“They’ve been held up,” Thomas said. “Probably dropped a cactus and had to go back for more.”

“The army is expecting you on the eastern front,” Mikil said, standing. “I told you we should have sent an escort!”

Marie, Thomas’s twelve-year-old daughter, ran up to the outlook and took the steps two at a time. Her cotton tunic flapped around thin tanned legs. Her hair was drawn back in a ponytail, and she wore a leather fighting helmet, too large for her head. She and her friends had been recounting the football game played by the recruits earlier, no doubt.

“Are they back, Father?” she cried.

“Not yet, dear,” Rachelle answered.

From the darkness flew another child, and Thomas’s heart fell when he saw who she was. Johnis’s younger sister, Kiella, a friend to Marie.

“Tell her it’s not true,” Kiella said, running up.

“What’s not true?” Rachelle asked.

Marie answered in a loud voice. “Samuel says they are dead. Tell me it’s not true.”

At ten years old, Thomas’s son, Samuel, was full of vinegar like his father, Rachelle thought. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, brushing dirt from her daughter’s chin.

“That’s what I told him. No Forest Guard would let the Scabs kill them on their first day! But he says Johnis isn’t really a Forest Guard and likely got them in trouble. Now they’re being eaten for stew.”

“He said that?” Thomas asked. “Tell him that I say who the Forest Guard is, not him. Tell him Johnis will one day save his skinny neck!”

“Easy, dear,” Rachelle whispered.

“And then tell him I love him more than I love my own life. I would never put him in danger by choosing the wrong fighter to protect our home.”

“It’s dark,” a man said, walking in. It was Ramos, Johnis’s father. And he looked worried.

Rachelle exchanged a glance with Thomas and saved the children from hearing what might be exchanged by taking Kiella’s chin in her fingers. “Your brother is a hero, Kiella. And he’ll return to a hero’s welcome.”

Kiella’s eyes widened. She brushed past her father, flew down the steps, and ran into the darkness, Marie hard on her heels.

“Where are they?” Ramos asked. “It’s dark.”

Thomas bit the inside of his cheek, then said what he always said when faced with the families of his fighters: the truth. “We don’t know where they are.”

Ramos’s eyes bugged. “Don’t know. You mean they’re lost?”

“We don’t know.”

Ramos’s face reddened as the implications settled in. “Lost” meant hurt or wounded or dead. There was no such thing as lost in the forest. They all knew it like the knots in a Horde ball.

He shoved his large hand toward the west. “Then find him!”

“Easy, Ramos,” Rachelle said. “We will find him.”