The scream tore through the mist again, closer this time, sharp enough to make the birds scatter from the dead trees.
"Help! Someone, please! The shadows!"
Mei instantly shifted her stance, her dual blades coming up, her eyes scanning the dense undergrowth to their right. "An ambush?" she hissed, looking at Raven.
"No," Raven said, his voice flat. He didn't draw a weapon. He simply stood there, a solid wall of muscle, watching the bushes thrash violently. "No ambush screams that loud."
A second later, the foliage burst open.
A figure stumbled into the clearing. It was a girl. She looked to be about eighteen, dressed in a silk dress that had once been a pristine, bubblegum pink but was now shredded at the hem and caked in grey mud. Her golden hair was a tangled disaster of leaves and twigs.
She saw the group. She saw the weapons. She saw Mei's terrifying swords.
