In the silence, the last fragments of broken branches and planks thudded to the ground. Axel clung to the branch, still shuddering, forcing himself not to look down, into the chaotic lattice of branches he would have to climb.

  He edged toward the thick, reddish trunk, wrapped his arms around it, swung his legs down from the perch, and began inching, feeling for footholds. His heartbeat quickened when he caught a groan below. Someone else alive.

  "Axel!"

  Ashley. Her voice thin, cracked, heavy with pain. He gritted his teeth, moving faster, half sliding down, scraping his palms bloody, cheek raw against the bark. He reached a split branch where a snapped rope dangled. In the tangle of limbs, a figure appeared. He started, then exhaled. Hector.

  "Bloody hell," the boy muttered, struggling forward, clutching branches, swaying. His face was streaked red with blood, long scratches tearing across it.

  "You alive?" Axel asked. "We’ll get down, then find the others. I’ll go first, you right after."

  Ashley was the first he saw when he dropped from the rope into the grass. The gondola lay on its side, hull gashed with holes, propellers spinning weakly on inertia. The girl pushed herself onto all fours, lifted her head. Axel rushed over, helping her up.

  "What… was that?" she whispered, pressing her face to his shoulder. He felt her trembling, afraid now to let go. Hector landed heavily beside them, staggered, swept the clearing with stunned eyes.

  "Easy," Axel murmured. "It’s all right. Just stay calm. We’ll make it out. But first, we need to find the others…"

  "I see one already."

  Konrad lay nearby, conscious but unable to move, groaning, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. His trousers were soaked red. Broken. Axel didn’t step closer, only watched as Ashley knelt, rolled up the cloth, and examined the wound. Konrad clenched his jaw, choking back screams.

  One more remained. Axel prayed he was dead, smashed in the fall, gone forever. But a groan from behind a toppled cedar killed the hope. Slowly, Axel climbed over the mossy trunk, shoved aside prickling branches, and saw him. Face down in the dirt, motionless.

  "Axel, wait!"

  Ashley caught his arm just as his hand went for the hunting knife.

  "Don’t you dare lay a finger on him," she rasped. Her strength was back. "I’ll check him… then we leave him for Petros’s judgment. Axel, please! Romenford placed him in this expedition. If anything happens to him—we’ll all face trial!"

  "He’s vermin. That’s all that matters," Axel muttered, stepping closer. Ashley carefully rolled Nubel over. His face was a ruin of bruises, cuts, nose crushed to pulp, arms limp, but lips still moved. A groan of pain slipped free.

  "Alive, mostly intact," Ashley concluded, tearing his cloak and shirt open. "Damn it. Konrad’s down. We’ve landed in the heart of an unknown forest without a guide. And most likely, the druids already know where we crashed. Perfect situation…"

  "Say it plain: we’re screwed," Axel grumbled. "Here’s what—we keep quiet. It’s just the three of us, really. You and Hector grab anything that passes for weapons, food, whatever you can carry. It’s warm, we’ll manage. I won’t touch him," he added quickly, catching Ashley’s glare, "I swear. Just need to ask one thing. One small thing."

  She left. Axel stood over Nubel, staring into his battered face, hearing Ashley’s footsteps fade. Then he bent close, speaking low:

  "You hear me?"

  He knew the professor did. Nubel’s lips clenched bloody and pale, eyes full of rage and fear. He knew Axel could end him with a flick.

  "You’ll help us get out," Axel said, quick and cold. "Work like the rest. Hunt food, find the way. Do that… and maybe I’ll clear your name before Petros—if he survives, if he finds us. But if you try anything, then Petros will judge you, because it was him you betrayed back there at the shrine. And one more thing."

  Nubel shivered.

  "I don’t buy that it’s only about money. You wouldn’t risk everything for Romenford’s dirty gold. We all have skeletons, but you—yours must be monstrous if you staked millions on this."

  Nubel closed his eyes. From a distance, Konrad’s groans carried—Ashley working fast to splint the broken joint.

  "Romenford knows nothing," Nubel whispered. "There’s another. A friend. In his hands lies Aktida’s future. He needs what Petros and Saelin seek. His name… is Lord Garamant."

  ***

  They were mere minutes late. Had they left just a little bit earlier, their tracks would have vanished into the sacred thickets of Regerlim, swallowed by the wilderness. And maybe then things would have gone differently. But Konrad groaned, he needed a healing potion prepared. Axel and Hector tore through the cargo bay, wrenching food and weapons out from under splintered furniture and wrecked machinery. The crates of rifles and carbines Axel had jettisoned with the ballast. They gathered only the barest necessities. Axel made one exception: from the corner where Petros usually slept, he pulled out the small chest, gilded and inlaid.

  And when they were just about to leave, it began.

  The first arrow hissed past Axel’s scalp and buried itself in a pine trunk, shaft sinking to the fletching. It flew fast, silent, no glimpse of the archer behind the undergrowth. Axel shouted, bolted for the gondola; Nubel ran close behind. Ashley and Hector shrank against the meager cover of broken timbers. Two more arrows slashed overhead, fired from the opposite side. They were surrounded, trapped like mice in a sprung snare.

  "Inside!" Axel roared. "Move, find a wall with no breaches, keep your weapons ready! Ashley, drag Konrad!"

  The translator cursed and gasped as they hauled him, scraping through dirt and splintered flooring into the belly of the toppled gondola. Arrows thudded harder now, splintering wood; one grazed Axel’s cheek, blood spattering, but he only flinched. They scrambled in, the hull rattling with shafts, bolts, short javelins. Ashley’s hands shook as she tried to shape a spell. Hector gripped a sword, found by chance, his whole frame trembling. Axel shifted a rifle into his hands, one of the two that had survived in Saelin’s crate. After a pause, he tossed the second to Nubel, who caught it, hands shivering.

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  "Listen," Axel said low. "We’re all in the same shit now. And we’ll claw out of it together. Time to repay your debt—now."

  Nubel nodded stiffly. Outside, voices rose. Through the upper portholes, thunder-dark skies loomed, swollen with rain.

  Axel counted seconds, back pressed to the wall. His body shook.

  The cannibals howled—harsh, ragged chants, war-hymns echoing. Arrows rattled without pause. Then they heard the soft pad of bare feet just outside, a guttural roar that froze the soul, and distant, pounding drums. Then the first druid burst in, bellowing. Axel screamed and surged forward, barely controlling the metal barrel, watching in fear fire shredding the gloom, blood spraying thin streams from the chest of the enemy flung back against the wall…

  A harsh, rasping gasp. The druid twitched, slid down the planks, eyes blown wide in pain and terror. His axe clattered free.

  Then chaos broke.

  Another druid rushed in, and Nubel cut him down from the shadows, crouched in the corner behind an overturned chest. A third shoved the corpse aside, lunged halfway into the gondola, charging Axel with a roar, so fast Axel barely got the rifle up. The burst thundered, last of the magazine hammered into the savage’s face. Brass casings rattled, and the face, frozen in front of Axel, became shredded into a nightmare mask. Then the head toppled back, and the druid collapsed, sword clanging across the floor.

  Axel flung the empty rifle away, yanked the dagger from his belt. Nubel shot another druid who clambered through a breach. The doorway piled with corpses. The next raider tripped over them, and Nubel cut him down at point-blank range. Behind, archers crowded the gap. Shafts whistled in, quivering in the wall just two steps from Ashley and Hector. Ashley shrieked, ducked low. A druid hurled himself at her, axe raised.

  "Ashley, down!" Nubel shouted, snapping the rifle up.

  Flash. A searing burst tearing the gondola apart. One druid staggered, clutching his bleeding shoulder. The one bearing down on Ashley froze mid-swing, lead chewing through his body. He crumpled at her feet in spasms. Hector reeled as another arrow nearly skewered his skull. Nubel broke cover, sprayed the doorway—the archer there folded, another immediately taking his place. Axel leaped forward, drove his dagger into the throat of the druid with a wounded shoulder, kicked the corpse aside, sweat stinging his eyes.

  Two more raiders charged in, pausing to take stock. Nubel thrust his rifle up, catching the cleave of a heavy axe. The barrel bent, but held. The druid drew back to strike again and then froze, as blinding light burst through the gloom. A fireball slammed into him. Nubel ducked. The savage screamed, engulfed, thrashing as flesh charred. Ashley sagged, trembling arms raised, another spell gathering in her hands. The blackened skeleton collapsed, skull rolling to Hector’s feet.

  The second druid shouted an incomprehensible word in his language, leaping back, horror etched on his face at the fate of his comrade. Axel didn’t hesitate and struck first, thrusting upward into the throat. Before the corpse hit the floor, Axel grabbed the longsword that had slipped from the druid’s weakening grip. Nubel also seized a fallen blade from the floor—and leaped aside, pushing Axel out of the way: a few arrows whistled past and thudded into the opposite wall.

  Another druid with a bow appeared above, at the side of the gondola near the portholes. Ashley caught sight of him and struck with a spell. The enemy screamed and fell. Then, suddenly, they all smelled smoke and heard the crackle of burning wood. Crimson tongues of magical flame crawled along the exterior, summoned by the mightiest Rune of Fire.

  "Nubel, grab Konrad!" Axel shouted. "Hector, Ashley, follow me! Let’s break through!"

  They dashed outside, leaping over bodies strewn across the gondola floor. Axel carried the longsword in one hand, Petros’ chest in the other. Rain fell in sheets, gray torrents from the sky, but the magical flames shrugged off the storm. Behind them, the balloon erupted like a massive dry haystack. The first wave of attackers had been repelled, but new druids appeared on the far side of the clearing. At their head, a shaman wrapped in furs, wearing a horrific horned mask, brandished what looked like dozens of runes in a fan-like spread.

  "Into the forest!" Axel yelled, ducking as arrows whistled over their heads.

  Ashley swung around, forcing up her last reserves of magic, casting another fireball into the horde before throwing herself forward and running blindly into the thicket, consumed by one desire: to survive, to escape, to avoid becoming prey to these dark-skinned, matted, wild-haired savages with sharp weapons. She screamed as four more dropped from the tree crowns where they had been hiding and blocked the path. Axel slowed for a fraction of a second:

  "Split! Push through! There aren’t that many of them!"

  Hector swung his sword at a druid charging him. He blocked the first strike and countered, but the enemy was faster, more confident—turning the blade, he knocked the sword from the youth’s hands. Hector screamed. Axel glanced back, but a druid lunged at him, forcing him into combat, spinning his sword, furiously parrying axe blows. Ashley barely had the strength to cast another spell. She staggered, drew a dagger, and hurled it at an approaching druid, embedding the blade in his throat. Nubel, carrying Konrad, ducked into the bushes. The fourth druid did not follow, instead targeting Axel.

  When he reached him, Axel parried a series of furious attacks and then struck faster, the edge of his sword slicing across the druid’s face. Steel ran red, the foe reeled and fell, clutching his wound, wailing. Axel turned around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the druid pushing the retreating Hector toward the blazing aerostat, and how the shaman suddenly rushed toward him with a cry… The whistle of a blade, the ringing of swords—there was no time to turn his head, he had to save his own skin. Arrows whistled, darted among the trees, getting stuck in the trunks and fluttering their tails. Axel dodged his opponent’s sword and managed to suddenly kick him in the stomach with the toe of his boot. This was his favorite move. He took advantage of the second’s delay and struck from the shoulder with force, fury, and passion, putting all his fear and desire to survive into the blow. The druid’s head flew to the side like a hairy ball, his body, drenched in crimson streams, fell onto the wet grass.

  Axel spun, but he could not see Hector anymore. Everyone else had already fled the clearing. He was alone against dozens of frenzied druids. He had to go, fast.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw more cannibals rushing through the trees, trying to cut off escape. Axel bolted, vaulting over fallen timber, reckless, headlong. Arrows whistled around him, and finally one struck under his shoulder blade. He winced, red-hot pain lancing through him, but he ran harder, gasping, stumbling, feeling the end of his breath approaching. Even adrenaline could not sustain him if he didn’t escape the danger zone… But he did.

  The bowfire ceased. Axel burst into an open area, tumbled into a ravine, landing on the roots of an enormous old cedar. Face down, he froze, gasping, letting out a desperate, mournful groan—no strength to move. He crawled, climbed into bushes, fell again onto wet, bloodied hands, veins swollen with tension, and sobbed in helplessness. He had never let go of either the longsword or Petros’ chest.

  Then someone grabbed him, dragged him a few more feet into the shade of a bush. A hand clamped over his mouth. His eyes widened, he whinnied, then jerked as the pain of an arrow being extracted seared his body. Blood ran down his back, vision blurred.

  But the cooling touch of a potion on the wound revived him. Clothes were stripped, he was laid down, bandaged. Shadowy figures wavered before his eyes. He groaned, thrashed, and only when given a sip of an icy elixir did the world sharpen. Ashley slowly removed the vial from his face.

  "Axel, are you okay?" she asked softly.

  "I’ll live," he muttered. Nubel, behind Ashley, pressed a finger to his lips with fierce warning… They froze, afraid to move in their meager hideout. Dark shapes moved nearby—cannibals scouring the forest for escapees.

  "Where’s Hector?" Ashley whispered as Nubel’s hands fell in resignation and he exhaled deeply.

  "They took him," Axel croaked. "They took him… I couldn’t do anything…"

  Ashley darkened. She looked at him.

  "We’re all helpless here, Axel. Don’t blame yourself. Now… we leave. As far from this cursed place as we can."