Mila was extremely glad she had been diligent on her breath exercises.

  As she and Alexis ran into the canyon, with the college girl trailing behind due to her uneven breath and the inconsistent physical prowress that came with it, Mila drew all the willpower on her body and soul, focusing it on keeping her breath steady despite her near-panic.

  God, how had Kurt managed?

  She could have run even faster than she did now, without straining her lungs any further, but that would have entailed leaving Alexis behind to deal with the thrall on her own. So Mila ran just fast enough to lead their way, and not any more.

  The worst part was just how utterly silent the thing was as it chased them. Not a growl, or a bark, or even a ragged breath. No, the only sound it made was that of the dirt and gravel being kicked back by its paws, and even that got mostly swallowed by the sound of their own footfalls.

  Perhaps it isn't even chasing us, theorized a panicky region of her brain, Maybe it returned its attention to Conrad as soon as we turned back, and we are running away from nothing.

  The thought intruded on her head like a dagger, and Mila had to do a very real effort of will to keep herself from turning back. She wanted the thing to be nowhere near them, but she knew that wasn't the case, and that looking back now would cost her precious speed.

  They blasted pass the canyon half a minute, entering the town proper. Despite the direness of her situation, Mila took a second to marvel at their speed. The canyon had been about 200-yards long, and they had cleared it just like that, despite the rough terrain. That had to be a feat even an olympian would struggle with.

  Sadly, if the two of them were olympians, then the thrall was Usain Bolt, because with every passing second, it did nothing but close the distance between them, foot by foot, yard by yard. They were slower than it, and it would catch them soon.

  If they just kept running, that is.

  Mila's eyes, guided by her magical senses, darted to a random dilapidated building. Growing just besides that building was a yellowing bush as tall as Mila's belly, and wide enough for her to lay on it. It was perfect.

  "Bush!" she screamed, pointing at the plant and lurching toward it. Through the very corner of her vision, she saw Alexis follow her. "On three, we jump on it!"

  Alexis let out a confused shriek, and called, "What?!"

  "Trust me!" Mila reasured her. They were getting close to the bush, close enough that Mila could make out its individual leaves. She drew her will into it, connecting with the meager amount of spirits inhabiting its frame. "Okay. One. Two. Three, jump!"

  And jump they did, reaching four feet of height at the tallest point of their arc, and landing atop the leafy surface which, instead of giving in before their weight, kept its form intact. The thorny branches below though, did give in to the weight, retracting onto themselves like a spring until they could sink no more. Then, just like a spring, they snapped back, explosively returning the bush's frame to its proper shape and sending Mila and Alexis onto the air, taller than any building on the town sans the manor, so that they fell on the building's roof with a mutual 'ohmpf!'.

  "Augh..." Alexis lamented, reaching for Mila with her free hand. "Mila, are you okay?"

  "Yeah," the younger girl answered, centering her attention on the bush they had used as a trampoline. Whe she felt the building's frame rattle, one of its walls partially tackled through by an undead direwolf, she clenched her fist, and felt the plant imitate the motion. "Got it!"

  "What?" mumbled Alexis.

  "No time to explain!" Mila said, crwaling to the roof's edge. "Come here!"

  And Alexis complied, crawling behind the fae and peeking at the ground below them. What received her was the sight of a direwolf the size of a pony being tangled and lifted off its paws by thorny branches and dry, yellow leaves. The thing flapped around chaotically, its flayed head seemingly trying to snap both up and behind at the same time.

  Its legs were kicking just as violently, but without much success. The bulk of the branches that ensared the thing had it bi its midsection, looping around it like a lasso, out of reach for both pairs of paws, with the things body being held so high up that it couldn't kick of the ground either.

  The thing was stronger than anything they could throw its way. Mila had known that, so she had simply made it so it couldn't leverage that strength at all.

  "Okay," Mila whispered, holding out her arms toward the struggling beast below, so that she could better focus her power into the weak piece of vegetation. As she did this, she kept her breath steady, and her life force amplified and strengthened, giving herself an even better foundation to exert her influence. Had she had some properly fertile ground and some lush vegetation to work with, this would have been more than enough to torn the thing to pieces.

  As things were, it would be just enough to stall it.

  "Should I try and hit it?" Alexis offered, raising her enchanted shovel.

  Mila shook her head softly, still looking at the thrall. "Best not to do anything. We have a pretty standstill going on, but if you do that, we most likely will lose it. It could catch your weapon with its teeth and pull you down, or the rattling might collapse the roof, or something like that. We have it immobilized, and given how strong the thing is, that's a victory. It's best that we wait." Mila took a second to smile at Alexis. "Don't worry, I can keep this up for as long as it's needed."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "Okay," the college girl answered, nodding firmly. "I'm sure that soomeone will come rescue us soon enough."

  Mila tensed at Alexis's words, but she managed to nod and hum affirmatively. Deep within her chest, something grew colder and number.

  Someone will come rescue us, uh?, Mila thought bitterly, Even after getting this strong, am I really still gonna have to be saved?

  That thought shook her, made the world around her turn drab and dull. So lost was she in thought that she didn't notice the shewolf thrashing beneath. Or how its thrashing made part of her necrotically-corrupted flesh plop out its eye socket and onto the earth below it, or the black-green power contained in it flow towards the bush's base.

  The branches began collapsing beneath the wolf's weight, and though Mila regained her focus before its legs could touch the ground, those few lost inches proved vital. When the undead beast kicked again with its fore legs, the snare had sagged enough to one side that its paws could catch an edge of the hole it had blasted on the wall. With that meager footing, the thing kicked back with enough force to send its body crashing on the opposite direction, tearing apart most of the bush's branches and carving a trench along the wall with its frame.

  The roof beneath their knees began trembling, and cracks appeared randomly on the wall. Mila and Alexis looked at one another and, without a word, the both of them spun around and began crawling to the opposite edge of the rooftop, controlling their breath all the while.

  They weren't fast enough, and the roof collapsed beneath them, sending them tumbling into the dilapidated interior of what had once, apparently, been a bar or saloon or whatever, They hit the the dusty floorboards with yet another 'ohmpf!', raising a cloud around their sprawled out bodies.

  And then they heard those same floorboards creaking under a weight well beyond theirs.

  Through the wall of dust, and with the sun on the thing's back, they could only make its rough outline as it approached them. That and the faint green flames that darted around its flayed skull.

  "Oh God," someone whispered in terror, and Mila realized it was her. This was her fault. Because she couldn't just keep her wits about her, because she had to lament that she would need to be rescued again, this was happening.

  Why couldn't she just do something right for once?

  She looked at Alexis, an innocent that had been caught in the middle of all this, an innocent under her protection. And then she decided to at least fulfill that role without screwing up. She pulled herself up. Intent on drawing the thing away, Mila began walking to her right, drawing the thrall's attention away from Alexis...

  And that was as far as her plan got, because Alexis soon made a move of her own.

  That move? A screaming charge at the thing with her shovel.

  The thrall, who had lost bothits sight and hearing, reacted far too late, taking a shovel's magically sharpened edge to its back, deep enough to make the spine snap like a twig. Sadly, the undead no longer required nerves to move their bodies, and so the wolf-thing didn't fall. Instead, it swung its head at the girl, hitting the side of her chest and sending her flying, shovel somehow still in hand.

  Her body went over the bar, and hit the empty liquor case behind it, collapsing it into a pile of timber.

  And then the thing's head snapped back at Mila.

  "Alexis..." she whispered, looking at the stoved in section of wall that had once been covered by the liquor case. Then she looked at the thrall, and felt fear, and the despair that comes when you just dodn't know what you could possibly even do anymore.

  And then she felt something else, through her magic sense. A small, familiar presence, composed of compacted spirits within a wooden casing shaped like a squirrel.

  Christopher Robin had seemingly followed them here, reaching them just now.

  The thrall noticed, too, turning its head at the small dryad, whose frame was battered all around and missing one of its fore legs and its tail. And yet it drew the thrall's attention away from Mila, giving her a window to do... what? Run away? The thing would catch her. Try and attack it? She had no way of hurting it. If Alexis, who was heavier than Mila and had an enchanted weapon, couldn't cut past the thing's bone, then what hope did she have?

  She wished she had put more time on her breath control training. Maybe, if she had, she would have reached the second stage, and developed the ability to bost herself even further via flaring her od. But the thing was that she hadn't. Her controlover her own life force was still sloppy, nothing compared to...

  It was as though a lightbulb lit up in Mila's skull. The revelation came fast and suddenly, perfectly formed.

  If the thing that keeps me from flaring my Od is an insufficient control over it, she thought, then what about i use something I can control?

  Immediately, hurriedly, she directed her will into Christopher Robin's frame, around the gestalt of spirits that powered its motions. Then, using the greatest delicacy she could, she purposely destabilize it, pinching portions of it away as Kurt's words rang on her ears.

  When flaring one's life force, you must be careful about the ratios. There's to be a balance between the Od you are cycling and the Od you are actively burning away. The absolute safe limit is a 50:50 ratio. You tilt too much toward flaring, then you will be putting your body under a pressure greater than its level of reinforcement. Go into flaring with all you've got, leaving nothing to cycle, and your Od turns physical from the very root. Packs one hell of a whallop but... well, you do remember the state my arms were at after the fight with Ruth, right? That's the price to pay.

  But she wouldn't pay the price if it wasn't her own body she used, and so she torn the core apart completely, heedless of any restraint. Christopher Robin's hide cracked and exploded with weird od-flares, which were thick and rounded like liquid, and a dark green nowhere near the clean white of Kurt's own.

  Controlling her breath and reinforcing her own life force, Mila gave Christopher Robinson its last command, just as the thrall turned yet again, toward her this time.

  It took at step at her. And the Christopher Robin moved, pouncing at the thing's exposed side with the force of a cannonball. The section of floor where it had been standing shattered, and when the dryad crashed against the thrall's belly, it blasted past it, punching two holes the side of Mila's head on the wolf's frame, straight through the core.

  Guts and blood and gore,all black and tinged with green glows, poured freely from the wounds, taking away most of the thrall's force with them. Most, but not all. The thing began weakly and tremblingly making its way towards Mila.

  Far from being scared, Mila felt pity for the creature before her, seing it for what it had once been: an innocent animal caught up in a mess it had nothing to do with, and trapped in a prison of its own dead flesh.

  The thrall gave one last trembling step, causing something fist-sized to fall from its side. This proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, because the creature collapsed instantly. Finally, the green glow from within its chest sputtered out completely, and its soul finally passed on.

  Mila spared the corpse a long look; then she looked to the floor at her left, where inert wooden pieces of what had been Christopher Robin's body lay. She could already feel the spirits that had animated it slipping away, merging with the local flora.

  "Alexis?" she finally called, walking towards the bar. "Are you ok-?"

  "KYAH!"

  "Ahh!"

  Alexis had sprung back to her feet, wielding her shovel like it was an axe, and screaming bloody murder. Mila, shocked, gave a scream of her own, staggering back until she fell flat on her butt, clutching her chest.

  "Jeez!" Mila exclaimed, looking up at a suddenly worried-looking Alexis. "A normal 'yes' would have sufficed!"

  "Oh," murmured Alexis, taking in the situation for the first time. Her eyes went to the wolf carcass, then to Mila. "Oh, God." Tossing her shovel away, Alexis vaulted over the bar and rushed to embrace Mila, falling on her knees to do so. "Oh, thank God you're okay! I-I passed out for a bit, and we I woke up everything was so silent that I...I..." She choked a bit, then continued. "Thank God it's over."

  She woke up, lifting Mila with her before she let her go.

  "How did you..." Alexis asked before trailing off, looking at the wolf guts and blood covering the floor. "How did you pull this off, girl?"

  Mila told her, gesturing at the pieces of Christopher Robin as she did so.

  "Oh," Alexis gasped. Then, she walked up to where the pieces were, and picked up what had been the dryad's skull, offering it to Mila. "Well, it's not dead, right? Just...living somewhere else around here. You didn't harm it or anything, and you saved our lives. This is a square win in my book."

  "Yeah," Mila said softly, picking up the offered trinket and examining it slowly. Then, a chuckle rose up her throar and out her lips. Then another, this one leaving a wide smile behind. "Hell yeah, we did it! Who needs recuing?"

  "Not us, girl!" exclaimed Alexis, high-fiving the younger girl. Then pulling her in a hug and twirling her around, much to the small fae's delight.

  "Hey!" called a voice from outside.

  Alexis stopped her twirling, and both she and Mila turned to the hole in the bar's wall. Standing there were a stunned-looking Maxell and Conrad, who was wielding his sword in one hand while using his sacbbard as a crutch with the other, and they were both looking at the dead wolf, at them, and then the hole on the roof, back and fort a couple times.

  Finally, Conrad's eyes were fixed on them, and he asked, "The fuck happened here?"