Knock pain. Burn pain. Pain is nothing when my best friend since I was four is out there.

I’ve always liked the feeling I get when I run. Wind through my hair and on my arms, drying the beads of sweat that accumulate faster’n they can evaporate. My mind clear, the effort required to pump my legs and arms is enough to clear my head of all the garbage inside. When I’m running is the only time I can think clearly.

Well, this time ain’t like that at all.

The wind buffets me, bashing me around like a brambleweed. My skin is hot. I’m sweating but it provides no relief from the heat inside me. And my mind is the worst of all, cluttered beyond belief.

Circ. Killers. Circ. Killers. Hunt. Hunters. Circ. Prey.

The Hunters have become the Prey.

And I’m running into the midst of it all. Clearly when the sun goddess was handing out brains I was last in line. It’s one of my favorite jokes, one Circ has heard me tell a hundred times. His response: perhaps the sun goddess had a surplus, and you got all the leftover brains.

I ain’t no genius.

With the wooloo thoughts I got going through my head that’s so full it’s empty, I should be cracking up, rolling on the ground with laughter, but I’m not. I’m just running, running, running. And emerging from the space between the bluffs.

Wow.

From up above, the grazing field looked so small, almost surreal, with little men with tiny weapons fighting fist-sized beasts. As a spectator, no matter how much you care about those on the field of battle, you’re still detached from it. Separated.

As I race out onto the field, it all suddenly becomes very real to me. The bluffs loom over me like a dark tower, casting a shadow across the desert, cutting the dead bodies of both men and tugs in half, as if they’ve been eaten away by vultures and Cotees. The field itself is huge, not just a game board like it appears from above. Hard-packed sand and durt go on forever, marred only by tiny tufts of wildgrass, which is the only reason the tugs were here at all. The tugs are behemoths, even in death. They lie crumpled in the durt, dozens of them—surely it woulda been enough to feed the village for the winter.

But that was before the Killers. Now we’ll be lucky to get off the field alive.

I skid to a stop and my heart skips a beat when I see them. Black flashes of heat in the distance. Definitely headed our way. There’s not much time left. Find Circ.

Frantically, my eyes dart every which way, bouncing around so quickly that there’s zero chance of me finding him. I take a deep breath, try to calm my frayed nerves, focus on each thing I see and hear. Men yelling. The Hunters, bandying together, at least eighty strong. I search for anyone I know and spot my father at the same time as he spots me. He’s the only Greynote who fights these days. The others are too old and decrepit, many in early stages of the Fire.

His eyes are alight with something. Fear? No. Concern? No. Anger? The snarl on his lips gives away his emotion. “Go!” he yells across the field, his finger pointing back up to the bluffs.

His one word sums up our relationship. Whether his command is to keep me safe or not, I know he’d speak it even if we weren’t in mortal danger. Hot tears well up, but I blink them back just as quickly. No time for tears, or fears, or the pain throbbing in my arm. Find Circ.

I ignore my father, continue to scan the desolate field, trying to remember something important, some clue as to where I’ll find Circ. Everything looks so different from this vantage point. Up above, I knew exactly how things were laid out, where Circ was in relation to the hurd, to t’other Hunters. Down here it’s all one big bloody mess. A man groans nearby, pierced by sharp horns in two spots, round circles of blood.

The black smudges are no longer smudges. They’re Killers, so full of detail I wanna scream. I can see their eyes, reflective yellow. They should be staring in a million directions, preparing for the hunt, but I feel as if all their eyes are on me. Their mouths are agape and snapping, two-inch-long fangs the showcase piece in their collection of razor sharp teeth. They’re so close now I can see the muscles rippling in their legs as they run. Death on four feet.

Circ must be amongst t’other Hunters. He’s nowhere else…

What was I thinking? Why am I here? I have about as much chance of protecting Circ as becoming part of the male-only Greynote club when I turn thirty. If he sees me I’ll only distract him from defending himself.

I turn to run back to the bluffs as my father ordered, when I spot the man who groaned earlier. The two spots of blood have widened and his head’s lolled to the side, tongue hanging out. He’s dead. But there’s something about him that means something. Something important. Two spots of blood. Two horn injuries.

The fifth Hunter killed by the biggin! I’m close to where it all went down. Then I see him, the monster-tug himself, a big ol’ pile of flesh and fur and bone now. And behind his dead carcass, voices, no more’n whispers, but clear as day now that I know where to listen.

As scared as I am of the Killers, there’s no way they’ll attack us or the Hunters, right? I mean, why would they? They’ve got fresh, dead tug meat all over the place, just begging to fill their hungry stomachs, so surely they’ll go straight for that.

There are cries to my right from the group of Hunters. The Killers, who looked so much like they were staring at me, heading for me, have veered off toward the larger group, who are shooting volley after volley of pointers at them. What the scorch? They’re going straight for them, as if they don’t even see the tug feast in front of them. Something’s seriously wrong.

Fifty feet away. Feathered pointers stick from their black fur, but it don’t stop them.

Thirty feet. More pointers pierce their flesh. One goes down, yelping, as a sharpshooter puts one through its brain.

Ten feet. With a dozen snarls from the Killers and five times that many yells from the Hunters, the battle begins. ’Fore I can return my gaze to the biggin, I see one Hunter get mauled and another stab his slasher-blade through a Killer’s throat.

I realize that I’ve crouched down, instinctively maybe, but more likely ’cause my legs are shaking at the knees. This is no place for a girl with one arm.

I head for the biggin.

~~~

A hand appears over the monster-tug. Then a face. Circ!

His expression is grim, determined. Then he sees me and it morphs from eyebrow-raised shock to wide-eyed fear to a decision in the form of a nod: We’re getting out of here.

Another face appears. Hawk. The baggard! If we weren’t in this searin’ life or death situation, I’d have half a mind to march up to him and knock him clear into tomorrow.

Hawk pushes off of the dead tug and hurdles it, landing in a crouch in front of me. Circ moves around the butt end of the biggin, sort of limping, holding onto his gut like he’s eaten some undercooked ’zard and is about to spew. The injury from that tug hurt him worse’n I thought. That’s why he didn’t join the rallying Hunters to face the Killers. Hawk mighta stayed with him to help get him to safety, but more likely he stayed ’cause he’s a burnin’ coward.

Ignoring Hawk, I head for Circ. Our eyes meet. “We’ve got to g—” he starts to say, but then we both see it on the edge of our vision. A dark shape, a moving shadow that’s not a shadow.

One of the Killers has broken away from the pack and is locked on Circ, probably seeing him as the weakest link, smelling out his injury as if it has a nasty odor, like drying blaze. I’m injured too, of course, with my broken wrist, but I don’t have enough meat on my bones to make even a snack for this monster.

I run. Every instinct is telling me to run away, to head in the opposite direction, but they’re survival instincts, not life instincts. In life there’s only one choice: run to Circ. I keep my eyes ahead, on Circ, try to forget about the Killer, pretend we’re just Midders again, playing feetball…and Circ’s got the ball.