Some ember burns inside. Cato clutched his side on the slope leading up the forested path. Oceans of rock loomed over by sylvan sentries. The boys lie ahead, looking back at the knight. They are steeled. Dirt coats their faces and tunics. They are panting and holding themselves up on shaking hilts. The sky is darkening but cheeks and eyeballs pierce the shadows. Something is coming. His neck atrophied. He looks back but his eyes close like a man woke from a deep sleep by a shut door. Cato thought of the fox’s face before the hounds got to it so many years ago when his father brought him to the country. Cato reasoned then, this was not a foe to which he could contest. The path grew darker and like sweeping volcanic waves shadows made embrace of the stranded company. It was then seen.