The column stretched along the deer path, Wulfric at the front with men clearing fallen branches while I moved up and down the line, checking the old, the injured, the frightened, the ones whose breathing changed before panic had a chance to become contagious.
By the time we reached the eastern slope, the smoke had darkened the sky behind us.
Then someone screamed.
I turned to see Tova standing alone beside the path.
“Where’s Anya?”
The girl’s face crumpled. “The baby.”
Every muscle in my body went cold. “What baby?”
“Edith’s. She was sleeping.”
Anya had gone back.
I looked toward the smoke as Wulfric caught my arm before I took one step.
“No.”
“Anya went back. There’s a baby.”
His hand tightened.
“Darcy.”
The way he said my name should have stopped me.
It didn’t.
“I know fire.”
“Aye, but you know not the forest.”
“And you’ve got two hundred people moving because you know the forest. Keep them moving.”
His face changed. “Do not do this.”
Something in the words almost reached me. Almost. Then the wind shifted, bringing with it the sharp crack of burning timber as I pulled free.
“I’m sorry.”
The path back vanished and reappeared through smoke as I ran, familiar landmarks changing by the second as the light turned strange and orange beneath the trees. I wrapped part of my cloak across my mouth, staying low where I could, reading flame movement, listening for the deeper roar that meant the fire was finding heavier fuel.
“Anya!”
No answer. I found her near the edge of camp, stumbling from Edith’s shelter with the baby wrapped beneath her cloak.
“I couldn’t leave her.”
I took the baby because Anya was coughing too hard to carry her safely, and together we started back.
The fire had moved faster than I expected. A burning branch crashed across the path behind us, sparks exploding into the air, and Anya screamed.
“Forward!” I shouted. “Don’t look back.”
We reached the ridge coughing, filthy, and alive, to find Wulfric waiting.