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I throw my head back and feel it connect with his nose. He releases me, and I bolt forward, only to have his foot catch mine. My knees scrape on the hard, dry earth.
Azmar throws off the axe man and barely misses a jab from one of the knives.
“Let me go!” I grapple with the man, roll over, and kick him in the chest. He’s about forty, with dust clinging to every line in his face and seam in his clothing.
He growls at me. “Traitor!” he shouts.
I twist from his grip and scramble to my feet, then feel a hot pain stab down my thigh.
A knife. He had a knife.
The blood seeping through my ruined skirt rims my vision with fire. I am human. I am trying to stop the fighting. I am trying tohelp.
I whirl around and punch him with the side of my fist. When he stumbles back, I strike with fear. He drops his knife as though I punched him in the gut, but doesn’t otherwise move.
I do. Fueled with the backlash of the terror I just dealt, I run, limping, toward Azmar. I focus on the two men fighting him—one lies on the ground—and push out my fear.
Qequan only said I couldn’t use it against the trollis.
I’ve never done it this way before. I’ve always been able to see their faces. See their eyes sparkle and skin pale when the terror touches them. But the fear still takes. One backs away, shuddering as though Azmar has grown twice in size. The other attacks with renewed vigor, fighting over fleeing.
His knife tip nicks Azmar’s arm. Azmar snatches him by the elbow, and a sickeningcrunchnearly makes my stomach empty itself as the arm breaks. The man shouts and runs. Azmar lets him.
The man who held me dashes away, back through the trees. Homper races north, after the other two humans, a shrinking gray dot on the amber landscape as the sun sets against him.
I limp to the fallen man first, not the one quaking in terror. He still has a pulse. The cowering man, who covers his head as though fire were raining from the sky, is barely a man at all. I think he must be fifteen, sixteen at most.
Azmar and I exchange a look. He tips his head toward the adolescent.
I approach the boy, hiding a grimace as the skin on my thigh pulls when I kneel beside him. “It’s okay, we won’t hurt you.” If only I could pull the fear back in the same way I dole it out. But I can’t. I’ve tried before.
He lifts his head, his face dirty and streaked with sweat. “Then why did you attack?”
I frown. “You attacked us.”
“Y-You chased.”
“You trespassed.”
His eyes, a bright blue, shift from me to Azmar. He swallows. “Why do you help them?” he whispers. “We could free you.”
“I’m not a slave.” I say it as compassionately as I can. My thigh stings, my hair sticks to my neck, my legs ache from the run. “We just want to know who you are. Why you were spying on us.”
“We weren’t ...” But he doesn’t finish the sentence. Glances uneasily to Azmar.
I cut the air with my hand. “Oh, he’s hardly terrifying.”
Azmar lifts an eyebrow, curious, if not surprised, at the statement. The boy looks unsure.
“My name is Lark,” I try. “What’s your name? And his?” I gesture to the unconscious man. He’s starting to stir. Azmar notices and moves to stand guard.
The boy watches Azmar’s every move. “T-Tayler,” he says, low, so only I’ll hear him. “That’s my cousin.”
“I think your cousin will be okay.” I look up in the direction Homper went. I don’t see him, and I don’t see the injured human and his companion. I hope they’re safe. “Just tell me, please. We’ll let you go if you tell us.”
I give Azmar a look. If he’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t speak against the idea.
Tayler hesitates. “We’re just ... We’re just low on supplies. Mountain runoff dried up. Knew about the troll city. Were only watching to see where they got their food from. Nothing says only trolls can harvest the land around the bridge.”
