Joel
“J osie! They’re coming ! Get the kids to the cave.”
“I’m staying with you and fighting. The other nurses can handle the children.”
“I told you to go. I meant it,” I say. “I can’t risk my best nurse being killed on the battlefield because those animals didn’t do their damn job.”
“I told you they would bring this fight to us, and you didn’t listen to me. You let your blind lust for some—”
I whip around and grab Josie by the arm. I pull her to my face, and the look in her eyes is a mixture of fear and anger. I know she’s upset. I know she feels I should’ve listened. And I didn’t, so now we suffer the consequences. But I’m not going to allow my sister to be harmed for my mistakes. She’s needed with the children to keep them calm and to patch people up once this war is over.
“Go,” I say. “And when the war is over, work as quickly as you can to save as many as you can.”
Then I toss her off to the side and listen as she scurries away.
I can see two Primals bounding through the woods, and I head for the edge of the village. Hundreds of men and women stand behind me, providing defense for our most important houses. Crops that have taken us years to cultivate and houses that have nothing but our medicines and cures for poisonous saps and illnesses we encounter. I recognize Vlad, with his steely gray coat and his gnashing teeth. But I don’t recognize the Primal next to him.
Not until she runs up to me and stands by my side.
Clarissa.
In her true form.
I can’t stand to look at her.
“How many?” I ask.
“Ten. Maybe twenty,” Vlad growls.
“How many dead?” I ask.
I force my gaze over to Clarissa, but she doesn't look at me.
“A lot more than that,” she rumbles.
“All right, guys!” I yell as I turn around. “This is it! Our home is compromised, and our children are at risk. The lives we’ve been given and the knowledge we have all comes down to this one moment. We have a chance to rid this world of the Primal Council and all its disgusting experiments and human slavery. You fight with honor, fight with me, and I will do everything I can do get you back into the arms of your children!”
“For our land!” the men shout.
“For our families!” I yell.
“For our future!” they all shout.
“And for those that died in chains. May we never know the persecution they suffered because of our efforts here today.”
Then I whip my sword around in the air and cut right into the bowels of a Deer leaping over my head.
Clarissa looks at me in shock, but I don’t care. I know the Primal’s weakness. I know they can’t handle lead. Our weapons are dripping with it. Tipped with it. Coated in it. Solid upon liquid and decorated with nothing but it. It slashes through their skin and pierces their hearts quicker than a hot knife to a stick of butter.
Lead is what our weapons are lined with. Lead is what sits at the heart of our swords.
We will win this war, and we will keep our secrets in the process.
Vlad fights beside me while Clarissa leaps over my head. She’s making her way toward the middle of the city in case they get that far. But I know she isn’t protecting us. She isn’t protecting our children. She’s protecting that husband of hers. A man she can’t approach or touch or even stand the sight of.
I’m repulsed by her Primal form, but I am taken by her dedication to a man she can’t even touch.
My sword slashes through the army of Primals coming. Their spears are flying at us, slaying men at my feet. Good men. Fathers. Brothers. Cousins. Men gurgling on their own blood and eviscerating before my very eyes. Their skin boils, their blood seeps, and soon they disappear into the ground. Becoming one with the very earth that provides us food and shelter and a stable life.