And if he hadn’t killed us yet (and used our heads to show them to Alexander and Rex), I told myself there had to be a reason for that, too. Suddenly, the idea of following him to the sawmill didn’t seem so bad, and I felt just a little bit in control of the situation.
“… What’s going to happen to my friend?” I said after a moment.
“Oh, we’ll take her too. We can’t leave her here, right? She’d freeze.”
The narrowed eyes of the black beast frightened me a little more, but Andre’s bravery strengthened me. He was barely seven years old and already a young warrior, and I, at twenty-six, couldn’t I aspire to be even half as strong as him? I didn’t lower the knife, but I relaxed my “threatening stance” a little, which wasn’t remotely that threatening.
I nodded toward the north and said:
“Al
