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She’d watched that wall being built. Had helped carry nails and water to the builders while the adults of her clan had guarded them. She remembered the celebration they’d had right after it was erected, their post fortified enough to let loose, to breathe deeply, for the first time in months. She remembered stepping through that gate with nervous butterflies in her stomach the first few times her mother took her foraging in the valley below. Remembered her first night on watch, staring down in jittery anticipation, the weight of the world on her shoulders.

The wall her post had depended on was gone. The wall the village kids had played beside just a few months earlier was now a pile of rubble, dakii leaping over it.

The formations of soldiers who waited behind the wall engaged the dakii as they flooded into the post.

Those who had been in the first waves retreated, captains trying to keep the units together. Those who weren’t fighting grabbed the injured who could be helped and fled from the wall. Some soldiers broke rank and ran for it.

She didn’t have time to be afraid, didn’t have time to doubt herself.

“We have to move,” Iryana ordered her clan members, rising to her feet. The imbued medicine was helping enough to fight some of the exhaustion in her body. Some of the pain from her magic.

While soldiers engaged the dakii, Iryana helped direct the worst of the injured and anyone nearby into the main house’s courtyard. They could escape through the underground tunnel beneath the cellar, get farther away without the dakii right on their heels while everyone else retreated through the main valley.

“Take Levek,” she ordered Tonhald, helping him get Levek to his feet. Then she pushed them into the courtyard. “Hurry!”

They’d have to make it through the tunnels before the rest of them retreated past the spot it let out. Otherwise, they’d have to face the dakii on their own.

“Be safe, Third.” Tonhald nodded quickly and started half-dragging a worryingly pale Levek beside him. One of the soldiers with an arm in a sling quickly slid his good arm under Levek’s other side and helped Tonhald bear his weight. Her cousin gave the stranger a relieved smile. They started moving quicker.

She looked toward the ruins of the wall. They were running out of time.

“Seal the courtyard!” She stepped away from her home, watching as the doors slammed shut. It wouldn’t keep the dakii out, only slow them down enough to give everyone time to get into the tunnels.

Iryana turned to Uncle Dinhal, Edvar, and Misha, wide-eyed and in poor shape to keep fighting.

“Remember the plan,” she ordered them, ignoring how her voice shook.

And then it was time. She braced for the command she never wanted to give.

“Abandon the post!” she screamed.

Iryana raced with her remaining clan members to one of the formations working its way back through the post. They quickly slid into the rotation, alternating retreating and providing cover. Adrenaline alone carried her. She hadn’t seen Pyetar or the others, and she tried not to focus on that.

The dakii raced around them, coming from every direction. Some ignored them entirely, tearing at the buildings and shelters.

Huge piles of wet kindling which had been positioned around the post were lit on fire, creating heavy smoke which reduced visibility. It was impossible to see more than their immediate surroundings, watching for dakii to leap through the smoke, but it provided some cover. All around her was the ominous symphony of growls, screams, and collisions between wood and flesh.

Iryana fought with her metal-forged spear, knowing she couldn’t manage her bow and arrows anymore. It was a blur of running, holding formation, and, above all, protecting Misha.

Her little sister was pale and wide-eyed, but her jaw was set in determination and her focus never wavered. She shot arrow after arrow, taking down more dakii than she had a right to, until the quiver at her hip was empty. And then she drew her falchion.

“That’s for emergencies only.” Iryana panted. “Don’t let them get that close. Stay between me and Uncle.”

Her uncle shouted his agreement as he cut through a dakya, then coughed from the smoke. It was everywhere.

Their group somehow made it out of the village and up part of the hill. More groups had made it, though plenty had fallen. She was exhausted, panting and burning up from the inside out, but there was no stopping.

She was sure they’d be overrun, that it was all over. But then she realized more and more of the dakii had diverted. Some pounced on the fallen bodies, rending them to pieces. Others to the village itself, ripping into the buildings and tearing them apart. The main house’s gate was ripped off the hinges, one length of the wall pulled down.

“What are they doing?” Edvar asked in shock.

She watched as two dakii prowled out of the smithy, twisted and mutilated tools in their maw as they tried to destroy them. Metal-imbued tools. Her gaze moved to the line of fallen bodies, to which ones the dakii seemed to focus on tearing apart. Those in military armor were almost exclusively the only ones being targeted—the fallen metal-forged.

“They’re attracted to the metal magic,” Iryana realized.

The sight made her want to retch, but it was the break they needed to get some distance between them and the dakii. Their post and the fallen soldiers were saving them one more time. Now all they could do was try to survive and join the others at the temple.

There was enough space between them and the dakii that they could no longer see them, though they knew that was only a matter of time. They had finally made it far enough into the valley that someone signaled for a rest. Iryana didn’t know who had called for it, but she was more than happy to agree.