started creeping after them, but they stopped halfway.
“See that, Jerek?” asked Thomas as he pointed. “Something ain’t right.”
They drew their swords and looked about as Haern realized what he pointed at: the footprints he’d left in the snow when chasing after the soldier and the boy.
Damn wilderness, thought Haern. Give me a city any day.
They followed the footprints, but they were no longer hurrying. His surprise advantage was nearly blown. He continued following, using the trees to hide in case they glanced back, but they were getting too close to where the soldier’s body lay.
“Found them!” said Jerek. “Shit, his throat’s cut.”
Haern gave up stealth, knowing he couldn’t muffle his running. The crunching of the snow turned them about, but he was too close, too fast. He gutted Thomas, ducked under a dying slash, and then turned to Jerek. Instead of the desperate lunge he expected, Jerek pulled back and held his sword with both hands in a defensive position. Haern felt respect for the man, as well as agitation. He didn’t need a drawn out duel against a worthy opponent. He needed the man killed before any others arrived.
“Ambush!” Jerek screamed. “It’s a fucking ambush!”
“One against five,” Haern said. “Some ambush.”
“There’s six of us, wretch.”
“You’ll be dead soon enough.”
He feinted, stepped to the left, and then lunged for real. Jerek bit on the feint, but not enough. He parried both blades aside, but he extended to do so. Haern closed the distance between them, slamming an elbow into the man’s chest while they both shoved their weapons together. Jerek tried to separate, but Haern shifted again, positioning his right foot in the way. When Jerek stepped back, he tripped, and that was all the opening Haern needed.
“Jerek? Thomas?” asked another soldier as he approached the bloody mess. Haern watched from his perch, doing his best to keep his breathing calm. Only three had come, not five, which meant one had stayed behind to protect the older man, presumably their leader. They were only a handful of paces from where the boy lay, but they stopped at the bodies of their comrades. Two held swords, while the third held a crossbow. They looked, and it took them only a second to realize Haern had climbed the tree, but that second was enough.
He fell upon them, leaving one bleeding from a gash in the neck and another holding a crossbow with a broken string. Haern kicked him in the chest to force him back, needing the space. The last swordsman hacked at him, but Haern spun his cloak, using it to appear further to the right than he was. The strike hit nothing but air and cloth. Haern continued his spin, slashing his arm, reversing the spin, and burying his sword into the henchman’s stomach, just below his armor.
Pain spiked up his arm. He struck on reflex, which ended up cutting the crossbowman across the mouth. The man dropped the dagger he’d drawn and clutched his jaw as blood ran across his hands. The man tried to say something, but it came out as an unintelligible sob. Haern glanced at his arm. The cut would scar, but assuming it didn’t get infected, he’d be fine. Frustrated at his mistake, he leapt at the lone survivor, who turned to flee. A kick took out his knee, and he fell. Haern’s swords pierced his lungs, and then he sobbed no more.
Cursing at the pain, Haern approached the road. He kept the blood on his blades, wanting the fear it would bring. When he stepped from between the trees, he saw both riders on the far side. The younger raised his crossbow and fired. It tore a hole in his cloak as he flung himself to the side. He spun around a tree and emerged, but the soldier had not even begun to reload.
“Who are you, stranger?” asked the older man. “What are you hoping for? Is it coin you want?”
“Too many questions,” Haern said, watching the other fighter. His hand kept inching toward his hip, but for what?
“Then answer me just one: is the boy alive?”
“I don’t know, or care. He was a distraction. If he lives, he’ll freeze by morning.”
Their leader seemed pleased by the answer. Haern made sure he didn’t blink, didn’t twitch, didn’t reveal the lie.
“Good,” said the older man. “Then what is it you want now? You cannot kill us, and you cannot make off with my gold. You’d need to tether the oxen and drive it many days to town. So please, accept my offer. Take your gold, as much as you can carry, and I will allow you to leave.”
“You’d buy your safety with what I could freely take?” Haern asked.
“Freely? Nothing is free, thief. Everything is bought with sweat and blood. Come spill it if you’d dare.”
Haern chuckled. Whoever the man was, he reminded him of his father. Not a good comparison.
“Leave,” he said. “I have no use…”
He rolled behind the tree as the throwing dagger pierced the bark, hurled with frightening precision from the soldier’s hip. From behind it, he laughed.
“Ride off or die!” he shouted to them. “Even if you have a hundred of those daggers to throw, it won’t matter. Flee or die!”
He listened and waited. The men muttered quietly, and when done, they rode north. Haern sighed and looked to his arm. Still bleeding, and its pain was now a deep ache. It’d have to wait. He trudged off for the boy, who looked horribly pale.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t bandage these sooner,” he said as he knelt before him. He pulled the boy’s hands away and looked at the stab. “You can thank Ashhur this wasn’t an inch deeper, or you’d be like the rest of them.”
He used more cloth from his cloak to tie a bandage around his waist, then turned his attention to the arm. So far the boy hadn’t spoken a word, only watched with a glazed look in his eyes. Fearing he might pass out any moment, Haern slapped him a couple times across the face.
“Stay with me,” he said. “I bled for you. Least you could do is survive.”
The earlier bandage he’d applied had soaked through, so he removed it, cut another strip, and retied it. Part of him thought he should just cut the whole arm off, but he’d let someone wiser in healing arts decide that. So long as it didn’t turn green and rot off, the boy had a chance of regaining its use.
“What’s your name?” he asked him as he tore the shirt off the dead soldier beside them. When the boy didn’t answer, Haern snapped his fingers in front of his eyes a few times. Still nothing. Sighing, he cut up the shirt and used it to form a sling.
“Come on, what’s your name? We’re friends now, the best of pals. You’re not cold, are you?”
After a few seconds, the boy shook his head. Good. At least he was somewhat alert. He tore free the cloak of another dead soldier, wrapped it around the boy, and then lifted him into his arms. His wounded arm shrieked in protest, so he shifted a bit of the weight onto his shoulder.
“Name,” he said. “I’d really love a name.”
But the boy slumped and passed out. Haern sighed again. He returned to the road and surveyed the carnage, laying the boy beside the fire while he searched. It didn’t make any sense. The men were well armed and equipped, and they bore the symbol of a lord. When he looked into the wagons, he saw the crates, and they bore the exact same symbol. The oxen’s harnesses had the same as well, a sickle raised before a mountain.
If he’d had time, he might have scattered the gold about, or hidden it. But he didn’t. Furious at his confusion and helplessness, he used his sword to draw an eye into the dirt beside the fire, where no snow lay. Beneath it he scrawled his mark, ‘The Watcher’. At least he might accomplish something out of all this. Let the thieves know that even outside Veldaren they were not safe from him.
“Well, boy,” he said, returning to the fire. “I’m sure it’s nice and warm, but we have to move. I can’t remember the last farm I passed, but it’s our only chance. Can you walk?”
No response. Haern bandaged his own arm, tore open one of the crates, and grabbed a handful of coins. They bore a symbol he easily recognized, that of the Gemcroft family.
“What do you have to do with the Serpents?” he wondered aloud. No matter. He pocketed them, hauled the boy into his arms, and started walking south.
There was another reason he needed space. The two who’d fled would certainly return, and he had a feeling it’d be with far more than eight men. Step after step, he cursed the snow, the wind, the cold, and his clumsy mistake that had cost him a cut. All the while, the boy slept in his arms.
*
B y nightfall, Haern felt ready to collapse. He walked off the road, kicked aside the snow before a tree, and
