“But, my prince,” Malex said, “are you sure? He came to help, after all. Had he not come, we would not have known—”
“I’m sure, Malex,” Feledias said. “Ferrimore has chosen to aid my brother, to give him sanctuary, and so they must be punished, will be punished. And it would be better, I think, if no witnesses remained to tell of what happened.” He met the man’s eyes. “Don’t you?”
“Sir?” Malex asked, a stricken look on his face. “Y-you mean to destroy the village?”
“Me?” Feledias asked. “Of course not. I am a prince of the realm, Commander Malex. Sworn to protect and serve the citizens of our great kingdom. I would, of course, offer no harm to my citizens. The Fey though…well. It seems that they have attacked the village once. I do not doubt that they might do so again. After all, if the Fey are known for anything, it is for their inexplicability. Now…” He paused, glancing back at the farmer once more, the man staring at him in shock as if he still had yet to fully realize what was going to happen. “Finish it. We leave—now.”
Feledias started toward where the horses were picketed, his soldiers, save the two left to deal with the farmer, following. He heard the farmer screaming behind him, begging, but there was the whistle of metal in the air, and then only silence. Feledias moved to his horse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Death is a fickle thing.
Sometimes, it comes with a roar, like the thunder of battle cries as armies meet.
Other times, it is subtle, quiet, sneaking up on a man before he is even aware of its coming.
The flash of metal in the shadows, the whistle of an arrow high overhead.
Sometimes, death comes quietly. Sometimes, it comes loudly.
There is no way, then, to know how death might come, when it does.
As death is concerned there is only one certainty, one inarguable truth—
It comes.
—Unknown author
He lay on his stomach on a hill outside Ferrimore, his bow and quiver placed beside him. The tall grass concealed him from any except the closest of inspections, though it also tickled at his skin where it touched his hands and face. But he ignored the urge to scratch that itch just as he ignored the aches in his back and knees. It might have proven difficult for some, ignoring those sensations, but then few had as much practice at it as Valden had himself. His life, after all, seemed to largely consist of such aches, such tickles of grass, and, of course, such hillsides. And now, like those other times, he told himself that it was nothing, that the ache in his back was nothing. After all, while the goddess promised that the path to peace would be taken one step at a time, she never promised that each of those steps would be pleasant, and a man grew in himself more from his pains than his pleasures anyway.
He told himself that, but with the grief of the guardsman still haunting him despite what meager efforts he’d given to assuage it, Priest was forced to wonder why it often seemed, on the path to peace, that each step was harder than the last. Some might have thought that experience would make such hillsides, such naked grief as he’d seen on the guardsman’s face and seen so often before, easier, but they would have been wrong. Instead, it felt as if they grew harder each time, but there was nothing to be done except to move forward, or, in this case, to lie still. And wait.
Likely, his waiting would amount to nothing, but he would wait just the same. Cutter was the warrior, Challadius the mage, Maeve, while she would label herself as an assassin, was often the voice of reason, of pragmatism. As for Priest, he was the scout, the man who watched their backs so that his comrades might worry about what lay ahead. And so he did it now, lying on the hillside and watching the road into Ferrimore lest the Fey or, particularly unlikely, Feledias and his men, found them here.
Yet, he did not begrudge the wait, for he knew that his being here would allow the others to get what troubled sleep they may. Not much of a gift, perhaps, just as his compassion, his attempts at sympathy for the guardsman were not much, but it was the best he could give them, and so he would.
He lay there for several hours until he grew certain that the night would pass in merciful, restful quiet after all. He said a silent prayer to the goddess in thanks and started to rise. That was when he caught sight of figures in the far distance, vague shadows in the moonlight, what some might have taken as no more than shadows or figments of their eyes produced by the distance. Priest, though, had seen such shadows before, countless times, and so he knew they were not shadows, nor figments. Knew instead that they were what they were—soldiers. Soldiers on the move, and judging by the uniformed organization of their movements, they were not the Fey returned to torment Ferrimore once more. No, this was an altogether different and, in its way, worse, torment.
“Goddess guide my path,” he whispered. He considered his best course, for the men were mounted and while his own mount was tied at the base of the hill, he could see, even from here, that the approaching soldiers rode war mounts while his own was a draft horse borrowed from the village. He would never be able to outrun them or beat them to the village should they take it in mind to give the beasts they rode their head.
Which meant that they needed to be slowed down somehow. Priest said another prayer, this one not searching for a solution but only for forgiveness. Then he rose, lifted
