Winston visibly gulped.
“I don’t mean to be a bother,” Cuthbert yelled, “but could someone…” He pointed at the piece of Bash. “We ought to return it to him, don’t you think?”
That was when things went from bad to worse.
The dull pounding of hoofbeats thundered behind us. I turned. A group of horses galloped from the city gates. At their head was a figure on a dumpy donkey wearing flapping purple robes.
Amy.
Behind him rode an army of soldiers.
We needed to get out of here. Now.
I opened my mouth to screamrun. Instead, I said, “Let’s take a poll. I’d love to know where everyone’s feelings are regarding the likelihood of our survival. Let’s workshop some solutions. This is a safe space.” It wasn’t. “There are no bad ideas.” There were. “We value your opinions.” We didn’t.
Pants said something about running and pants. The blacksmith said he felt uncomfortable overall, but he wasn’t sure if that was because of the sickening displays of brutality or because he was breaking in new boots. Cuthbert gingerly peeled Bash off his face and announced he was okay with whatever the rest of the group wanted to do. Winston looked among Courtney, the skeletons, and the rest of us, and asked if he was still supposed to be dueling someone, or if that was off the table now. And Courtney… Courtney didn’t say anything, which meant she wanted to say a lot.
The hero potion made me look each of them in the eye in turn and say, “We hear your concerns,” like I was a politician who did not, in fact, hear anyone’s concerns. “The team’s morale and well-being are our primary focus.”
Thud thud. Thud thud. Thud thud.Horses advanced from behind. Skeletons blocked us in the front.
With the whole team in obvious peril, the word finally ripped from my mouth. “Run!”
The group scrambled into action. Courtney and I hustled them onward, unable to move until everyone else was ahead of us. Cuthbert made a pit stop to gently tuck the piece of face into Bash’s bony hand with an apologetic smile.
At last, Courtney and I brought up the rear. We barely avoided the reaching hands of the skeletons, breaking through their lines and running for the trees. For some reason, they didn’t shoot arrows at us to stop our escape, which was weird, but I was too grateful to be alive to question why.
We ran deep into the woods, climbing the foothills of the nearby mountain range. Winston swore he had a cousin who owned an inn at the next town over, and who would be happy to accommodate us. Everyone was greatly shaken, and we planned on taking the evening to regroup before coordinating another attack in the morning.
The next few hours were spent maneuvering around large boulders and towering pines, ascending the mountain. Mist hung like wet cobwebs across the valley below, veiling everything in shades of gray.
I looked over at Courtney. It was unnerving, seeing her like this.Nice.I wanted the girl who saw everything in a negative light and found it hilarious. Without her, everything felt hopeless.
A thumping sound drifted through the woods.
Courtney’s head snapped up. “What was that?”
The thumping grew louder by the second. Our band of sidekicks was far ahead of us, nearly out of sight. But not so far away that we didn’t hear their cries of fear.
My feet propelled me forward. The cowardly Bryce part of me wanted to hang back, but the hero potion forced my legs to pump faster. I spotted the crew a little way ahead, hunkered down behind boulders and bushes.
A shadow fell over us, and I looked up. Through the pine branches, I caught a glimpse of wings, bristly fur, and pinchers. The dragon. Staying low, I crouch-ran over to the huddle of sidekicks, Courtney on my heels. The beat of dragon wings throbbed against my eardrums as the beast passed overhead again. The blacksmith whimpered. Pants’s pants rattled in fear.
“It knows we’re here,” Winston said shakily.
“We’ll be all right,” I said. My body forced me to continue speaking, the potion obviously having decided some kind of big speech was warranted. “Today we fight, not as friends…” I screwed my jaw shut before I could say we were family orsome such nonsense. We had, after all, only known one another for a handful of hours.
Everyone exchanged looks.
“Not as friends,” Courtney said, “but as…more.”
I nodded. “That’s right. More. If we die today, we will die as…”Heroesdidn’t feel right. “As people who really tried.”
Winston slapped Cuthbert on the back, his eyes wet.
“So, until then, I say we fight,” I spouted off.
“I’m a pacifist.”
