Sosa darted to the right around a hut in the hope of cutting off the bodaki that had her mother.

　　A woman`s legs tumbled from the dark and she was pulled back to be dragged hurriedly away with a subdued cry.

　　She`s here!` Talon called from the far side.

　　I see her!` Sosa shouted. She had only to catch up with the thing that had her mother and she could drive it right onto Talon`s spear. She could only pray Kala`s injuries were not too severe.

　　Knowing Talon would run right for her mother, Sosa cut even further to the side in an attempt to get ahead of them. Kala was being dragged just a little too far ahead to be visible, but Kala could hear her behind the black veil of darkness. Trying not to think about the pain she must be in, Sosa ran hard to try and overtake them, keeping one ear on Talon`s footsteps to her side, outside the circle of light she was casting. She hoped she was fast enough to start pulling ahead. It was hard to hear him over the excited pack of bodaki that now raced alongside them. They ran over the grass and into the trees. The thing dragging her mmawe was running hard, desperate to get away, perhaps sensing its end, but Sosa was keeping up and among the clattering bodaki she was sure she could hear Talon`s thudding footsteps and breathing.

　　Something was wrong.

　　She listened more carefully. Was that Talon, or just wishful thinking masked by the sound of a dozen monsters?

　　Sosa stopped running, her skin prickling with a sudden sense of danger. She stood perfectly still and listened. Around her the bodaki rumbled and shrieked angrily. She could sense them in the dark running in crazed circles around her, but not only the floor, they were up in the trees all about her. She listened for the sound of Talon, but now she could not be sure she had heard him at all. Where was he?

　　She turned, listening carefully to the other sounds around the pack of bodaki when she heard it. This noise was more like thunder. She could hear it, feel it too, this deep rumble was making the ground around her shake. She`d felt something like this, heard it once. IT had been just before&

　　Something told Sosa to run.

　　A thick trunk was tearing itself in two and was crashed from the dark towards her circle of light. Its branches clattered and shattered against the other trees as it fell. The trunk itself would have crushed her, but she was already moving, diving out of its path. She felt the rush of air as it missed her, but heavy branches slammed her to the ground, scraping across her armour and digging deep welts into exposed flesh. Sosa rolled, fighting to get free of the branches before a second tree could be felled to crush her. She could already hear the claws ripping at the bark and wood of another great trunk.

　　Another sound thundered, but in the darkness she could not see where it was coming from. The noise reverberated from all sides and on instinct alone Sosa shot forwards. Something heavy and blunt struck her back and she staggered, struggling to stay up.

　　A third tree fell. This one fell the wrong way, but it was not the last.

　　Mmawe!` She shouted into the dark, but it was lost among the tearing, splintering cacophony. The fleeing footfalls of the bodaki had all ceased, as if the whole pack had set themselves to gnawing and clawing at the trees. Those trees she could see had already been damaged at their bases. It would only take a little more to bring them down. The bodaki had clearly been preparing the area to lead her here and she and Talon had followed them straight into the trap.

　　Talon!`

　　No response. Was Sosa alone? Or was Talon dead under one of these fallen trees?

　　A woman was thrust from the dark once again, beaten and bloodied, to land just within Sosa`s circle of light. She looked up, eyes barely open, lips parted in a silent plea for help.

　　The woman was not Kala.

　　Sosa looked at the woman`s bloodied face, frozen. She should help her. She should try to find Talon. She should try to find her mother. She should run before another&

　　A tree slammed into the ground, driving thick broken branches deep into the soil and through the body of the woman as if she were no more solid than the darkness itself. There was no time to reach her, and no point, as another fell and Sosa had to throw herself away to avoid meeting the same fate. She the branches tangled with her limbs, and lay heavily across her back, dragging her to the ground. The armour spread the impact but the blow still froze her lungs for a moment. Winded Sosa dragged herself free, more branches carving chunks out of her. She could make out a space off to one side, where the trees had already been felled. Or did they stop? Was she back at the village?

　　She struggled up and ran, or tried to, but the best she could manage was a painful hobble. Behind her trees crashed against each other as frustrated bodaki tore them to pieces.

　　In a few moments she was out of the forest and free. She had escaped their trap.

　　Sosa looked around and lowered herself to the floor, unable to stand any longer. She lay back panting and trying to ignore the injuries. She could smell her own blood and too many of her limbs pulsed with pain. At least she had made it back to the village.

　　Sosa looked around and then her head dropped back.

　　She was free of the trees, but it was not the village. Several huts decayed just a few yards away. She was not back, but in the place where Gris had used the bodaki to murder four villagers and Ego. Where he had all but killed Halo.

　　She groaned and tried to sit up, but it hurt too much. The dark was drifting out of the trees after her. Her light had dimmed to such a small circle that she could almost touch the edge of it if she only reached out.

　　Something reached out from the dark to her.

　　She screamed and jerked back, but it mocked her with its stillness. Sosa rubbed her eyes. She was tired, she had not slept in days. She`d been running. She`d been terrified. She`d failed to save her mother. Twice. She probably had more injuries than she had yet realised and now was she seeing things.

　　A limb flew out of the dark, she saw it flinch when it met with her light, but one extended claw caught her on the shoulder and cut deep. She was knocked backwards. Her hands were shaking, every part of her felt weak. She tried to stand, but her legs threatened to pitch her into the mud,

　　There was no fight left. She would run if there was anywhere to run to.

　　A maw appeared to her side, teeth snapping and then it was gone again before the light could harm it badly. Sosa fell back and another claw swiped, adding to her slashes. She span, trying to push the light out, away from her but the circle dimmed as she felt her strength leaking away.

　　Run. Run, she thought. But where to? There was nowhere&

　　But there was.

　　Her legs managed to hold her once more as she stood and limped through the village, holding the light out with as much energy as she could manage, keeping the bodaki at a distance.

　　Gris` building finally loomed ahead and she stumbled inside. She could perhaps defend herself in here for a short while, maybe until morning. There were also bows she might use. She wasn`t sure if they would hurt the bodaki, but it was worth a try. She had startled one enough to give up pursuit of the boat using nothing more than arrows. It was better than nothing. She had stopped the thing pursuing them up the river with little more than a bow.

　　Sosa charged inside, tripping and sprawled across the floor. She stayed down, lying on her back hoping for just a little of her strength to return before the things came for her. There was a sound like thunder once more. It echoed through the room. Could it be more trees being felled by furious bodaki out to finish her off? It was a several moments before she realised that she was not alone.

　　Gris lay on the floor, half on his cot. A strong smelling liquid had spilled from a flask beside him. His mouth was open and the room reverberated with the sound of his snoring.

　　He shouldn`t be here, he should be gone. Or he should be leading his bodaki in revenge against the village.

　　Eleris said he had gone, why would she have lied?

　　But, why not? It wasn`t like she`d accepted any payment and it would explain her sudden and awkward departure.

　　Sosa backed away, but the old thief was already stirring.

　　Gris` eyes flew open and he jumped up, the half empty flask skittering away in a spray of foul smelling liquid. He stared at the doorway beyond which the bodaki gathered and then gave another start when he noticed Sosa.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

　　His eyes narrowed and Sosa felt a deep and settling dread.

　　He wiped his eyes, looked at her again, then rubbed his palm against his forehead and gave a groan. He climbed to his feet, looking like he was in as much pain as Sosa was. Perhaps if it came to a fight, she had a chance? She just needed to find a weapon. He smelled like a man fresh from harvest. No, he smelled like a man who had woken the morning after a harvest and not bathed.

　　Sosa stared, unsure whether to flee back into the claws and teeth that awaited her. He`d only summon them in, she supposed, there was no point doing his work for him. When he`d steadied himself and gained sufficient control of his legs, he walked slowly towards her. He was staring at her chest and for a moment she became self conscious. Then she remembered she was wearing the large bronze breastplate.

　　Sosa wasn`t sure if she could stand and didn`t try, she just stared up at him, trying mask her fear with defiance. He was unarmed, but that didn`t matter. In a moment, those strong hands would reach down for her neck. Would he kill her there, or just throw her through the door for his pets to play with?

　　He stopped and looked at her, leaned back, then to one side, then the other, as if to see her from as wide an angle as possible. She began to feel sick, but maybe it was just the shiny armour he was interested in, not her. The old man didn`t touch her. Instead he walked away, leaning on the central ladder that led to the roof as he passed. Sosa let out a breath she didn`t realise she`d been holding. The floor was clean now. Last time she`d been here, Arella had fallen from the top of that ladder and landed in several pieces. She was now lying in the spot where Devon had died, possibly Korassi too.

　　Gris went to his cot and lifted a bundle from underneath the bedding. Long and thin and wrapped in linen, he lifted it with a certain reverence and then unwrapped it. It was a long knife, a sword Sosa supposed, though she`d only ever heard of them in stories. It was the colour of bronze and as long as his arm. It had two sharpened edges and even in the dark, they caught the light.

　　Why did he have such a thing?

　　He advanced. There was no time to ponder. He was coming to kill her with the long knife. She could run or she could fight. Sosa dragged herself to her feet and swung her fist, throwing all her weight behind it. Gris stepped back, just missing her fist and then caught her wrist, twisting the arm and gave a gentle shove that sent her stumbling back to the floor, mostly under her own momentum.

　　He looked down at her, heavy browed and thoughtful.

　　She waited for the blow, but it did not come. Instead he reached down, grasped her arm and lifted her, struggling towards the door.

　　Nononono!`

　　He needed only lift the sword and he could impale her on it with ease, but he preferred to have his monsters do the deed and perhaps he would not have to clean more blood from his floor.

　　He gave her a shove and she landed in a tangle outside the door. She sat up and faced him. She refused to fight to get back inside and decided to stare at him while the bodaki came for her from behind, but neither he nor the bodaki made a move. He just looked down at her for a moment and then tossed the sword onto the ground beside her.

　　She yelped and snapped her legs out of the way, but it had not been aimed to hit her. She looked at it confused and then back at Gris.

　　She picked it up.

　　There was new leather on the grip, taken from their market, no doubt. It felt right in her hand, and not as heavy as she had expected, although still reassuringly solid. It was the same colour as her armour, as the spear and she fancied it had a similar glow. Why did Gris have this?

　　She looked from the sword back to the door, but Gris was gone. Gris` house was free of the black, it had not followed her to the door, but hung well back. The bodaki paced within it, waiting for her to return.

　　Sosa pulled herself up. If he wanted to watch her fight, there was not going to be much of a show. Her wounds were burning, still bleeding and her muscles tightened.

　　She faced the darkness, but felt something behind her and span back around, grunting with the effort. Gris was back and his only movement was to catch the wrist that held the sword. He did not even flinch. Sosa pulled hard to free herself, but Gris just let go and she staggered back. He waited for her to stop and look at him in confusion, then he raised his hand slowly.

　　Something shiny, bronze coloured of course, dangled from a chain. He dangled it so she could see. It was a small pendant.

　　Eleris had worn something similar. Hers had been a bird, and this was clearly the same style, but when she looked closer, this winged beast was no bird. There was no animal Sosa knew of that looked like that.

　　The pendant glowed like her armour, but it was deeper, more powerful than that. It chimed too and she realised that each piece of her own armour chimed in response, each answering the pendant with its own sound. Like the light, perhaps, not everyone would be able to hear what Sosa could hear. If she cared to listen, Sosa wondered, the pendant might do more than shine and chime. It might speak.

　　He held it out to her. Sosa did not move. Still he held out the pendant and took a half step closer. Fearing a trick, she raised her own hand, trying not to let it shake, and he let the pendant fall into her open palm, then gently reached down and closed her fingers over it. Another half step closer and he placed his hands on Sosa`s shoulders and looked her in the eye. She stared back at him, tense against the feel of his rough hands. There was no malevolence in his eyes, though she could not begin to explain what she did see there.

　　He gave a nod full of satisfaction as if something long awaited had finally, at least for him, been concluded. Gris turned away.

　　This time when he went in through the door, he didn`t return.

　　Sosa lifted the pendant to her head, but paused. Should she put it on? As she lifted it, the chime of the pendant and her armour rose. It would crescendo if it went over her head. Something would change, it whispered to her. Something permanent.

　　Without realising it, Sosa had lifted it to her face. She had almost put it on.

　　She should drop it, leave it here.

　　No. Take it with you. Never let it go.

　　She looped the chain through the belt which held up what little remained of her tattered skirt and tucked it inside where it would not snag.

　　Should she go back and demand an explanation? If there was one he was willing to give, maybe he would have done already.

　　A thought that was not her own whispered in her head. She needed no explanation. She already knew. The sword, the pendant, the way he`d looked at the spear when they`d found him with Halo, the strange conversation with Eleris&

　　She knew what Gris was. Or what he had been. Somehow she knew. Villagers had mentioned to Kala the rumours of various pieces of armour having once belonged to Gris. Grammawe had burned Kala`s sketch of the completed armour, muttering about Gris. It was hard to see how the drunk in the building and the tall and shining Eleris could be the same, but she knew it, she knew they were.

　　Just like Rala, they had once had a guardian too. Somewhere, something had gone wrong. Somehow their guardian had gone bad. They were not to know, they were not to blame. It was something they had inherited from their ancestors, some original sin, some horrible mistake that had led them to this catastrophe. Someone in their history had lied, had covered something up, had changed things. They were not know. They were not to blame.

　　But was Gris?

　　He had killed her brother. He`d attacked her party with bodaki.

　　Hadn`t he?

　　She thought about the tribute that Eleris had accepted from the villagers.

　　She thought about the things Gris had come to town to steal. Cloths, tools, food. The leather strips on the grip of the sword she now held. The sorts of things someone would steal if they came only for the things they needed. Things that at one time might have been provided by a grateful village in tribute to its protector.

　　Sosa thought about the night in the ruins when then the bodaki had attacked and Gris had arrived all anger and fury. The night they`d been lying in his own house preparing to ambush him.

　　His bodaki had slaughtered them and he`d killed Devon himself.

　　She`d seen it. She had.

　　Yes, of course, he`d stepped in through the door immediately after&

　　No. That wasn`t what happened. It didn`t mean that Gris hadn`t killed her, but Sosa had to admit, she`d not seen it. They had told everyone he had attacked Halo, but, what had she really seen when she`d found Gris standing with the boy, examining the spear?

　　She thought about the whole journey, but the memory was little more than a chaotic nightmare. The only clear part was the story she and Talon concocted to keep themselves out of trouble. She felt a blush of guilt.

　　Gris has chased them. He had been found carrying Halo through forest. Her insides felt hollow.

　　Yes, she thought. But what if, what if&

　　If she inverted her view of the world for a moment, to her horror Sosa found it still made sense. What fell out was a very different picture of reality than the assumptions she had made.

　　Was it possible Gris had saved Halo from the bodaki? Was it possible he`d not been fighting them, but fighting the creatures to help them escape? They had thought he controlled the darkness, that he therefore controlled the bodaki. But here she was controlling the light, like Eleris had done, if less powerfully. What if Gris controlled not the darkness, but the light. Just like Eleris did.

　　The more she thought, the more things fitted.

　　She looked at the sword, at the armour, at Gris` armour. The armour that fit her, Talon, Grammawe, her mother and not to mention Dorrel, just as well.

　　He was a guardian. He was their guardian.

　　Eleris had sounded oddly upset when she learned they didn`t have one. The dark always stayed away from the village because they cut down any darktrees that grew there. Eleris had scoffed at the idea. What if it had never been that? What if it had been him? What if all this time, it had been him.

　　Sosa felt sick.

　　They had begged Eleris to kill him. To kill their guardian. The one who kept the monsters out. The one who controlled the light.

　　It was not their fault. How could they have known?

　　How could her ancestors have forgotten him to the point he had to steal his own tributes? She wasn`t to know, her people, her generation were not to know. They had been given this situation by their forebears. It was not their fault. They were not to know.

　　She swallowed the shame and anger, wanting to feel furious as she tried to piece together the reality, wanting to use it to mask the shame she felt at what she, what they had all done.

　　She wanted to scream, at the trees, at Gris, at the village and the villagers and most of all at herself, but somewhere out there her father was being trapped by bodaki and they must have lured him there with Kala. If she found him, she would find her mother. Somewhere else, villagers huddled in the dark while monsters looked for a way in.

　　And here stood Sosa, dressed like a guardian, armed with a bronze sword and with the ability to summon the light.

　　In her belt the pendulum, the gift from a guardian, thrummed.

　　She forgot the many cuts and slashes. They had stopped bleeding. Their pain had turned to a healing itch and if she looked, she would see they were even beginning to close. The pain eased with the thrumming stroke that would have matched that of the pendulum had she stopped to listen to it.

　　Sosa looked at the dark. The dark growled back.

　　This time when she reached for the light, it responded immediately and flowed like Highstream after heavy rains.

　　Sosa could have forced the curtain of darkness back, scorching the things it hid and sent them fleeing. She did not. In fact she pulled the circle tightly to her.

　　It would follow her as she moved, but now, she realised it would also stay, if she willed it. Glowing bronze sword raised, Sosa pinned the circle of darkness to the ground and left it there as stepped towards its edge and through the curtain of black, into the darkness. Behind her the circle of light remained, perfect and empty.

　　In the middle of an endless forest, in the ruins of an ancient village, a monster screamed.