Lydian took a stance beside me. “We’re not going to win this fight,” he said emotionlessly.

“We have to try, at least!” I argued.

“Look around you. What do you think we’ve been doing?” Lydian motioned toward the blood-splattered ground and the two fallen bodies of our friends. “We’re lucky they still are alive,” he said.

“We have to do this. We can’t let the end of the world happen!” I shouted.

He shook his head. “I appreciate your determination. It has always impressed me, in fact. But we’re not going to win this battle. We’ll die.”

“We need one last chance! We need to try!” My face was hot and desperate; my clothes clung to my skin with either sweat or blood. Deep down in my body, my muscles screamed and my bones ached, and the world was fuzzy in my eyes. I leaned dangerously on my bow, breathing heavy and fast.

From beside me, Lydian didn’t look much better, and the two others fighting with us lay in a pile, alive but unconscious.

Lydian was right. We would die out here fighting a battle that we couldn’t have won in the first place. Fjalar made a run for us, but the chain around his ankle kept him from actually catching up to us, and for that I was thankful, as the two of us backed off and ran to the unconscious bodies of our friend. Seppo moaned when I checked over him and I mouthed, I tried. I brushed his hair back and told him he was a hero while Lydian was looking at Rosamund with something bordering on sentimentality in his eyes. Like it was the first time he was actually viewing his son in depth. He heaved Rose over his shoulder, and I put Seppo’s arm around mine as we stumbled back in retreat.

Back in the burrow, someone checked on Diaval, whose state had stayed the same. We laid Rose next to her as they were both unconscious and maybe could share warmth with each other. Seppo fought his way to Rose’s other side before he passed out as well.

My own body ached so badly, it was all I could do to lay a fur on the ground so I wasn’t sleeping on the ice before I fell over and started to quiver. My eyelids fought to stay open despite feeling like someone had tied sandbags to them. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop shaking. The battle had sapped energy from me even without serious wounds.