will silence you,” the man said, and for once Legon hoped that Moleth would use some sense and keep her mouth shut. This desire was not for his well-being, but hers. Sadly, she didn’t have the sense.
“Now you wait just one moment-I helped you b…” she started.
“Shut her up!” barked the commander. Legon watched in horror as the man closest to Moleth moved behind her and in one fluid movement unsheathed his dagger and brought it to her throat. Moleth became quiet in an instant and a very real fear crossed her face.
“This is what happens if you don’t cooperate with us,” said the commander. As if on cue, the man holding Moleth pressed the dagger hard and dragged the blade across her throat, slicing the arteries in her neck.
A gurgled scream of pain and terror rose from Moleth. Blood sprayed out of the wound, covering her front as she began to pass out from the loss of blood. Her face washed white as blood left her body, and she gave a slight twitch. The man let go of Moleth and she swayed for what seemed like an eternity before falling to the dirt.
Rage filled Legon. These men had slaughtered an innocent woman to make a point. This was an injustice for which he would not stand. He moved to his left toward the troll man. Kovos followed his lead and they both engaged their respective targets. His elbow came up to the man’s temple before he got a chance to react, and Legon felt the satisfying feeling that comes with knowing that your opponent has just been knocked unconscious. Kovos went with a different tactic, kneeing the commander hard in the stomach, dropping him to the ground and then kicking him hard across the face. The last man, who up to this point had been wearing a wicked grin, came at them, but Legon and Kovos didn’t get their shot at this one. To everyone’s surprise, Keither screamed a horrible, insane man’s scream. The three men turned to look at the boy, who no longer looked like a boy at all. There was rage and hatred in his eyes, pure and clear. Keither lunged for the man. He was no match for a member of the royal guard, but the soldier was taken by surprise, and Keither had a lot of weight behind him. The boy slammed into the man, sending them both to the ground, Keither on top punching every inch he could find. Each blow did almost no damage and the soldier was getting his bearings again. As the scene progressed, a clear thought came to Legon: “Kovos said there were five men, not three.”
“We need to get out of here now!” yelled Legon, and together he and Kovos lifted Keither from the soldier. The man stumbled up, and seeing his two comrades down backed away and drew his sword. The man began to call out for help and the other two soldiers were getting to their feet. Legon, Kovos, and Keither all turned and sprinted toward the edge of town. As they ran they could hear shouts from behind and the distant sound of hooves hitting the ground. They turned up a side street, running into people as they went. Keither tripped on a woman’s skirt and fell, cutting his knee. The edge of town was right ahead, and just past that were the thick woods that surrounded Salmont.
Legon looked back as they passed the buildings that marked the end of the town. Panic took a firm hold of him as he saw five men on horses, three with swords drawn and two with bows. The two with the bows were pulling back their strings to fire.
“Arrows!” yelled Legon as he started to weave.
Kovos did likewise and the two of them pushed Keither back and forth, almost like they were trying to knock him down, but every time it looked like the boy would fall, Kovos or Legon corrected his balance. As they entered the woods, Legon heard the hiss of two arrows fly past and saw them embed themselves deep in a tree. The soldiers were firing combat bows, so the arrows would be moving incredibly fast and could kill from a long range. They needed to get higher into the cover of the trees. More arrows flew by accompanied by the sound of five horses crashing through underbrush. Legon felt one of the arrows scratch his neck as it passed.
They ran, weaving through the trees, jumping over roots and logs-anything that might slow down or trip up the horses. There was yelling coming from the queen’s men, but Legon couldn’t tell what they were saying. All he heard was his own panting and the strained breathing of the other two. His legs were on fire and his body stung from hitting branch after branch. He could see Kovos’ white shirt getting speckled with blood from the many scratches.
Next to him, Keither slipped and Legon caught his arm. He felt the weight on him for only a moment before the boy continued on. He was worried. He knew that Keither had to have some strength, if for no other reason than he was fat, but he knew the boy couldn’t have too much in the way of endurance, and he had hit his knee pretty hard when he fell.
The sound of the hooves stopped. The forest in this part was too dense to ride in, so the men would be forced to go on foot. This was to Legon’s advantage-this was his forest.
“Whoa, hold up guys, there’s no point running. We’ll just be easy to track. You can’t hear in these woods and it’s too dark in here to see very well. They will have to go slow, and if we are quiet and hide our tracks they won’t find us,” Legon said in a soft voice, placing his hand on Kovos’ shoulder. All three of them were breathing hard and all were doing their best to calm down.
“You lead the way. I don’t have a clue what to do up here,” Kovos said. Keither nodded in agreement. Legon was impressed with the boy. He always thought that Keither would fall apart in a bad situation, and maybe he would, but up to this point he had more than exceeded Legon’s expectations.
He took a look around to see what kind of cover they had. It wasn’t too bad. There was lots of growth along the bottom of the trees and a thick wooly moss that they could pull over themselves. He went to work, first hiding Keither. He instructed him to rub dirt and mud on any exposed skin and then placed him at the base of a bush and covered him in debris from the ground. When Legon was done, Keither was just barely visible, and if he stayed still the soldiers might not find him. He did the same with Kovos and then hid himself in the wooly moss at the base of a tree. His was the most exposed area, but if he didn’t move a muscle he would be fine. The sound of boots tromping on twigs gave his trembling body the willpower it needed to go still.
The dirt on Kovos’ face made it sting, and for the first time he realized that his whole body was covered in little cuts and scrapes from the trees. Thoughts rushed through his mind as he tried to stay still and keep his body from shaking. This was unbelievable. He had seen a woman get killed. Her body had hit the ground right in front of him; he had stepped over her to get away-stepped over the body of a person he knew. As the scene played over and over again in his head he fought back the urge to vomit. He tasted bile in his mouth and swallowed hard. He would not be found covered in his own vomit, dead in the woods.
Whenever he had thought about someone getting killed it always seemed so different in his mind. He had never envisioned all the blood. Sure, there was some, but not like in real life. In real life there was a lot, more then he knew the body could hold. A chill ran down his back as he remembered Moleth’s last attempt at a scream and the look on her face. He tasted the bile again and tried to stare forward. There was sound coming from up ahead.
This was bad-real bad. Sasha felt her stress levels rising out of control, and a bead of sweet rolled down her back. Her palms were covered in sweat, too, and her heart was someplace around her chin. A few hours ago, townspeople had started coming to the shop telling Edis that Legon, Kovos, and Keither had assaulted three members of the royal guard after they witnessed the men kill Moleth. They also said that the men were looking for Legon. It was just too much. She couldn’t stand Moleth-the woman had been calling for her to be run out of town for as long as she could remember-but that didn’t mean that she wanted her dead. She was killed just to make a point, just because they could. After the fight, Legon and the other two had run into the woods to hide, and for all she knew it had worked, because nobody had seen anyone come out.
Sasha knew that Legon was good in the forest and he could probably evade them on his own, but with Kovos, and especially with Keither, she wasn’t sure. She still wasn’t sure she believed that Keither had tackled one of the soldiers. She felt so bad for him. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like watching someone get killed. She felt for Legon and Kovos too, but they had always been so tough and used to violence on a small level. But Keither…He didn’t leave the house, much less see fights or even watch an animal get killed. This must have been one of the boy’s first tastes of the cruel world where they lived.
She needed to clear her head. She didn’t have time for this right now. She needed to concentrate. Legon would be coming out of the mountains at some point, and when he did they needed to leave and leave fast. She had already packed two backpacks with clothes and other essentials. Her father had collected Legon’s knives and cleavers and her mother had put together a package of medicine and food.
There was one road in and out of the valley. At the edge of the valley it split three ways. All they had to do was make it to the crossroads and then the queen’s men would be hard-pressed to follow. From there she didn’t
