Eels in Eel Broth
- Running through the swamp to escape, Briony has a flashback of herself preparing eel soup for her stepmother. If you like gross stuff, this is the chapter for you—if not, hold your nose.
- Briony's thoughts of eels and murdering her stepmother are interrupted when Mucky Face tells her that Eldric is chasing after her in the swamp and the Dead Hand is after him.
- Briony hears him calling for her, so she calls back to him while following his voice.
- She finds him in the clutch of the Dead Hand and attacks it to get it off of him.
- There are lots of descriptions of flesh and blood and oozing and cracks and other unpleasant things, and all the while Briony is trying to save Eldric's hand. She realizes, however, that she cannot save his hand and chooses instead to save him. Using the fabric from her dress, Briony wraps his mangled arm and helps him up.
- Eldric is now terribly weak, and his weight makes it hard for Briony to walk quickly. Slowly, Briony walks with him toward town to find Dr. Rannigan.
- When Eldric asks her to talk to him, she doesn't know what exactly to talk about, so she decides to tell him everything. Finally, after literally spilling blood for her, Eldric gets to know all the secrets he's been asking her about for months.
- Realizing Briony is headed toward her possible death, Eldric tells her to run, but she doesn't abandon him. Instead she continues walking with him while having a flashback of her Stepmother's death.
- When she finally snaps out of the flashback, Eldric passes out.
- Briony uses strips of fabric and a coat to make a way to drag Eldric's body through the swamp. All the while she is thinking of Eldric, how to survive, and the way her stepmother died.
- Finally she hears the sounds of bloodhounds and knows that she and Eldric will be found; she sits down with Eldric's head in her lap and waits.
- Her father is the first to find her.