Bill's words, "Move. Away," stayed in the air like an order that didn't require agreement. Our boots struck loam in broken rhythm , heavy where it should have been light, loud where silence would have been optimal. Noise was not a liability.
The temperature shifted faster than my body recalibrated. Adrenaline expenditure during the fight had raised core heat. Now it drained. Ash coated the air, micro particles lodging in throat and lungs. I inhaled regardless. Oxygen was not optional. Function outweighed comfort.
Julian trailed behind me, his earlier smile dismantled into a twitch, residual amusement, or the body's inability to discard habits even when irrelevant. Bill walked in front, shoulders angled forward, cutting through brush. His knife absorbed impacts first: branches clawed him, then snapped back at us. He accepted abrasion so we could pass. Efficient. Predictable.
No one spoke. Words had already been burned into uselessness during the fight. They had no replacement value. Breath and motion sufficed. Communication could wait until variables stabilized.
Our pace degraded quickly. Adrenaline depletion revealed the body's backlog of damage. Bill's side bled consistently, his shirt saturated, adhesive against his ribs. Blood loss: quantifiable reduction of strength. Julian's jaw leaked from a fractured abrasion, superficial but distracting. My own shoulder carried semicircular wounds: teeth. The skin was torn, fibers ripped. Pain was not subjective. It was arithmetic: distance until collapse, minutes until infection.
Julian slowed first. Observable: boots dragging, knees bending. Predictable collapse trajectory.
"You'll fall," I told him. Statement, not warning.
He leaned against me without requesting consent. Weight shifted to my structure. Redistribution of load. My knees faltered but adapted. The equation recalculated: endurance decreased, unit cohesion preserved.
"Fine," I said. "Sleep."
His exhale brushed my ear, humid. "Wake me if I die." Then his body shut down. His system sought repair. For now, only autonomic functions held.
Bill did not turn. Did not confirm. He advanced. Knife swinging at his side, steady rhythm, neither defensive nor careless. His leadership consisted of uninterrupted motion. We followed.
Terrain altered. Roots extended like traps across the soil. Julian's weight reduced maneuverability. Balance maintenance required constant negotiation with the ground. The option to abandon him reemerged. Abandonment would have restored efficiency. But loss of manpower in this environment increased external vulnerability. Calculation: retention outweighed discard. For now.
Then anomaly. A patch of vegetation. Glossy, heart-shaped leaves with distinct venation. Recognition without conscious recall. Instinct. Knowledge coded beneath awareness. Not memory, but certainty.
I crouched. Julian's weight slid, almost dropping him. I stabilized and plucked a leaf.
Bill's voice cut from ahead. "What?"
"Bleeding," I said.
He allowed application. His wound was visible: torn open, edges ragged, fluid dark and constant. I pressed the leaf down. Biological response: jaw tensed, eyes fixed. He did not flinch. His willpower exceeded reflex. He bound it with cloth. Containment achieved.
Julian's voice, blurred with sleep, brushed my hair: "Poison?"
"Sleep," I commanded. He complied.
I observed Bill again. Knife resting across his hand. A question surfaced, weighted enough to release.
"Where did you get it?"
"Found it."
"Found?" Julian's voice, drowsy but amused. "Like someone leaves knives lying around?"
Bill's face didn't change. "Found it in the forest. Knife's a knife."
I studied the knife. It was clean despite the fight, sharp in a way that spoke of care, not accident. Whoever had owned it before hadn't simply dropped it.
Bill did not clarify. Silence returned. Suspicion remained unspent.
We moved. Julian's weight pressed against my back, compressing breath, spine negotiating every step. His respiration hit my neck, irregular. Still present. Bill's pace steady, knife catching moonlight intermittently.
Air grew thick with rot and moss. Forest humidity increased. Sensory input narrowed: damp earth, decay, fungal tang. Shadows multiplied, deepened. The fight receded behind us but remained in nerve memory.
Bill stopped. Hollow between root systems, large enough for three. Concealment sufficient.
"Here," he said.
I lowered Julian to the ground. He curled reflexively, childlike posture, muttering fragments of dream. His jaw wound glared red beneath moonlight.
Bill leaned against roots, knife across his thigh. Guard posture. I sat opposite. Shoulder pulsed with consistent pain; heartbeat amplified through torn flesh.
Silence stretched. Quantitatively measurable: intolerable.
"Three days," I said. "Two paths. Return to horses. Or exit forest. Test instructions incomplete. Without definition, no success exists."
Julian muttered nonsense, shifting in dreams. Bill's gaze remained fixed on dark. No answer.
Only breathing. Only survival. Only the undefined test.