Jackson and Lucas both rolled to their feet. No longer worried about keeping her touch at bay, Lucas discarded the branch for a knife from his belt. Jackson bent forward, ready, and his own blade glinted. The men circled and then came together, grunting. They slashed and grappled, each searching for an advantage. They didn’t speak. No words, just thick groans of effort echoed through the clearing.
Lucas’s hand broke free to slash at Jackson’s face. Jackson feinted back. The blade cut him across the bridge of his nose and skimmed both cheeks. Blood spattered out and ran in fast rivulets like dark tear tracks. Lucas laughed hoarsely, an ugly sound. The men closed again, each holding the other’s knife hand away while kicking at his enemy in an obscene dance.
She focused, reaching for the Dust. Communication wavered away like a heat wave with every attempt.
You want to help. I know you want to help. Help me now.
One of them groaned in pain. Lucas tore away, spinning and landing on his belly before her.
He lifted his face, contorted with pain and rage. He brought his knife hand around.
Lena dragged up a handful of dirt and broken bark and leaves from beside her. She threw it in his face, hoping bits of it would catch in his hateful eyes.
He roared in pain.
Jackson pounced from behind, gripping Lucas by the hair and dragging him back. He smashed his foot down on Lucas’s wrist once, twice, then kicked the knife away. He flipped Lucas, pulled him to his feet, and then rocked Lucas’s head back with his fist.
Lucas staggered, gasping around a nose as bloodied now as Jackson’s. His glazed stare at Jackson shifted, looking behind him.
Footsteps pounded closer, dull impacts in the silence of the forest broken only by the labored sounds of the three of them breathing through blood.
Was it Alex? Or Lucas’s soldiers? She reached back, grabbed the rough bark of the tree, and pulled herself up. She didn’t know what she could do. She’d manage something.
Jackson didn’t turn. He didn’t wait. He smashed his fists again into Lucas, striking his jaw and cheek on the left and his temple on the right.
Lucas staggered to the left after the second impact, bent double, before falling sideways and rolling down a slope. A moment later, a splash echoed up as he hit water somewhere below.
Alex slid to a stop before her. His left hand pressed a long wet tear in his shirt. The leather binder was gone. He stared at her, chest heaving.
Her chin and lip pulsed, heat beneath the cold wet of torn flesh. Her face must be a bloody mess.
He reached out his hand to her face, as if his first thought was to heal.
“Lucas,” she gasped out, spattering droplets of blood on his chest and face as she tried to explain. She collapsed to the side, gasping for air.
Alex scrambled for her, holding her up, pulling her in to his chest. “Lena,” he said. And then again, and again. His voice was heavy with fear and something else she couldn’t name. He caught her to his chest, his arms like vises around her.
She tilted her head back to look up at him. Her blood smeared across his chest.
He lifted a shaking hand to her face. His lips compressed with tension and focus. Nothing happened. He gasped, his face contorted with disappointment and fear for her.
“Come on!” Alex bore down again, gaze trained on her torn face. A moment later a groaned sob tore from him before he snarled over his shoulder at Jackson, “Get over here.”
Jackson moved closer, but not fast enough for Alex. One arm uncurled from around Lena, shooting out to grab the front of Jackson’s shirt and drag him to them.
“Heal her. Heal her now!”
He scooted backward, pushing Jackson into his place before Lena. He rose, then, and scrambled away down the slope. His head dipped below her line of sight.
She blinked, fingers curling into loose soil and crushed leaves beside her.
Jackson reached out his hands to her face, as if to heal.
It took a few long, metallic-tinged wet breaths before the panic faded and she came back to herself.
Jackson nodded, little movements meant to soothe.
And Alex?
He was somewhere else, with a man who had almost gouged Jackson’s eyes out with a knife. He had gone over the slope.
She pushed Jackson away and struggled to rise. He leaned in to pull her back, and she batted him off.
“No, get off. Alex!”
He was still in danger. She surged away and staggered to the edge of the hillside. She managed two shaky steps over the edge before falling to her hip and sliding through the moldering remains of last winter’s leaves caught in the underbrush of the steep slope. She came to a rest halfway to the bottom, her fingers caught in the branches of a fragrant honeysuckle.
Below, barely discernible through the failing light, Alex straddled Lucas, his hands around the man’s neck. Water half-submerged Lucas’s head. His body stretched out into the deepening river where he’d fallen.