Three people sat in the forest.

　　Two of them rested, heads tilted back and leaning partly on a thick trunk, and partly on each other. The third sat with them but very much apart.

　　The little bronze pendant hung around one neck.

　　Now Sosa had made a connection with the other pieces of armour, they would not stop talking to her. Little flashes, little vibrations, little messages kept coming through. She shut them out and pushed hard on the light, forcing the darkness as far away as she could. She pondered on the awful injuries the bodaki had inflicted on her mother. She wasn`t sure these things killed for food. Why would things that exploded in darkness when they died need food? Perhaps they survived off the suffering, the fear, the despair. The pain.

　　Images and thoughts scratched at her head like rats - glimpses of Dorrel, of Grammawe, frightened and panicking. It was becoming harder to ignore. If she went to them her parents would be at the sick whim of the bodaki. She called for Ale-ki, for her own ki from the fields of whom she rarely asked anything, hoping they could hear her this far out.

　　I need you, Talon. Please, father. Pawe.` She knew in her heart it would not work. The pendant glinted from just above the hole where Talon had plunged the sword. It was not enough. The blade itself lay to one side, still covered in his blood.

　　Dorrel. Screaming. Angry. Afraid.

　　She swallowed down, choking another sob. She was alone. There was no Talon to tell her what she could do. How was she supposed to do this alone? How was she supposed to leave them?

　　She could not, would not.

　　Grammawe, roaring and furious.

　　Talon had done what he had done to save her. More, he wanted her to become a guardian. He wanted her to save the village. All she wanted was to crawl into her mother`s warm arms and hide from all the horror that stalked this new world she had discovered. But her mother`s embrace was no longer warm. It was chilled and hard and sticky with blood.

　　Talon had been proud of her. She felt its warmth, even now. It was no embrace. Was it enough?

　　Shaking hands withdrew the pendant from his neck and she stared into the loop that would change her life forever.

　　Did she want this?

　　Others needed this, but did she want it?

　　No,` she said out loud, even though only the bodaki could hear her. I don`t want this.` What she wanted was impossible. What she wanted lay in front of her. What she wanted was dead.

　　She longed for a simple life, tilling fields, caring for elderly parents, finding someone to spend her life with, rejoicing at her brother`s coming of age and marriage, of children and nephews, of growing old, of dying. What sixteen year old girl had such wishes? Once she`d talked to a boy who came from other places and she had secretly dreamed of adventure, or finding other parts of her world she never knew existed. No longer. Now she dreamed of only those things that had been taken, of people whose blood soaked the roots of these darktrees.

　　Her head bowed and the metal pendant clinked against her breast plate. Sosa braced for whatever change would rush upon her, hoping it would not be painful or frightening. She feared not the pain, only the distraction. If she was to do this she had to leave her parents here and return to Grammawe and to Dorrel. They needed her help.

　　Nothing happened.

　　Maybe it took time. Maybe the pendant was not meant for her. Perhaps she had wasted the power putting in on her father and it had died with him? Perhaps he would yet come back? She let her head sink into her bloodied hands and wept into her palms one more time.

　　Dorrel giving a thunderous war-cry.

　　She had to go.

　　The bodaki would tear the bodies of her parents, play with them, just to spite her. She shuddered.

　　Would the small piece of armour her father still wore be enough after his death? Would it work at all? Bitterly she threw light outwards, driving the skulking bodaki back.

　　The dark returned as the tide of light receded, but she noticed something. The light caught on her father`s bronze arm guard. It was such a slight sensation so easily missed, but something was changing in her.

　　Sosa pushed again at the light, pushed it toward the guard and felt it snag. She tried this a few times, each time pushing in a different way as to increase this feeling, then she got it to stick. She withdrew her influence, but found that far more light attached itself to the armour than was usual. She backed away, but the light remained.

　　Summoning more, she directed it into this same bubble and it grew. She let as much light as she dared flow into it. Finally, a wide circle of light surrounded them, far larger than would be cast by the armour alone. The dark twitched and rolled at the edge of it, far from their bodies.

　　With the spear in one hand, she tucked the sword carefully through her belt, and jogged back toward the village. She was starting to feel different. It was hard to tell if this had anything to do with the pendant. Sosa had just lost both her parents. Everything was different.

　　Emerging from the trees into the village, Sosa stopped, confused.

　　In her grief, she must have been led by whatever pieces of the bronze Gris had in his home and gone the wrong way. What faced her was not the village but the ruins.

　　No. No something wasn`t right.

　　Some of the ruins still had roofs. Barely any of the abandoned huts in the ruin had roofs. She began to recognise more, the stores, the buildings, the stretch of familiar fields she had grown up in.

　　This derelict mess was her home.

　　Now she wasn`t moving, she could hear what her footfalls and winded breathing had masked. She could hear the wails of villagers, some close, but others were way off in the trees. All around were the sounds of digging, scratching and tearing. Something was tearing apart the stores, wood and grain was strewn all over and the darkness swarmed hungrily over it. The roof timbers collapsed plunging the bundled reeds down into it with a crash. Somewhere in the dark, Sosa heard a stone wall topple.

　　Oh, Ale-ki, no.` Any hope of saving the village evaporated like a dying bodaki. Still she ran towards the noise.

　　The council building was dark, the fires and torches were out. Inside were screams and the sound of a dozen struggles as people fought to escape, to survive.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author`s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

　　Darkness spilled into every room and Sosa thrust her circle of light into its midst. The bodaki howled and scrambled to keep away from it. She pushed hard, forcing the light into every corner, nowhere to hide. Tails and limbs whipped in panic. Some things scrabbled through the openings they had torn in the roof, others screamed as they boiled away to black smoke in the inescapable light that Sosa cast.

　　Dorrel knelt, clutching an iron spear, a bloodied shield before a group of villagers and their weapons of desperation. Three red cuts crossed her face through her right eye. Where the slashes gaped, white showed beneath. The small piece of armour glowed dimly.

　　Dorrel!` Sosa ran to her. The trembling woman turned the spear tip toward Sosa for a moment, then dropped it slightly facing it back towards the door.

　　They got in anyway.` Dorrel looked as apologetic as she could manage with only one eye.

　　I know, I know, I`m sorry.`

　　Your grammawe, she`s&` Dorrel tilted her head. Sosa swallowed heavily, but she turned and realised Dorrel only meant she was in the next room where the darkness still lingered. She`s got the children.` Dorrel managed.

　　Stay here.` Not that most could do much else. Several of them would never leave this room again. Sosa pinned some of her light to Dorrel`s armour as she had done with Talon, leaving as much light behind as she dared and then charged through the doorway.

　　Grammawe knelt in the room, her face grim but unyeilding. Small faces peered past her. She swung a stick at something in the dark and it lashed back.

　　Sosa threw the light. They screamed and they fled and they died. The monster in front of Grammawe was revealed. It flung itself at the old woman who swung her stick not moving from between it and the children. Sosa threw the spear.

　　The bodaki turned to smoke in an instant. Grammawe and the children disappeared from view.

　　Grammawe!` Sosa yelled. Her spear clattered to the floor. It took an eternity, for the black to clear.

　　Pflah,` said Grammawe, emerging from the smoke.

　　Sosa threw her arms around her.

　　I could have got it,` Grammawe said. Someone gave me this magic bangle. Those things don`t like it.`

　　Sosa squeezed her hard.

　　To Sosa`s eyes, the armour illuminated the dark scene. The bodaki were gone, only people remained, some alive, some dead, some in-between. The sick and injured who had been treated by Raela had been torn from their cots and ripped open. People, children included, writhed and clutched injuries. Others lay horribly still. The walls and roof were full of holes where things had burrowed in. Dorrel had protected the front, but it hadn`t been enough.

　　Luring Sosa away from Talon hadn`t been about separating them from each other but from what they had supposed to be protecting. What Sosa has insisted they come back to protect.

　　The room reeked; blood, bowels, death and fear. It stunk of slaughter and failure.

　　She`d let these people die. Her breaths began to speed up. At sixteen she had condescended to put on the guardian armour and now everyone was dead. It should have been someone else. Anyone else. Her father had far more control over the light than she. If Dorrel had donned the armour they might all still be alive. Even Grammawe. What had she been thinking?

　　They hadn`t needed her at all. They all needed someone, yes. But it should not have been her.

　　Her breathing was so fast now that colours were starting to fill the dark. They spread across her vision, drowning her. She could not get enough air. She could not breathe. The ground was moving, tilting. Something struck her whole body.

　　Hold your breath a moment.` She was being moved. I`ve got you.`

　　She was pulled to a sitting position then someone pressed her head down between her knees.

　　Breath slowly.` It was Grammawe, her gentle hand on the back of Sosa`s neck. In one. Out one.`

　　The colours began to clear. I think I`m going to throw up.`

　　Okay. It won`t matter in here.`

　　I left you to save Mmawe, even when I knew&` sobs of helpless frustration burst forth, &they`d never let her live.` Hands held her while the fit passed. Grammawe, I`m sorry. Pawe is&`

　　Grammawe shushed her. I know. I saw. The bangle thing showed me.` She sounded calm, but her voice was thick. It showed me what you did.`

　　The panic rose again and Sosa forced her breathing to slow.

　　Your father would be proud of you. So am I.`

　　Yes he was. She knew that. And she had made a promise, a promise which had brought her back here.

　　We& we need to get everyone together.` Sosa lifted her head and wiped her eyes. The nausea eased as a small sense of purpose returned.

　　There`s not many left. You came back just in time.`

　　Help& help me up, Grammawe, please,`

　　You rest a moment longer.`

　　No, I& We need to get everyone together.`

　　Grammawe leaned close to her ear so only Sosa could hear her. I think it is over. Whatever we did wrong, the ki have decided it is our time.`

　　No, Grammawe, no!` That could not be true. There was still hope.

　　And if it was true, if Sosa was to fail completely and allow the entire village to be lost, it would not happen while she crouched here in the dark. She`d do it on her feet, killing these things until she could do it no more. She would give them a last stand and make the bodaki pay for every ki they took.

　　Except, that wasn`t the only option, was it?

　　We cannot defend the village, Sosa.`

　　I know,` Sosa said, but that doesn`t mean we have to sit here and die.`

　　All the survivors were gathered into one room. They fitted easily. There were too few of them to even consider carrying out the dead.

　　Dorrel sat slumped at one side of the room and Grammawe at the other, the children about her legs. Sosa cast the light, snagging it on each piece of armour and spilling it into every corner until she was happy it would stay even if she did not.

　　If Sosa was better she would be able to do this to the whole village, like Eleris had. But she was not. The best she could do was fill this small room with a dim glimmer.

　　She collected the cooking pots from outside. Villagers rushed to her and soon they sat among their dead, eating and drinking and waiting for dawn. It was then, when a little hope rested in their belly`s that Sosa told them her plan.

　　There is a path.`

　　Into the trees?` someone exclaimed, but they were hushed.

　　To a village called Rala. It is where the boy Ego and Eleris came from.`

　　There was an exchange of whispers and Sosa tried to judge the response but all she got was fear. That was to be expected, she supposed.

　　Would they help us?`

　　There it was, really, the problem with her whole plan. Would they?

　　We will die here, Sosa thought. Last night she had thought she could keep them safe. She had learned much since, but it was foolish to think that now she would be able to protect them.

　　Taking away hope and telling them the truth would not motivate them. They would die here. They had enough reason to leave, they knew all that. What they needed was a reason to go to Rala. Now she understood why the Elders always paused so long before they spoke. There was one chance to convince these terrified people to leave their homes, their dead and even some who were not yet gone. If she didn`t convince them, they were doomed.

　　I have been to Rala.` There were gasps. Of course, they had travelled in secret and returned with Eleris, but the world had fallen apart so quickly, no one really knew. It is a village like ours, but larger. There are many more people who live in comfort, they do not do many different jobs as we do. They do not have to work long days just to survive. They work together and they work well. Our village was split long ago, my mother knew this and it is something the Elders kept quiet, but it is true. There is a whole ruined village out there. We used to be larger. We used to prosper, just like Rala does.` Sosa didn`t know this was true, but she also knew that the chiefs propped up their words with embellishment and lies. We are hard working. We have much we can offer them. They will not see anyone work the hearths or the fields as hard as we do. They will take us.` She felt so convincing she almost believed it herself.

　　The truth was they might well not do. What would they do then?

　　They`d die, she supposed. That was no different to what would happen if they stayed. Even with Sosa defending, they would not last much longer. They were considering her words. She wanted to stamp and scream at them.

　　Don`t you see that we have no other choice? She just wanted to tear off the armour throw it to the ground. She wanted someone else to take charge.

　　But whom?

　　Dorrel? Her grammawe? They had used the armour to protect people, soon they would see the light like Sosa did - Grammawe already felt the pieces of armour talking to each other, but they needed someone who could do it now. Tomorrow they could all be dead. Sosa buried her doubts, her fears far from view. Part of her hoped people opted to stay and attempt survival. She would do what she could, but the end was inevitable and that was tempting. Just having an ending. Any ending.

　　There would be arguments now, some would want to stay, some would want to go, it would be a mess. Faces turned to her, full of something& It was hope. Their eyes burned with it, and she was their fuel.

　　Her nausea returned.

　　Please don`t look to me. She could not bear to see all those faces and imagine them contorted as they were dragged away to be tortured. Not again. Still the decision was made. They would follow Sosa to Rala. They trusted their new guardian to lead them.

　　Sosa went outside, leaving her light behind in the room, and threw up where no one would see.

　　They might die in the forest, they might reach Rala. If they did there was a bigger problem, a question that plagued Sosa.

　　Did Eleris know what Gris was when she sent him away? Had she knowingly doomed them all?