Chubs was already moving.
Their eyes met for half a second as the shouts erupted behind them — no words needed, no hesitation — and then they split, breaking in opposite directions as the space between them swallowed the gap.
Ard's boots hit the dirt path hard and he pushed, the sudden exertion driving straight into his ribs like a blade. Pain flared — sharp enough to steal half a breath — and he forced through it, forced his legs to keep turning over, forced his arms to keep driving.
Behind him: footsteps. Too fast. Too many.
"At the Shack!"
Chubs' voice, already distant, already fading. Ard filed it and ran.
The village rushed at him in pieces — low wooden buildings, uneven fencing, tools and crates left along the paths at angles that became obstacles at speed. The light had gone wrong, the late evening stretching shadows long and distorted across the ground, making every gap look narrower than it was. He cut left, forcing himself into the space between two structures barely wide enough to pass through. His shoulder caught the wood — scraped, tore free — and he came out the other side into a wider path.
A bucket caught his foot. Water across the dirt. His boot slid forward on the slick and his balance broke, his body lurching sideways before he found it again, momentum barely held.
"There—!"
Too close. He vaulted a low fence, ribs screaming on the landing, staggered, kept moving. They were spreading out now — not chasing blind anymore, adjusting, cutting angles. Smarter than panic.
He veered right. Then doubled back sharply through a narrow side path, forcing them to guess. Behind a stack of grain sacks, he pressed himself low and killed his breathing for three seconds — long enough to hear their footsteps thunder past the wrong path.
"—Split off, check the rows—"
"Cut him off near the barn—"
He didn't wait. He was already moving again, low through a crop row, leaves scraping his arms and face, the ground dipping where the irrigation channels had softened the earth. His foot caught and he stumbled, knees almost hitting the dirt before he caught himself.
A farmer stepped into his path. Ard hit him at full speed — the man went backward with a shout, tools clattering — and Ard was already past him, already running, no thought left for anything except the next step and the one after.
A cart ahead. Unattended. He angled into it hard, shoulder driving into the side until it groaned and tipped, one wheel lifting before the whole thing crashed down and grain scattered thick across the path. It wouldn't stop them. It would slow them.
He cut right. Deep into the tighter cluster of buildings where the paths became corridors and visibility dropped. Better ground. Shadows he could use.
A hand shot out from the side — fingers catching his shirt, yanking hard. The pull nearly took him off his feet. He twisted into it, threw his weight the other way, felt fabric tear as he broke free. Another figure lunged from the front. He dropped his shoulder and drove through him, pain exploding through his ribs at the impact, the man stumbling aside as Ard slipped past.
Through. Keep moving.
He circled wide around the back of the barn, slower now, each step deliberate. His lungs burned. His vision had begun to flicker slightly at the edges in the way it did when his body had decided it had an opinion about what was being asked of it. He pressed himself against the rear wall and listened.
Silence. No footsteps. No voices.
He had lost them.
A shape shifted in the shadows beside him and he tensed — then recognised the outline.
Chubs. Breathing just as hard. A little mud on his sleeve. Alive.
Neither of them spoke for a moment. They stood against the wall and caught their breath and let the adrenaline begin its slow recession, and what replaced it was the familiar weight of everything that had just happened settling back into place.
Then Chubs looked at him.
"That's some aim," he said, still slightly winded. "Next time throw a sword. We might be able to skip the running portion."
He wheezed on the inhale that followed, which undercut the delivery somewhat.
Ard looked at him. Something in his chest loosened — not much, but enough. "Next time I pass my armoury I'll keep that in mind."
Chubs laughed, breathless and genuine, and it echoed quietly against the barn wall, and Ard found himself laughing too, the kind that came out of nowhere and didn't care what it interrupted.
It had always been like that.
He remembered when they were smaller — the barn looking enormous the way everything looks enormous when you have nothing to compare it against. Two boys with no names worth keeping, sitting against the outer wall while the shout came from somewhere across the yard.
Drunkard's kid.
Ard hadn't reacted. He hadn't needed to. He already knew.
Beside him the other boy had frowned, chewing the word over. "That's a shit name."
"It's not my name."
"They say it like it is."
Silence stretched between them. Then Ard had said, quietly, more to himself than anything: "Then I'll take it. Just the end of it. Ard."
The other boy had stared at him. "That's still just the end of a bad thing."
"Better than nothing."
A long pause. Then: "I want one too."
"You've got one."
"Not really." He had puffed his cheeks out, thinking far harder than the situation required. "Chubs."
Ard had looked at him flatly. "That's worse."
"It is not."
"You named yourself after being—"
"Don't."
"—chubby."
"I said don't!"
They had stared at each other.
Then laughed. Not loud, not long. Just real. Two kids in the dirt with nothing to their names except the names they had just decided to keep.
It had felt, for the first time, like something belonged to them.
The memory settled back down the way memories did.
Chubs gave him a look in the dark — that familiar expression, fond and slightly exasperated — and pushed off the wall. "Get some rest," he said. "You look terrible."
"I know."
"Worse than this morning."
"Also know."
Chubs shook his head and headed off around the barn toward the main residence, his shape disappearing into the dim. Ard watched him go.
Then he turned and pushed through the barn door.
The smell arrived immediately — horse and hay and the particular staleness of air that hadn't moved in years. He crossed the floor without lighting anything, found the stall by memory, and lowered himself into the hay with the careful, managed movement of someone inventorying their damage as they went. Ribs: bad. Shoulder: worse than this morning. Face: ongoing.
He lay back and stared at the rafters.
The adrenaline was almost fully gone now, leaving behind only the ache and the quiet and the ceiling he had looked at more times than he could count. Somewhere beyond it, the mountain sat in the dark the way it always sat — patient, unchanged, not quite a place.
He thought about the voice.
Open your eyes.
He thought about the ceremony. About what came after. About everything that was supposed to change in a month and whether it actually would, and what it meant if it didn't.
His eyes grew heavy.
Tomorrow would be the same. The farm bell. The irrigation lines. The same paths. The same distance between here and anywhere else.
Unless it wasn't.
He closed his eyes.
This time — he checked first.