Cade was relieved it was still willing to answer general questions.

“Figures,” Amber grunted.

“Talk about a sausage fest,” Scott said, earning himself another prod from Grace. He grinned.

Cade took Amber’s hand and stared out over the landscape. She squeezed it, and that simple gesture was enough to calm him. This was a game. It was time to start playing.

“Eight of us can’t succeed where a legion of others failed,” Cade said. “We can’t take a stronghold on our own. We don’t even know where it is. I say we find these ‘others’ first. If Abaddon has added them to the game, he expects us to use them.”

“Right,” Yoshi said. “So how do we do that?”

Cade scanned the horizon once more, walking slowly around the ring of the parapet. But there was nothing. Only the endless hillocks of purple grass.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We might just have to pick a direction and walk as far as we can and still see Jomsborg. Don’t want to get lost out there.”

Yoshi grunted in reluctant agreement.

“What kind of world is this?” Bea muttered. “Purple grass? And hardly a tree or mountain in sight?”

“Purple doesn’t surprise me,” Trix said. “Didn’t you pay attention in biology?”

“Go on, then,” Grace said. “Tell us.”

“Chlorophyll is what makes plants green,” she said. “It absorbs blue and red light. But there’s another type … I forget its name … that absorbs green and yellow light. My teacher said all our plants might have been purple if evolution had gone a different way.”

“Right. So … why no trees?” Cade asked.

“The grass may have outcompeted everything else. Or maybe whatever dominant species we will face made them extinct. Impossible to say.”

“Thanks for the science lesson,” Bea laughed. “Swot!”

“You just wish you had my brains,” Trix said, winking.

“So it’s basically grass, for all intents and purposes,” Cade said. “We can’t eat it. But I heard something out there this morning. Maybe we can hunt them.”

“Can we even digest … like … aliens?” Scott asked.

“We’ll find out, I guess,” Cade replied. “But whoever these ‘others’ are, they’ll probably be able to tell us.”

“If they’re human,” Yoshi said. “And if they’ve been here longer than us. For all we know, Abaddon has dumped an army of Vikings out there this morning with no explanation.”

“You’re probably right,” Amber groaned. “It’s not like this place was designed for eight people to defend. I think we’re supposed to bring them here.”

Cade tightened his grip on the edge of the rampart, trying to focus. Abaddon did not do anything randomly. It was like a puzzle he wanted them to solve.

“If these guys are on foot,” Cade said slowly. “We’re the largest landmark for miles. The chances of us coming across them while wandering the landscape is tiny—we might not even be able to see farther than a hundred yards with the grass. So we need to help them find us.”