“Even the oldest tree cannot command the storm. Yet beneath its branches, generations have learned what shelter means.”
— From the oral traditions of the wandering clans
Sẹ́ni was directing the last patients towards the bridge when the southern guard sounded a retreat.
The call travelled over the wagons, sharp enough to silence the attendants around her. She turned towards the medical road.
Beyond the smoke, defenders were moving south in scattered groups. She could not identify Dàre among them. Nor could she see the pale-winged attacker described in the warnings, though the change in the guards’ movements told her enough.
The road behind them was lost.
“We go now,” she said.
An attendant glanced towards the research wagons.
“The records—”
“No.”
Sẹ́ni did not raise her voice. The single word stopped him more effectively than a shout.
“We’ve taken what we can carry. The rest stays.”
She had spent years teaching the clan’s younger physicians how carefully an observation must be preserved. She knew how many journeys were represented by the cases they were leaving behind, and how difficult it would be to rebuild some of the instruments.
Only hours earlier she had told Dàre to eat before returning to his work. She had expected to scold him again tomorrow, when the excitement had passed and there were more patients than hands to tend them. She looked at the healers beside her, at the children they were carrying and the familiar indigo cloth moving through the smoke. The people beside her would be harder to replace.
“Walking patients left,” she called. “Carriers to the right. Keep moving across the bridge.”
The structure had been built for heavy wagons travelling one at a time. Now its timbers shuddered beneath a crowd of frightened families. Guards formed two lanes at the entrance, helping those with carriers while urging the people on foot to keep moving.
An injured defender reached the road with a physician supporting him.
“Can you walk?” Sẹ́ni asked.
“With help.”
“Then stay with the carriers.”
The guard looked back towards the northern wagons.
“Others are still coming.”
“I know.”
He tried to turn around. The physician caught his arm, and Sẹ́ni stepped into his path.
“You’ve done your part. Let the next person help you.”
The guard lowered his head and allowed himself to be guided onwards.
Sẹ́ni looked towards the road again.
A familiar voice rose above the crowd.
“Aunt Sẹ́ni!”
Khepri stood near the entrance with Simi holding his hand.
Relief almost took Sẹ́ni’s knees from beneath her. Both children were moving. Both were together. She could not reach them through the pressure of the crowd without stopping the people behind them.
“Keep going!” she called.
Khepri tried to turn towards her.
Simi drew him back.
“She knows the way,” his sister told him.
He looked beyond Sẹ́ni towards the great tree. Lanterns still hung among its branches, and beneath them was the family table. Only hours earlier, Simi had been arguing with him about the horns while their father leaned over his drawing, asking the sort of questions that made Khepri want to explain everything twice. He could almost hear Dàre laughing as Sẹ́ni protested.
The drawing was still there, unfinished beside the plates. Khepri had meant to go back for it after the alarm. He had even been thinking of how the horn might fit against the frame. It had not occurred to him to imagine a morning in which the table might not be there.
He wanted to ask Simi whether someone would fetch the drawing when they returned. One look at her face stopped him.
Simi took his hand again and led him onto the bridge.
* * *
Dàre nearly passed his children without seeing them.
The crossing was crowded with healers, patients and travellers trying to find their families. He had been searching faces for several minutes when he caught sight of Khepri’s glasses beneath a lantern.
“SIMI!”
She turned.
“Father!”
He pushed between two carriers and reached them as Khepri broke into a run.
Dàre caught his son in his arms. Khepri buried his face against his father's cloak, clutching the fabric with both hands. For the first time since the alarm, the boy stopped searching for something he could do. He simply held on. Dàre could feel him shaking.
For a few breaths Dàre let himself hold him. Then his training forced his attention towards practical things.
“Are you hurt?”
Khepri shook his head.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Simi?”
“I’m all right.”
He checked them as best he could in the half-light. Simi was frightened and exhausted but steady on her feet. Khepri’s fingers shook against his cloak.
“Cross the bridge,” Dàre said. “Follow the southern road until you reach the next safe settlement.”
Simi stared at him.
“You’re coming?”
“I’ll follow if I can.”
“Father—”
“Listen.”
“Your aunt and the last transport group are still behind the wagons. I need to help them reach the crossing. You have to keep moving.”
Khepri looked at his father’s bow. The quiver held almost nothing. Dàre’s hands were trembling, and his breathing was uneven.
“Your Chi,” Khepri said.
“I took Agbo.”
“Not enough.”
“No.”
Dàre drew the bottle from his belt. A little of the green preparation remained. He drank it slowly, letting its stored Chi ease into his exhausted circulation. It steadied him, but did not restore the strength he had spent.
Khepri watched the trembling mouth of the empty bottle. His father tried to fasten it to his belt and missed the loop once. Those same hands had steadied Khepri's stance when they practised archery only hours earlier. He had never imagined his father might struggle with something as small as fastening a bottle.
“Come with us,” he whispered. “You said you'd find us.”
Dàre wanted to say yes.
He wanted to walk with them until the forest ended, then sit somewhere far from alarm bells while Khepri explained the latest improvements to his carrier. He wanted to hear Simi describe the work she had begun in the surgical shelter. He wanted to see what his son had made of that unfinished drawing. There were a hundred ordinary things he had assumed they would do together in the morning.
He looked at the southern road. The surviving families were moving, but many still needed help. He could hear people calling from beyond the last medical wagon.
“I’ll try,” he said.
He held the children again. Simi's arms closed around him so tightly that he almost lost his balance. When he straightened, Khepri did not let go of his cloak. Dàre gently loosened the boy's fingers, one after another, until he could take his hand.
Then he put Simi’s hand around Khepri’s.
“Stay together.”
Simi nodded, though her eyes were wet.
“Go.”
They moved towards the bridge. Khepri turned once, searching for his father above the crowd, and Dàre raised a hand. The boy did not wave. He kept looking back until the carriers passed between them and Dàre could no longer see his face. Then another voice called from behind the wagons. Dàre lowered his hand and turned towards it.
He had two arrows left.
He did not intend to challenge the winged Vekari. He could barely stand against another ordinary Thrall. But the last patients were still trying to reach the road, and he knew where the narrow passage could be defended for a few moments more.
He drew one arrow and ran towards the calls.
* * *
The bridge shook beneath Khepri’s feet.
He grabbed the railing as a wagon at the northern entrance overturned. A shout travelled through the crowd, followed by the cracking of timber.
“Keep moving,” Simi said.
People pressed towards the far bank. Guards on the southern side tried to clear a space where the carriers could leave the bridge without turning. A child slipped near Khepri, and a stranger lifted her back onto her feet.
He glanced over his shoulder.
Dark shapes were climbing over the overturned wagon. The defenders held a narrow space between the attackers and the bridge, but the gap was shrinking.
Farther behind, smoke drifted above the medical shelters. The lanterns in the great tree still glimmered through it.
Khepri searched for his father among the people retreating from the road. He picked out every bow, every familiar shoulder, certain that if he looked carefully enough he would recognise Dàre. Only moments ago his father had stood close enough to touch.
He could not find him.
Then a pale shape rose over the wagon.
The winged Vekari came into view above the northern entrance. Its head turned towards the crowded bridge, then towards the brace supporting the near end of the crossing.
Khepri saw the direction of its gaze.
“SIMI!”
The creature dropped towards the structure.
A sudden burst of pressure struck the timberwork. The bridge lurched sideways. People stumbled against one another. Khepri dropped to one knee, catching the railing with both hands.
Simi reached beneath his arm.
“Up!”
He stood, but the planks shifted again.
At the northern end, several defenders tried to occupy the space beneath the winged attacker. Their spears forced it to rise, though not for long. It swept around the formation and reached the bridge supports from another angle.
Khepri could see what it was doing.
It had found the weakest part of a structure already overloaded by the fleeing crowd.
Behind the northern wagon, Thralls were turning away from the bridge. Some entered the water upstream. Others moved towards fallen trees farther downriver. They scrambled and collided, but the mass was spreading towards other crossings.
“They’re going around,” Khepri said.
Simi glanced towards the banks.
“I see them.”
“If they get across—”
“Then we have to be farther away when they do.”
They pushed towards the southern landing.
Nearby, a handler struggled with a carrier caught between two warped planks. Simi took one side of the frame while a stranger on the bank reached for the other. They lifted together, guiding the wheels across the uneven gap.
The patient reached solid ground.
Khepri wanted to stop and help with the next carrier, but Simi caught his hand again.
“They’ve got it.”
He looked towards the bridge.
The winged Vekari was moving back into position above the damaged support.
A high whine travelled through the air.
The pitch rose. Khepri had heard it once before, just ahead of the pressure strike.
Simi pulled him towards the landing.
The pressure struck the brace.
The bridge tilted sharply. A plank shifted beneath Khepri’s foot, and he lost his balance. Simi caught him by the shoulders and dragged him onto the last secure stretch as the timber behind them gave way.
They stumbled across the final boards and reached the bank together.
For a heartbeat they lay on the earth, unable to move.
Then Simi rolled onto her knees.
“Khepri?”
“I’m here.”
“Can you stand?”
He nodded.
Behind them came the deep sound of the bridge collapsing into the river. The remaining lanterns at the northern landing vanished behind drifting dust and mist.
The bronze alarm bell of Elune rang three times.
Then three times more.
Its final note broke off. Khepri waited for another stroke. The bells above the family table had stirred in the breeze while his father laughed at his drawing. Now even the alarm had gone quiet.
* * *
Nobody on the southern bank stopped to discover what had happened behind them.
The road rose into a forest of great roots and close branches. People moved without their carts, carrying children, medical bags or nothing at all. A few lanterns remained, making shifting islands of light between the trees.
Khepri ran beside Simi. His chest ached, and his legs felt heavy. He kept glancing behind them, searching for a familiar figure who might yet emerge from the dark.
Each time, he saw strangers.
“Where’s Aunt Sẹ́ni?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Father said he’d follow.”
“I heard.”
“He could be—”
“Khepri.”
Simi’s voice was not angry. That frightened him more than anger would have.
“Keep moving.”
They passed an abandoned cart. A woman stood beside it calling a name into the trees. Other travellers tried to lead her onwards.
Khepri remembered Sẹ́ni telling him that a Branch carried knowledge into the world. He remembered her straightening the three indigo threads of his earring while he complained about having to help with the stores. He wished she were close enough to scold him again.
He touched the ivory bead at his left ear.
It was still there.
Behind them came a dry clicking.
At first he mistook it for branches moving in the wind. Then he heard it again, louder, joined by the rapid movement of many feet.
He turned.
Dark figures were crossing the river through the shallows. Others descended from the banks upstream, using routes away from the ruined bridge.
“Simi.”
“I hear them.”
The people behind them began shouting.
“FASTER!”
A family hurried past, one adult carrying a child and the other supporting an older relative. Someone stumbled and was helped up. The narrow road allowed little space for anyone to change direction.
Khepri ran until he thought his legs would stop obeying him.
Then the clicking fell silent.
The sudden quiet was worse.
He looked back.
Across the river, the nearest Thralls had stopped moving. Some crouched on the bank. Others waited in the shallow water. Their heads turned towards the northern treeline.
A pale-winged figure rose above the ruined crossing.
It hovered for a moment, surveying the road that led into the forest.
Then it began to follow.
The creature moved high above the branches, keeping pace without needing to approach. Khepri had seen how quickly it could travel. It could have overtaken the fleeing families long before now.
Yet it stayed behind them.
Watching.
Simi reached for his hand and found that he was staring upwards.
“Don’t look back.”
He tried to answer, but his throat was dry.
She tightened her grip.
They ran around a bend between two enormous roots, following the last lanterns deeper into the forest.
Above the trees, the winged Vekari maintained its slow flight.
And far behind them, the great tree of Elune burned beneath the night sky.