A fire, a fight and a message sent.

The little panther cub slept beneath the shelter of tangled roots while I moved farther into the forest, searching for the things I needed to keep it alive. I had been following the faint trail of a berry-laden shrub when something entirely wrong touched the air.

The smoke was the first thing I noticed. It rose above the trees in great, dark billows, too thick and too steady to be from some careless cooking fire. I stood still, one hand resting against the trunk of an ancient tree, and watched the smoke curl into the sky. Something was burning in our forest.

I moved toward it carefully, keeping to the trees, my steps nearly soundless beneath the ferns and fallen leaves. The closer I came, the stronger the smell became—smoke, burning wood, and something else beneath it. Blood. Then I saw it. There was a fort in our forest, and it was burning.

The sight stopped me for only a heartbeat. Rough walls had been thrown together from trees that had no business being cut, some of them trees I knew, trees that had stood here long before these outsiders decided the forest belonged to them. The fort itself was crude but large, and all around it men were fighting. At first I could not understand what I was seeing, but then the pieces fell into place. Rival Panther Girls moved among the trees, their painted bodies flashing between the shadows, fighting alongside mercenaries. They had built the fort, but they were not fighting alone. Another force was upon them—warriors and scouts from a city called Vendara, men I had never seen before, along with one man whose clothing and bearing marked him as something more than a warrior.

A holy man.

And it was the men of Vendara who had set the fort ablaze. They had come into our forest to fight the very people who had violated it, but that did not make them our allies. They had still entered Panther territory, and they had still spilled blood beneath our trees. Now flames crawled along the walls while burning embers began to fall into the forest.

I saw the holy man only briefly before the battle swallowed him from my sight. One of the rival Panther Girls had loosed an arrow at him, and though the shot was not well placed, it struck him hard enough to send him crashing to the ground. His own men saw him fall, and from the way they reacted, they believed him dead. They were wrong.

I turned and ran, taking to the trees and heading toward a place I had once called home. I found Etna and the others not far from the edge of the clearing, and I did not waste breath explaining everything before pointing toward the smoke.

“There is a fort in our forest,” I said, still panting. “They have cut down our trees to build it. Rival Panther Girls and mercenaries are inside, and men from Vendara are fighting them. The fort is burning.”

Etna’s eyes narrowed.

“How many?”

“Too many for two of us.”

A slow smile touched her mouth.

“Good thing there are more than two of us.”

The band moved as one. We came through the trees like the forest itself had grown claws, our Panthers spreading along the edges of the clearing and cutting off escape before the men inside even realized there was another enemy among them. Mercenaries shouted and turned toward us, their weapons coming up too late. The rival Panther Girls recognized us almost immediately, and the looks upon their faces told me they knew exactly what they had done. They had built their home upon ours, and they had cut down our trees. There would be no talking about it.

I entered the fight without hesitation. A mercenary rushed me with his sword raised, and I stepped inside the arc of his swing before he could bring it down. My blade found him beneath the ribs, and I twisted free as he dropped. Another came from my left, and I turned with him, using his own momentum against him before sending him hard into the ground. He did not rise. A rival Panther Girl came at me next, fast and certain of herself, fighting as though the clearing belonged to her. It did not. I knew every root beneath my feet, every dip in the ground, every tree that could hide a body, while she knew none of them. I ducked beneath her strike, caught her arm, and drove my blade home before she could recover.

Around me, the forest had become a storm of bodies, steel, screams, and blood. Our band struck from every direction, Panthers who had grown up beneath these trees moving through them with the certainty of wolves hunting familiar ground. Mercenaries who had expected to fight only the Vendarian warriors found themselves surrounded, while rival Panther Girls who had thought themselves protected behind wooden walls discovered that walls meant little when the enemy knew every path leading around them. I fought through the chaos, never stopping long enough to become a target. A man tried to catch me from behind, but he never touched me. I heard his footfall, turned, and buried my blade in him before his weapon could rise. Another swung at my head, and I dropped beneath it, coming up behind him and cutting him down. Blood splashed across my skins, but none of it was mine.

I saw Etna across the clearing, fighting with two of the rival Panthers at once. She drove one backward, then turned and finished the other, while around her our sisters pressed forward, their cries rising over the crackling flames. The Vendara men fought differently, disciplined and moving in groups rather than as individuals. They had come prepared for battle, and their purpose was clear: destroy the mercenaries and rival Panther Girls and burn the fort so that none could remain. For a moment, I almost respected the purpose. Almost. Then another burning beam collapsed, scattering sparks into the trees, and whatever thoughts I might have had about their intentions disappeared. The fire was threatening our forest, and that was enough.

We hunted the remaining mercenaries through the fort and the trees beyond it. Those who tried to flee found Panthers waiting for them, while those who fought died where they stood. The rival Panther Girls were driven from the fort one by one, and when they turned upon us, they learned what happens when you trespass upon another Panther’s forest. By the time the sun had begun its slow descent, the fighting had nearly stopped. Bodies lay among the roots and beneath the ruined walls, and the fire had consumed much of the fort. Our sisters had already begun beating back the flames wherever they threatened the living trees. The smoke still rolled above us, but the forest itself would survive.

I looked toward the place where I had seen the holy man fall. He was still there, barely. Etna followed my gaze, walked over, and crouched beside him, studying the clothing that marked him.

“A holy man,” she said quietly.

I looked at her.

“You are going to kill him?”

Etna gave me a look as though I had asked whether she intended to invite him to dinner.

“No.”

She glanced toward the remaining Vendara warriors.

“They believe he is dead. Let them continue believing it.”

One of the Vendara men was brought before her. He stared at the fallen initiate, then at Etna, uncertain whether to attack or plead. Etna pointed toward the wounded man.

“You will take him.”

The warrior swallowed.

“You will carry him back to Vendara,” Etna continued. “You will tell them exactly where you found him, and you will tell them exactly what happened here.”

She stepped closer.

“Then you will give them our message.”

The warrior waited.

“Never enter our forest again.”

He nodded. The wounded initiate was lifted carefully, and the warrior carried him toward the trees. I watched until both disappeared from sight, knowing that the man who had been thought dead would carry our warning back to his city, if he lived long enough to deliver it.

Then Etna turned back toward the remaining Vendara men. There would be no mercy for them, but neither would there be unnecessary killing. They had fought our enemies, yes, but they had entered our forest and helped bring fire into it. They had spilled blood here, and they would pay for crossing the boundary.

“Bind them,” Etna ordered.

The men looked toward their weapons, but our Panthers already had them surrounded. One by one, they were disarmed and forced to their knees. Etna studied them for a moment before looking toward the sisters nearest her.

“Shave them.”

The Vendara men looked suddenly alarmed, and Etna’s mouth curved.

“Leave the sides. Take the hair from the center of their heads.”

I almost laughed, though the sisters did not. They simply went to work. Soon the warriors who had entered our forest as proud men of Vendara wore the unmistakable reverse mohawk of a Panther Girl’s prisoner. Their weapons were gone, their dignity considerably diminished, and their fate no longer belonged to them. Etna looked over them with a satisfaction that told me she had already decided exactly what would happen next.

“They came into our forest as warriors,” she said. “They will leave it as goods.”

“Where?” I asked.

“The trading post checkpoint.”

“To be traded?”

“Of course.”

I looked at the prisoners, considering them for a moment.

“Would you rather we kill them?”

I shook my head.

“Neither would I.”

And that was the end of it. The prisoners would be taken to the trading post checkpoint and traded away, while the others returned to the ruined fort to finish dealing with the flames and whatever could be salvaged. I stood for a moment among the trees, breathing in the smoke and blood, feeling the weight of the day settle over me. It had been a long time since I had fought beside Etna’s band, and yet my body had remembered what to do as though I had never left.

Then I remembered.

The little cub was still alone beneath those tangled roots, waiting for me to return. The thought brought a smile to my face, so completely at odds with the carnage surrounding me that I almost found it amusing. I had gone into the forest looking for food and instead found a battle, helped destroy a fort, watched Vendara’s holy man spared because Etna considered his death too dangerous to invite, and watched the surviving warriors become prisoners destined for the trading post. Somehow, through all of it, I had not taken a single wound.

I slipped my knife back into its sheath and turned toward the trees.

“Time to go home.”

For once, Etna did not correct me. She simply smiled and I turned toward the trees, toward the little creature that had somehow become mine, while behind me the last flames consumed the fort that never should have stood in our forest to begin with.