time thing.”

  Marla opened her mouth, then closed it, thinking. Rogan’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture eased. He had been waiting for that.

  “And the village?” she asked.

  “That’s the second problem,” James said. “We are weak. Better than we were, yes, but still not enough. A single arrow shouldn’t be enough to throw us into chaos. We need more people who can fight and survive being ambushed in the woods.”

  Rogan inclined his head slightly. “Training.”

  “Training,” James agreed. “Rogan, tomorrow morning, you’re taking Maude, Havlik, and one other person to the tunnels.”

  Rogan’s brow furrowed. “To the tunnels? What for?”

  “For what they were made for, apparently,” James said dryly. “Fighting things and getting stronger. Those gnawers and beetles down there are ugly, but they are perfect for practice. Lots of them, not too strong, contained space. I want you all to get levels. Skills. I’ll bless Havlik and whoever else you choose tomorrow morning before you go. Make your preparations tonight. I want you coming back stronger.”

  “The sad truth,” he added, voice softer, “is that our village needs warriors. Today made that abundantly clear.”

  Marla clicked her tongue, frowning. “And who exactly is Rogan going to take with him?” she demanded. “We are already short of hands as it is. Since you came, James Wright, miracles have been happening, I will not deny it. People are finding their paths. Everyone suddenly has a purpose. But they are all different paths. Not all of them are meant to be fighters. We cannot send all our sparks into the fire and hope some come back forged.”

  Her words hit with more force than any scolding. James looked around the dim longhouse, thinking of the faces outside. Thirty people. That was all. Thirty souls huddled under the branches of an impossible tree, trying to become something like a village.

  He thought of Elira in her garden, of Ollen carefully placing seeds in rich soil. Of Mira with her careful needle and hides. Of Harlon’s steady hands on leather. Of Trell and Alder, eyes bright with the shape of wood and stone. Of Pebble, clapping at fireflies. Of Finni walking through the clearing with shining eyes and fawns at his heels. Of Tember, jaw clenched with frustrated yearning.

  Not all of them were meant to stand in front of a charging beast. But some of them would have to.

  He turned back to Marla. “You’re right,” he said simply. “We can’t shove everyone down the same path. That means we have to be careful who we choose. Do you have anyone in mind?”

  Marla’s frown deepened as she thought. Her fingers tapped absently against Pebble’s back, a restless, thoughtful rhythm. “There is one,” she said at last. “Inna.”

  James blinked. “Inna?”

  “She has not found her place yet,” Marla said, nodding once. “She works in the garden some days, in the longhouse others, but nothing fits her fully. I have seen how her eyes track the warriors when they train. How she leans forward when someone returns wounded. How she asks questions about what happened out there. Danger does not frighten her the way it should. It… intrigues her.” Her mouth twisted. “It is a troublesome trait. Useful, perhaps, if given the right shape.”

  James’s mind threw up the image of Inna as he had seen her last: short, with messy red hair that never quite stayed where she pinned it, a button nose, big eyes, and a smile that made her look about five years younger than she was. She had the air of a girl who, if she’d been born on Earth, would have taken pictures of lattes and sunsets and posted them under inspirational quotes. Here, she had been scrubbing pots and helping Elira weed.

  He tried to imagine her with a spear in her hands and grit on her face. It did not quite fit. But then again, he would not have pegged Maude as someone who would wade into a tunnel full of monsters with a stave and come out grinning, either.

  In his short time here, James had learned one thing very quickly: when Marla’s instincts spoke, it was worth listening.

  “Good enough for me,” he said. “Rogan, find Inna and let her know. She’s going with you tomorrow. Bring her to me first thing in the morning and I’ll bless her.”

  Rogan nodded, expression serious. “I’ll tell her,” he said. The corner of his mouth tugged up just a fraction. “She will probably argue.”

  “Then she’s perfect,” James muttered.

  For a moment, some of the heaviness in the room lifted. Pebble chose that exact second to reach out and pat the arrow lying on the fur, before Marla could snatch her hand back. She giggled at the texture, completely unaware of the weight of it. James made a mental note to move the evidence of attempted murder out of toddler reach.

  James sighed and said, “our next priority is the workshop.”

  Marla looked at him for a long moment, “you say the workshop is a priority. Is that truly more important than, say, extra watch posts or more shelters?”

  “Yes,” James said, without hesitation.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Convince me.”

  James rubbed a hand over his face. He was tired, mana-deep tired, the kind of tired that clung to the inside of his bones. But this was exactly the kind of conversation he had wanted to have for days.

  “We need the workshop for a lot of reasons,” he said. “We need tools that don’t break every other use. We need hinges that don’t rust out in a week. We need saws, proper ones. Nails, brackets, things that will let us build faster and stronger. And most importantly, we need weapons and armor that can stand up to more than a cranky boar. Varn can’t make those in your hearth. He needs a space with the right heat, the right tools, a way to control the fire.”

  Marla pursed her lips. “And what is so special about metal weapons?” she asked. “A spear kills as well as a sword. A stone axe cuts as well as a metal one. We have lived with such things all our lives.”

  James watched the arrow’s shadow on the fur for a long moment. “I’m going to tell you something about my world,” he said quietly. “And I want you to remember that I am not saying this to frighten you. I’m saying it because I refuse to let the same thing happen here.”

  He took a breath and began to speak.

  He told them, in simple terms stripped of most of their cultural baggage, about how one nation had crossed an ocean to a land already full of people and had carved its name into it with steel and gunpowder. He told them how disease had done most of the work, but how the rest had been finished by men with better metal, better ships, better tactics. He told them about muskets and cannons in words they could understand, as thunder-sticks and iron tubes that spat death farther than any arrow. He told them how cities fell not because the people were weak or stupid, but because they had never been given the time or the tools to keep up.

  He spoke of another land across yet another sea, where armored men on horses had ridden down farmers and warriors alike because their blades held an edge that bone and bronze could not match. He told them, carefully, that entire cultures had been wiped away not by gods but by human greed married to better steel.

  Marla listened with a frown that deepened with every word. Bren sat very still, eyes fixed on James as if trying to imagine what a world full of such weapons would even look like. Rogan’s jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists on his knees.

  “I don’t want that here,” James said softly, when he finished. “Not for us, and not for any other village either, if I can help it. But history has taught me one thing over and over. Going into the future with sticks when someone else has steel is an excellent way to end up a story someone else tells about the people who used to live here.” He nodded toward the arrow. “Whoever shot this already has something we don’t. I won’t let us fall further behind if I can help it.”

  Marla exhaled slowly. “So the workshop is our first step,” she said.

  “Our first real step,” James agreed. “Once Varn can work metal properly, once Alder and Trell have better tools, everything else gets easier. Houses, fences, watchtowers, armor. Weapons.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We also need defenses now. Which means you are going to hate me for a while.”

  Marla snorted. “I already do, half the time. That has not stopped you yet.”

  “Fair.” He managed a small smile. “We need a village defense plan. Night watches. Patrol routes. Simple alarms. Strings tied with bells or shells, maybe. Things that make noise if someone pushes through.”

  “We don’t have any of those things,” Marla pointed out.

  “We have those little metal bowls Varn’s been flattening,” James said. “We punch a hole in them, hang them from strings, and hit them with sticks. Instant bell. Ugly, but it works.”

  “You are very good at making problems for me,” Marla said, but the protest was weaker now. “Who takes the watches?”

  “Everyone,” James said. “Not at once. We rotate. Rogan, you set a schedule. No one goes to the latrine outside the clearing alone at night anymore. Children stay inside the longhouses after dusk. If anyone sees anything strange, they tell someone immediately. No more ‘I didn’t want to bother the Chieftain’ nonsense.”

  Rogan inclined his head. “I’ll start tonight,” he said. “We’ll need more than warriors. Alder and Trell can’t swing a sword yet, but they can shout loud enough to wake the dead.”

  “Exactly,” James said. “While you do that, I’ll see what I can do about defensive buildings. Walls, maybe. Watch platforms. If nothing else, a better sightline to the forest.”

  Marla looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Very well,” she said. “We will do this your way, James Wright. But if my villagers start falling asleep while stirring stew because you worked them into the ground, I will personally throw you into the river.”

  “I believe you,” he said, and somehow that helped.

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