Call heard a rustling sound outside the cave. He wondered if it was some kind of animal.
Digging around in his pack, he found a half-eaten candy bar and made short work of it. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been resting, but he knew he felt more awake and alert than he had since they’d embarked on this mission. A strange calm settled over him.
I should leave them, he thought.
They’d come far enough. He’d never had friends like this, friends who were willing to risk everything to help him. He didn’t want to reward his friends by leading them to their doom.
Then Call heard another rustling, closer this time. It didn’t sound like an animal, more like a herd, moving slowly and quietly through the brush.
He revised his plan rapidly.
“Tamara, wake up,” Call whispered, poking her with his foot. “Something’s out there.”
She rolled over and opened her eyes. “Mrmph?”
“Out there,” he repeated softly. “Something.”
She poked Aaron and he got Jasper up, both of them yawning and groaning at being awoken.
“I don’t hear anything,” Jasper complained.
“Let’s check it out,” Aaron whispered. “Come on.”
“What if it’s the mages?” Tamara said quietly. “Maybe we should just hunker down?”
Call shook his head. “If they come in here, there’s nowhere to run. We’re literally backed against a wall.”
No one could deny that, so they got their stuff and, tugging Havoc along, emerged from the cave. Night was falling.
“You’ve lost it,” Jasper said. “There’s nothing out here.”
But then they all heard it, a rustling that came from two places at once.
“Maybe the mages found us,” Aaron said. “Maybe we could —”
But it wasn’t a mage that stepped out of the foliage.
It was a Chaos-ridden human who emerged, slack-faced and staring with coruscating eyes that spun with colors like a kaleidoscope. He was huge, dressed in ragged black clothes. Looking more closely, Call realized they were the remains of a uniform. A ripped, old, mud-stained, blood-soaked uniform. There was an emblem over his heart, but in the gloom, Call couldn’t make out what it was.
Jasper had gone papery white. He’d never seen one of the Chaos-ridden before, Call realized.
Call had only long enough to be horrified when another one stepped out to his left. He spun, clutching Miri in his hand, just as a third surged out of some undergrowth to his right. And then another, and another, and another, all pallid and sunken-eyed, a flood of Chaos-ridden coming from all sides.
The Enemy’s army outnumbered them.
“W-what do we do?” gasped Jasper. He had grabbed up a stick from the forest floor and was brandishing it. Tamara was shaping a fireball between her hands. They were steady but her expression was panicked.
“Get behind me,” Aaron ordered. “All of you.”
Jasper moved behind him with alacrity. Tamara was still working on her fireball, but she was already behind Aaron. Most of the Chaos-ridden were massed on the opposite side of the clearing, staring at them with their whirling eyes. Their silence was eerie.
“I won’t,” Call said. He didn’t feel afraid. He didn’t know why. “You can’t. I’m your counterweight and I can tell you’re not rested enough. You just used chaos magic. It’s too soon to do it again.”
Aaron’s jaw was set. “I have to try.”
“There’s too many of them,” Call argued as the army began to advance. “The chaos will consume you.”
“I’ll take them down with me,” Aaron said grimly. “Better this than the Alkahest, right?”