The Forsaken

silent. I try to hold the spear steady, but my hands are shaking.
    Gadya begins her countdown: “Three . . . two . . .”
    The big girl doesn’t look frightened. The corners of her mouth curl upward to display even more of her teeth.
    Gadya begins to mouth the word “One.”
    I’m watching the drone closely, and I see the muscles in her jaw ripple. It’s a subtle movement, but I can tell that right then she’s planning to spring forward and leap at us with the ax.
    I have to do something. Gadya’s preoccupied with aiming her arrow. Time slows down to a crawl. This drone is not going to turn around and leave. She is going to hack us up into little pieces.
    Before I can think too much, I fling my spear right at her deranged painted face.
    At the same instant, the girl makes her move and lunges forward, which means my spear misses its target. The wooden shaft rebounds harmlessly off her muscled shoulder. But the blow is enough to distract her and momentarily slow her down.
    That split second gives Gadya an advantage. The arrow flies from her bow with a twang and sinks directly into the center of the girl’s chest. The girl unleashes a scream that sounds like a wounded lion. She staggers sideways, dropping her ax. Her hands grasp at thin air.
    “Run!” Gadya yells at me, as if I need encouragement. We tear away through the trees. I hear the girl screaming and growling behind us as she tramples the foliage. I realize Gadya’s arrow must have missed her heart, but it has given us time to escape with our lives.
    “Nice shot!” I finally gasp, once we stop running a few minutes later. Somehow we’ve managed to shake the injured drone.
    “That was way too close,” Gadya replies. “And that girl was bigger than most of our hunters.” She slots another arrow into her bow. Brushes blue strands of hair out of her eyes. “We have to keep moving.”
    “I don’t have a weapon anymore,” I point out.
    Gadya reaches down and extracts the knife from her ankle sheath. She hands it to me silently.
    I take it, and we press forward again. I can hear screams and battle cries, but they’re fainter than before. I realize our warriors must be forcing any stray drones away from our village. Moving cautiously, Gadya and I finally reach one of the narrow forest trails.
    I hear a voice suddenly calling out, “Gadya! Alenna!”
    It’s Markus. He stumbles out of the trees, about thirty paces in front of us. A bow dangles from his left hand. “Come with me. You gotta see this.”
    “We’re busy right now!” Gadya yells back. “Or haven’t you noticed?”
    “The attack’s over,” he says, lumbering in our direction. “They got what they came for.”
    “How do you know?”
    “They went after the prisoners,” Markus says, sounding stupefied. “They set fire to the kennels and killed most of ’em!”
    My heart sinks in horror.
    David.
    Gadya looks equally shocked.
    “Is David okay?” I ask numbly.
    Markus just gestures at us to follow him.
    We do so, dazed, stopping only when we reach the clearing that once housed the kennels. The air is thick with roiling clouds of dark, putrid smoke. The kennels have been obliterated. Transformed into smoldering ruins. Some of the trees in the clearing are burned too, their trunks blackened. I avert my eyes from the corpses inside the remains of the cells.
    Gadya surveys the damage, shaking her head in disbelief. “Looks like they used powder from their fireworks as an accelerant.”
    “I thought it was a rescue mission at first,” Markus explains. “I thought they were going to free the prisoners. I never thought they’d do this.”
    I walk forward into the clearing. There’s no sign of David anywhere. I can barely believe it. One second he was alive and telling me about my parents. Now he’s probably dead—and right after I promised to help him. He never even deserved to be imprisoned here in the first place.
    But as I peer out over the field of ash, bodies, and charred bamboo, I realize that beyond the smoke one kennel is still standing in pristine perfection, untouched by flames.
    It’s the isolation kennel. David’s kennel.
    And its door is hanging wide open.
    Markus sees me looking. “Yeah, only one of ’em got away.” He walks forward and kicks at some smoldering ashes glumly. “Bet you can guess who.”
    Gadya looks over at me. I feel like she’s eyeing me with suspicion.
    “What happened?” I ask Markus, trying to make sense of the situation.