He found Sera first. She was already on her feet, four dark shards orbiting slowly, her eyes on the trees to the south.
"They're coming in," Jake said. "Three visible. More behind them."
She didn't turn. "How far."
"Two minutes. Maybe less."
She assessed him properly — his forearm, his pack, his face. Making a decision. "The brothers are east. You know where."
"I'm getting them."
She nodded once. Jake was already running.
Harn heard him coming and had his hand up before Jake cleared the undergrowth.
"They're in the trees. Coming this way. Two minutes."
Harn held his gaze. Then Davan's. No words. Davan was already adjusting his stance, the air around him climbing degrees.
"Your position," Harn said.
"North of the ridge. Come fast."
He left them moving and ran back.
Vauren was standing when Jake arrived, facing the clearing. The others came in behind him — Sera from the west, Harn and Davan from the east, breathing hard. Vauren took them in without speaking until they'd stopped.
"Three advancing," he said. "They will push us toward the clearing or pin us against the treeline. Either way we fight on ground they have chosen."
"So we choose first," Jake said. "Go at them before they're set."
Harn studied Vauren. Three seconds.
Vauren turned to Jake. "Yes."
Harn exhaled. "Then we go."
They went fast through the undergrowth — Jake on Vauren's left, the brothers spreading wide to the right, Sera back at range where her shards could work. They hit the advancing line before it had fully formed, three group members moving carefully through the trees who suddenly had five people coming from the wrong direction.
The one on the left had grey skin pulled tight over dense bone. Harn hit him and it was like hitting stone — the heat in Harn's skin flared and the man absorbed it. Hit back with the same economy, each of them grinding against the other. Davan came in low from the side, both hands around the man's wrist, the temperature dropping hard at the contact point. The arm went rigid. The grey-skinned man buckled.
The middle one threw fire — a sustained stream. Jake threw himself behind a root and felt the heat pass over him. He came up and pushed light from both palms into the man's face from close range and the stream cut off. Sera's shards punched through the gap. The man staggered into a root and stayed.
The third went at Vauren. Fast, each strike carrying force that didn't match the speed. Vauren moved around the first two, let the third carry the man's weight forward, redirected it into a root. The man hit hard.
Three down. Jake was breathing hard. His palms tingled from the light. Around them the forest was quiet except for the three bodies on the ground and the five of them standing over them.
Then eight more came out of the trees.
They were already spreading when they emerged, each moving to a position without being told, cutting off angles Jake hadn't even identified yet. They moved through the undergrowth the way the forest moved — patient, covering, every space accounted for.
Jake barely saw the first one come. A man was inside his reach before he'd registered the movement, dense sharp growths from the man's fingers biting into his forearm when he blocked. Jake drove his palm into the man's face, light blazing at contact. The man recoiled. Jake scrambled back, checked his arm. Bleeding.
A woman came from the right. She moved low, fast, and where her feet touched the roots the wood darkened and cracked — a blight in her skin that killed what it stepped on. She reached for Jake's ankle and he jumped back. The root where he'd been standing was split and dry.
Two more came from different angles with no one backing him. He moved between them, too close for either to get a clean line, using the roots and undergrowth the way days in this forest had taught him. His light bought moments — a flare into someone's eyes, a flash when a hand closed on his shoulder. Each one dimmer than the last.
He got a root between himself and both of them and gulped air. His forearm was wet. He grinned at the root for half a second and moved again.
Harn was fighting close. His fists were red — the skin across his knuckles superheated, glowing dull at the contact points. Every punch landed with a hiss. The group member in front of him had burns across his forearms from blocking. Harn grabbed the man's wrist and held it and the man screamed. The skin under Harn's palm blistered.
But a second group member came from behind — a man whose body was heavy in a way that didn't match his size, each step pressing the ground flat. He hit Harn across the back and Harn staggered forward. The heavy man hit him again. Harn turned and caught the fist with both burning hands and the heavy man's knuckles seared on contact but the weight behind the punch didn't care about heat. Harn went into a root.
Davan pulled his brother up. His hands were cold where they gripped Harn's arm — the skin around his fingers going pale, frost forming at the contact. He put himself between Harn and the heavy man. The heavy man swung. Davan caught the arm and held it. Where his hands gripped, the man's forearm went rigid with cold. The joint locked. Davan twisted and the heavy man's elbow gave.
But there were two more behind the heavy man. And Harn was slow getting up.
Sera was moving. Her four shards orbited in tight patterns — two on defense, cutting the air between her and the nearest group member, two on attack, finding gaps and punching through. A shard caught a woman across the forearm and the woman's hand went numb. The same shard came back and went out again, hitting a man's thigh from an angle he hadn't been guarding.
She was good. Each shard found something every pass. The problem was arithmetic — one person, four projectiles, eight opponents, and in the gaps between passes someone was always closing.
A group member got inside her range. Big, quick, forearms dense with dark growth under the skin. He swung and Sera twisted sideways and a shard punched into his shoulder from behind. He grabbed for it. His hand closed on the edge and blood ran between his fingers and the shard pulled free and returned.
Behind him another was coming — a woman who generated a hardening crust from her palms that spread across whatever she touched. She slapped a root beside Sera and the bark went rigid and white. Sera's shard hit the crust on the woman's forearm and bounced off. Didn't cut.
Sera was bleeding above her eye. She could have pulled her shards back and made a gap and gone into the trees. She'd found the site the same way the trio had, alone, owing them nothing. She blinked the blood clear and stayed where she was, her shards between the crust-woman and Jake's back. They kept moving.
Vauren absorbed a hit through his shoulder, stepped inside the arc, and hit the man's exposed ribs with a compressed strike that dropped him to one knee. Another came from the left. Vauren redirected the man's weight into a root.
But three more had arrived at his position. He was backing up. Each step precise, each strike finding something, but the ground behind him was shrinking. The treeline was at his back.
Jake took a hit across the back that drove him into the ground. He got up on hands and knees first, then feet, slower than before. He drove his palm into the nearest chest and the man fell back long enough for Jake to find his footing.
The others were in pieces. Harn on one knee, fists still glowing but slower. Davan standing over him with frost on his hands. Sera, bleeding, shards down to three — one had shattered against the crust-woman's hardened forearm. Vauren, backing toward the treeline.
The group's fallen from the first exchange were back on their feet at the edges of the clearing. Recovering. Waiting. Fifteen of them total, and Jake's side was in pieces.
A group member hit Jake from the side. He went down, rolled, came up against a root. His light fired at his palms — dim now. The man came again. Jake caught his wrist and pushed light into his skin at contact and the man yanked free, the skin reddened. Already coming back.
Jake scrambled over the root. The clearing was to his right. He could see the group members at its edge, fresh, untouched, watching the treeline the way they'd watched it for days.
He found Sera. Standing with her back to a trunk, three shards tight around her, the blood in her eye running freely. Behind her Davan was on the ground. Harn was standing over his brother, fists still red, the heat from his skin enough to keep the nearest group members at arm's length.
"There are too many," Sera said. She said it flat, the way a person reads a number. She wasn't looking at the trees she could have run for.
Past her the clearing stretched out — the group's people fresh and waiting, the ones in the trees pressing and patient, and at the center the guardian, sun-lit and enormous and the reason any of this was happening.
Vauren appeared at his shoulder — cut above the jaw, blood dark against blue skin, breathing hard but his eyes still moving, still reading the fight.
"The guardian," Jake said.
Sera stared at him. "That's insane."
Vauren's gaze went to the guardian. The group. Jake. The guardian didn't have a side.
"Yes," he said.
"Run," Jake said.
They ran.