The first direwolf came through the fence like it wasn't even there.
It was massive. Taller than a horse, with grey-black fur, yellow eyes, and a mouth full of teeth, each about as long as Ashara's hand.
It hit the wooden fence at the edge of the village, and the boards exploded outward. A woman screamed. Then everyone screamed.
Ashara grabbed Lysa by the arm and pulled her behind the nearest wagon.
"Stay here. Don't move."
"Ashara, what are those—"
"Stay here."
She didn't have a weapon. She didn't have training. She didn't have anything except two legs and a desperate need to make sure none of her people got eaten.
She ran toward the camp, shouting for the troupe to get into the wagons, get inside, get down. Most of them listened because most of them were already running.
Another wolf tore through the village square, knocking over a market stall and sending broken wood and festival decorations across the dirt. A villager tried to run and the wolf caught him by the leg. Ashara looked away, but she heard what happened to him.
CRACK, CRUNCH
[Fuck, fuck, fuck!]
Maren had gotten most of the younger performers into the wagons. Delara was pulling Fen by the wrist. Ashara did a head count, fourteen, fifteen, where was—
Lysa.
She'd told her to stay behind the wagon. Ashara turned back and saw the girl exactly where she'd left her, frozen, staring at a direwolf that had come around the side. Twenty feet away, head low. Its yellow eyes locked on the smallest, most terrified person in its line of sight.
Ashara ran without thinking.
She got between Lysa and the wolf and the wolf lunged and Ashara threw her arms up because that was the only thing she could do.
Its claws caught her across her left forearm.
Blood flew through the air. A sharp, searing pain pulled a scream from Ashara's throat. She stumbled back into Lysa, pushing the girl behind her, and the wolf opened its jaws to finish the job when a spear punched through the side of its skull.
"..." Ashara and Lysa both stared wide-eyed at the skewered monster.
A village guard ripped the spear free and the wolf collapsed at Ashara's feet. The guard looked at her for half a second, then turned and casually ran toward the next one.
Ashara looked down. Her arm was bleeding. A lot.
She shook her head.
"Move, Lysa. Move."
The girl did just that.
The next twenty minutes were the worst of Ashara's life.
She couldn't fight. She couldn't do anything except drag people out of the way, shout at them to get inside, and watch others fight.
The village's defenders, a handful of guards, some hunters, and two low-rank adventurers who happened to be passing through, held a loose line at the edge of the square and fought the wolves back. Though, a few of them ended up as half-eaten meals on the floor.
Ashara watched from behind the wagons, her bleeding arm pressed against her chest.
The adventurers moved different from the guards. Faster. Harder. One of them took a hit from a wolf's paw that should have caved his chest in and instead just skidded back a few feet.
[How are they doing that?]
A wolf broke through the line and charged the wagons. Ashara shoved three people behind her, and then a hunter put two arrows into its side and it went down ten feet from where she was standing.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The fight only ended when they killed the alpha, a grey beast the size of a small wagon. One adventurer hamstrung it, a guard drove a spear through its throat, and the rest of the pack scattered into the dark.
Only then did the fighting stop.
---
Ashara sat on the ground near the wagons, her back against a wheel, her left arm wrapped in a torn strip of fabric that was already soaked through. Her right hand was covered in blood, some hers, some not.
The troupe was safe. Lysa was safe.
But that was luck. Nothing but luck.
She stared at her hands for a long time.
That night, she and Lysa lay side by side on bedrolls outside the wagons, because neither of them could sleep inside. The sky was clear, full of stars. Somewhere in the village, people were still crying.
"Ashara?" Lysa's voice was small. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. It's just a cut."
"That's not what I mean."
"..."
Ashara stared at the sky. Her arm hurt. Her chest hurt worse.
"I couldn't do anything, Lysa."
"You saved me."
"A guard saved you. I just got in the way and nearly died for it. I'm so stupid."
Lysa was quiet for a while. Then she rolled onto her side.
"It didn't feel stupid to me."
Ashara didn't answer.
She lay there, staring up at the stars, thinking about the token in her pocket and the woman who'd given it to her. Eventually, she closed her eyes, but she didn't sleep.
---
Ashara had never been one to sit on a decision.
Good or bad, smart or stupid, when her gut told her something, she moved. It was how she picked dance partners, how she picked lovers, how she'd once bet the troupe's entire earnings on a show in a town that turned out to be half-abandoned. (They made the money back. Barely.) Some people needed time to think things over.
Ashara needed about one sleepless night.
In the morning, she found Delara at the cooking fire, alone.
The troupe mother looked like she hadn't slept. Her silver hair was loose around her shoulders, and her hands were wrapped around her tea cup tight enough to turn her knuckles pale.
"How's your arm?"
"It's fine." Ashara sat down across from her. "Mama, I need to talk to you about something."
"No."
"You don't even know what I'm going to say."
"You're going to tell me you want to go to Lumendell."
"..."
"You're going to tell me that adventurer put ideas in your head and now you want to leave."
Ashara took a breath.
"I want to go to Lumendell."
"The troupe needs you, Ashara. You're our headliner. You're—"
"I know what I am to the troupe." Her voice was steady even though her hands were clenched in her lap. "But what happens next time? What happens when the wolves come again and there's no guard behind me with a spear? What happens when it's Lysa, or Maren, or you, and I can't do anything except watch?"
Delara's jaw tightened. She didn't say anything.
"That was the first time I'd ever seen a monster. I want to make sure the next time I see one, I can do more than scream at it."
The silence stretched. Delara set her tea down and looked at Ashara, really looked, and whatever she found there must have been enough because her shoulders dropped.
"We'll pool the savings," Delara said, quietly. "Get you a spot on a wagon headed east."
---
By midday, the whole troupe knew.
Maren showed up with a packed bag of food and a bedroll nicer than Ashara's own. Fen pressed a pouch of coins into her hand, every copper the girl had saved from the last three towns. Two of the older performers pooled enough silver to cover the wagon fare twice over, and when Ashara tried to refuse, they told her to shut up.
Lysa didn't say much. She just sat next to Ashara while she packed, handing her things, folding clothes that didn't need folding. When Ashara was done, Lysa hugged her around the waist and held on for a long time.
"You're coming back, right?"
"Obviously." Ashara squeezed her. "Someone has to make sure you stop leading with your shoulders."
That afternoon, Delara found a merchant wagon headed east. The troupe gathered at the edge of the village to see her off, all fifteen of them, still bruised and tired but standing together the way they always did.
Ashara climbed onto the back of the wagon with her pack over one shoulder and looked at her family.
Maren was waving with both hands. Lysa was crying. Delara stood at the front with her arms folded, watching Ashara with an expression that said everything she wasn't going to say out loud.
"Come back strong," Delara called out.
"I will."