A hand nudged Quilla’s shoulder. With a groan, she opened her eyes and stared sleepily into Annai’s face. Was it morning already? Gods, it felt like she’d only just laid her head down to sleep.

  “So, let’s see it,” Annai whispered.

  “See what?” Of course, given how late she’d gone to sleep, it probably shouldn’t be surprising it was morning already.

  “The tattoo.”

  “I didn’t get it.”

  “Oh.” Annai sat back. “That’s good news, I guess, but you were out there so long.”

  Quilla propped herself up on her elbows and blinked several times, trying to clear her vision. “Yeah, we were…” Should she tell Annai? “We were talking.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. They’d done a little talking.

  “Talking? About what? Not getting the tattoo? She wasn’t angry, was she?”

  “No. Well, only a little at first, but that didn’t last long. Then we...talked.” And what a night it had been. The last thing in the world she would have expected, and she still wasn’t sure a part of her wouldn’t grow to regret it—Vern was a Darker, after all—but for the moment, at least, she was glad it had happened. The tiredness was worth it.

  “What are you smiling about?” Annai said.

  “Smiling?” She tried to wipe the smile from her face, but it was very reluctant to leave. “Oh, we just had a good talk. That’s all.”

  Annai stared at her a moment. “I’ve never seen talks produce a smile like that. I have seen—”

  She was saved from any further explanation when Ookpik came out of her room, loudly proclaiming, “Time to rise! Get dressed, have a bite to eat, and get to work!”

  Quilla gave Annai a commiserating smile. “Duty calls.”

  Annai made a mock scowl, which quickly turned into a grin. “Tell me later then.”

  While they all got ready for the day’s activities, Quilla found a moment to approach Ookpik and say quietly, “I didn’t do it.”

  The old woman gave Quilla’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Good. We’ll talk later.”

  Quilla nodded. She wasn’t sure how she was going to tell Ookpik she didn’t want the magic tattoo either. She couldn’t really tell her she was going to get the goat skull later. Maybe Ookpik would believe she had decided to not get anything, that she was going to take care of herself. Doubtful. Oh well, there was time to figure something out.

  The sound of barking dogs caught her attention. Dogs barking in the morning wasn’t unusual. But this wasn’t the excited barking associated with anticipation of the hunt. This was aggressive barking, followed by a dog yowling like it was in pain. Then the aggressive barking intensified, along with more yelps and yowls.

  Vern moved for the window, but Ookpik held up a hand. “No, I’ll check.” She approached the window and pulled back the curtain only slightly. Then she turned back around, letting the curtain drop back in place. “You three, stay out of sight.”

  “Why?” Annai asked. “What’s happening?”

  Ookpik wagged a finger at her. “I said stay out of sight. Use the cellar if you need to. We’ll deal with this.” She already had her parka on and started doing it up as she approached the door. “And be quiet!” She opened the door, slipped through it, and was gone.

  Vern immediately rushed over to the window and pulled back the curtain. “Shit.”

  “What’s happening?” Annai hissed.

  “There’s a group of people,” Vern said, “about half a dozen maybe. One of them has a bloody axe and is standing over several dead or very badly injured dogs. The village elders are approaching them.”

  “They’ve found us,” Quilla said.

  Vern shook her head. “Not necessarily. They’re probably checking every village they find. They might not know we’re in this one.”

  “Then why kill the dogs?” Quilla asked.

  “Intimidation. They want to scare the locals into telling them the truth.”

  “Let me see,” Annai said.

  After a slight hesitation, Vern moved aside, so Annai could get in close to the window’s corner. “Just a short look,” Vern said. “We need to stay out of sight like Ookpik said.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “I won’t let them see me,” Annai said, peering out the window.

  “I’m sure you’ll try,” Vern said, “but…”

  Annai shot a look back at Vern and scowled.

  “Okay, that’s enough. You’ve had your look.” Vern gave Annai a gentle shove, but Annai didn’t move.

  Annai turned back to the window. “I’ve barely looked.”

  “Hurry the fuck up then.”

  Quilla went over to the other side of the window and reached for the curtain.

  “Quilla,” Vern said.

  “I need to see what’s happening.”

  “Gods damn it,” Vern muttered. “If they happen to look in this direction and see people peeking out the windows, they might get suspicious.”

  “They’ll probably just think it’s curious locals,” Annai said. “Children maybe.”

  “Or they might get suspicious.”

  Quilla moved the curtain as little as she could manage, and looked through the corner of the window.

  She didn’t have a good angle from here, but she could see Ookpik and the other village elders. Forming a defensive circle around them were several other villagers, mostly hunters, all armed with a mixture of spears, harpoons, and knives. One of the elders was speaking, but Quilla couldn’t make out the words from here. After a moment, several of the armed villagers hurriedly moved in front of the elder, weapons readied.

  Quilla glanced at Annai. “What’s happening?”

  “The guy with the axe just threatened Apaata.”

  Quilla was fairly certain that was the name of the old man who had been speaking. She really ought to know people’s names better, but she spent almost all her time with Ookpik, and hadn’t had much chance to get to know anyone else.

  “One of the people is yelling at the elder. I can’t tell what they’re saying though, and—” Annai gasped.

  At the same moment, the villagers all hurriedly backed up several paces, some of them stumbling and tripping. Several dogs, whimpering loudly, ran off into the distance.

  “What’s happening?” Quilla said, doing her best to ignore the desire to pull the curtain back farther, so she could get a better angle and actually see the invaders.

  Vern shoved Annai aside and looked out. “Oh fuck.”

  “What?” Quilla repeated.

  “Volgs,” Annai said.

  One of the Volgs came into view at that moment, a particularly large one, maybe even taller than Nibdenoff had been. A villager lunged with a spear, but the Volg caught it and ripped it from the terrified man’s hands. The Volg tossed the spear aside and raised its head, turning it from side to side, the grey hairs on its muzzle pulling back and its nose twitching. Was it sniffing?

  “Fuck,” Vern said. “If they get close enough, they’ll get our scent. Or they might even get it off Ookpik, or any of the villagers who have spent a lot of time with us. We have to get out of here now.”

  The Volg lowered its head and looked towards Ookpik, its snout curling into a hideous smile.

  Right then, the villagers rushed forward in attack. The invaders came into sight to join the fight: the man with the axe, several others, and three more Volgs. But Quilla kept her eyes on the first Volg with its heavy, bent horns. It strode towards Ookpik, batting aside attackers while barely looking at them.

  “We have to go, now!” Vern said. “Quilla!”

  “We can’t leave them,” Annai said.

  “And we can’t help them either. Trust me. The Volg leader there. He’s not just any Volg. We don’t stand a chance.”

  “How do you know?” Annai said.

  “Don’t worry about that now. Let’s go. Quilla!”

  The Volg reached Ookpik, grabbing one of her defenders by the neck, crushing it, and tossing the body aside.

  Ookpik stared defiantly up at the Volg, saying something to it. Then she reached out and traced something on the Volg’s hand, which started to smoke. With a roar of rage, the Volg swatted out, hitting Ookpik in the side of the head. She went flying into the snow and lay there unmoving.

  Someone grabbed Quilla’s shoulders. “Quilla!” Vern said. “We can’t help her. Don’t let her die in vain.”

  Quilla wiped tears from her eyes and nodded, she backing away from the window.

  Annai was already gathering bags and shoving items into them.

  “The cellar?” Quilla said.

  Vern shook her head. “No, they’ll sniff us out too easily.” She looked to Annai. “The clothes we were wearing when we got here, do you have them?”

  Annai quickly looked over the bags at her feet. “Yes, they’re...uh...they’re in here.”

  Vern picked up the bag Annai was indicating. “Find something to break the window in Ookpik’s room. Go through it and head north into the woods. Keep going. Don’t stop. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  “Where are you going?” Annai asked.

  Vern patted the bag. “I’m going to create a false trail for them to follow. Now hurry up! This won’t work if they get here before I leave and I can’t leave until after you do. My scent has to be the most recent!”

  Quilla helped Annai with the remainder of what needed to be packed. Luckily, they didn’t have a lot. Then she looked about for something to break the window, finding an axe by the fireplace. She grabbed that, and together, she and Annai rushed into Ookpik’s room.

  It was a small room, with the small bed pushed up against the curtained window. Quilla rushed forward, jumped onto the bed and pulled back the curtains. With all her strength, she swung the axe at the window. It took a couple tries, but she broke through. She then reversed her grip on the axe and used the handle to break away the largest pieces of glass that still jutted from the perimeter. Then she threw the axe into the snow on the other side, along with the bags as Annai handed them to her. Hopefully, no one had heard the window breaking, but with all the noise from the ongoing fight, it was unlikely anyone had.

  Annai looked back towards the front room. “Will Vern be all right?”

  “I hope so.” Quilla held out her hand to Annai, who took it. She helped Annai through the window and then climbed through herself. They gathered their bags and the axe, and ran into the woods, not looking back until they were long out of sight of the village.

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