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85

Ander felt the pain before anything else. It came back slowly, every beat of his heart a pulse of agony inside his head.

His other senses came back one by one, but they didn't tell him much. It was too dark to see, and all he could taste and smell was blood. After a while, his hearing came back, too, and that told him a bit more. He could hear the sound of his own laboured breathing.

The wind outside. The mill's various creaks and groans.

Ander opened his eye and Banno was lying right on top of him, his bloodshot eye right on top of his, so close it filled his entire world. Everything, it was just that horrible, staring eye, the black pupil surrounded by red bolts of lightning, all of it enclosed in a ring of blood.

Ander gasped and tried to pull away, but Banno was too heavy, his grip too strong. His claws had dug into his clothes and he couldn't get free! Banno's teeth were on his throat, hard and slimy, ready to end this fight once and for all. He -

He slid off Ander's body and settled on the floor like a giant black puddle. His eye was still open, but staring at nothing.

Not taking any chances, Ander dragged himself backwards, every breath like a stabbing line of cleavers in his lungs, until his back hit the wall.

He sat there for a while, clutching his chest and waiting for the frantic beating of his heart to subside.

"Banno?"

He didn't answer. He just kept lying there, facedown. There was a brownish scum of foam around his mouth, mixing with the blood. It created a terrible stench, not unlike the combined smell of death and medicine that had seeped into Shekka's tent over the years.

Ander felt like throwing up, but he suspected that would probably do more harm than good, so he rested his head against the wall and took slow, shallow breaths until the feeling passed.

What do I do now? I don't know if I can stand...

Ander blinked the blood out of his good eye and looked around. It was brighter than before, but not much. The mill's gear shaft was still just a solid black line of shadow growing out of the ceiling, down into the grinder below. And next to it was... what was that?

Ander squinted into the shadows, trying to decipher the murky splotch of colour and shadow his eye was giving him. That wasn't part of the grindstones. It was -

"Nilia?" Ander tried to get up, but a stabbing pain in his midsection soon put paid to that and he fell back against the wall, gritting his teeth until he could find his voice again. "Nilia, are you okay?"

Now that his eye was adjusting to the gloom, he could see that she was lying on the floor right next to the grinder. She had pulled Mateo in close, and the both of them were motionless in each other's arms, sharing a silent embrace.

"Nilia?" he tried again. "Mateo? Are you guys all right? Hey! Please answer me!"

There was no sound except for the howling wind and the slow, agonized groans of the mill all around him.

Ander raised his head and shouted: "Kiana! Are you up there?" It felt like he was stripping his throat raw, and the bitter taste of blood washed over his tongue again almost immediately, but he kept on shouting, hoping to hear her voice drifting down from the shadows, but all he could hear was the wind and the mill, the wind and the mill.

The wind and the mill.

"Kiana! Kia -"

A coughing fit seized his body. Blood splattered from his mouth, coating his lips and chin and dripping to his chest. He fell back against the wall, utterly exhausted, wheezing for air that didn't bring any relief at all, only more stinging, burning pain.

"Kiana...?"

She's only passed out,_he thought. _She's been through a lot, but she'll wake up soon. She has to.

But there was another voice in his head, this one far less calm.

Banno bit into her stomach. She might be bleeding to death right now.

It was only a shallow bite.

How do you know how deep it was? How do you know how deep it needs to be? Kiana isn't a Wolf, she's a Fox! And pregnant!

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Ander muttered, repeatedly knocking the back of his head against the wall. He was being emotional and irrational, two luxuries he absolutely could not afford right now. He needed to think, and he needed to be quick about it. Lives were still at stake.

Kiana, Nilia, and Mateo were unconscious. Not dead. He refused to even acknowledge that possibility. That only left... only left...

The girl!

Ander looked to the stairs, covered in drying streaks of blood. They hugged the wall in a quarter turn, curving up to the ring above. He couldn't see very well from down here, but he knew they were up there, Kiana and that little girl, Valery. If she was still okay, she could go next door. She could find Luke and tell him what happened, and he could go and find help while she stayed put and took care of the rest of her family, made sure they were okay. It wasn't the grandest of plans, but if she was well enough to walk the distance from the mill to the house in this snow, it would work. And if he had to drag his half-dead body up those stairs for a second time just to untie her, he would. He would do anything.

"Valery..." he croaked. "Valery, are you up there? Are you awake?"

He perked his ears and listened, but no sounds came. Was she unconscious, too? He didn't think she was hurt too badly, but she might have fainted.

"Valery... please..." he said, taking long pauses for breath between each word. "Please... answer..."

He waited, and he waited. And finally, from deep inside the shadows above, small and soft, like the cries of a mouse, came the muffled sound of her voice.

"Mm! Mmm!"

Ander raised his head, hardly daring to believe it, hardly daring to believe that there might still be hope left. "Valery?"

"Mmmm!"

If she could get loose by herself, she would have removed that gag by now. No, there was only one thing he could do, one thing he had to do.

Ander looked to the stairs... those curving, blood-soaked stairs. The first step was so close he could almost reach out and touch it. It was such a small thing, such a simple little thing. Just two planks of wood, really. But above that was another step, and above that another, going up and up and up, a quarter spiral disappearing into the darkness above. And even though he was up there just a short while ago, it felt like those steps might just keep on going forever and ever, never reaching the top.

But that was where Kiana was, and if he had to climb an infinite staircase to reach her and make sure she was all right, then that was what he would do.

"Listen to me, Valery," he said. "My name is Ander. I'm coming to help you. It might take a while for me to get there, but just stay calm and wait for me, okay?"

"Mm! Mm!"

Ander took a deep breath. Then another. He had to steel his body for what he was about to put it through. He had to -

"Val... lah... ree..."

That voice turned his blood to ice.

No... it can't be. Please, no...

Ander slowly turned his head. His senses were so strained he could hear the bones creaking inside his neck.

Banno was down on the floor, like a snake, looking up at him with his dead and bleeding eye. A reddish brown foam leaked from his mouth and puffed out across the floor in dirty smears with every haggard breath.

"Val... lah... ree..."

Banno was still alive.