Mad giggling threatened to overtake his tears, but Maric shut down both reactions. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking of the past, or grieving. He had just killed a man with his bare hands, and there were other enemies nearby. He needed to run. He took a deep, ragged breath and closed his eyes. Deep down inside of him there was steel. He embraced it, tasted its bitter edge and let it shut out the whirlwind inside of him. He needed to be calm, even if only for a moment.
When he opened his eyes again, he was ready.
Maric cast about calmly for any sign of the sword that had flown out of the other man’s hand. Everything around him was somehow moving very slowly, none of it seeming quite real. There were too many bushes, too many odd dips and clumps of trees where the sword could be hiding. He couldn’t find it. Then he heard another man’s voice, this one calling out from somewhere close. There was no more time.
Standing gingerly, Maric listened for where the voices were coming from. As soon as he ascertained their source, he headed in the opposite direction. It was an awkward hobble at first. His legs were bruised and cramped and he might have broken some bones, but he ignored the pain. With effort, he grabbed on to low-hanging branches and pulled himself farther into the darkness.
They would pay for what they had done. If he did only one thing as King, he would make them pay.
“Something’s happening,” Loghain muttered, frowning.
He stood at the edge of the forest, absently wiping mud off his leathers. The effort was pointless, as his clothing was as worn and as filthy as one might expect from a poacher. The Orlesians, of course, had less kind names for him and the others like him:
Not that Loghain much cared what the Orlesians called him, since it was their fault his family had been forced off the farm. The Orlesians didn’t believe in anyone owning land but their fancy, painted-up nobility, so it came as no surprise that they didn’t look favorably on Ferelden’s freemen. An extra “tribute” tax was concocted by the Orlesian Emperor, and any freemen who couldn’t afford it had their lands confiscated. Loghain’s father had managed to scrape together enough to pay the tax the first year, so naturally it was decided the tax could stand to be even higher. The next year, his father refused to pay, and when the soldiers came, they determined that not only was the farmhold forfeit, but his father should also be arrested for tax evasion. Loghain’s family resisted, so now they lived out in the Ferelden wilds, banding together with other desperate souls to eke out a living however they could.
Loghain might not have cared what the Orlesians thought of him, but he did very much care to avoid being arrested. The local constable over in Lothering was a Fereldan man, and so far he had been tolerant of their band. So long as they didn’t prey on travelers and restricted their thefts to the petty sort, the constable made only token efforts to track them down. Loghain knew that the man was going to be forced to hunt them in earnest someday, and hopefully he would be decent enough to let them know about it in advance. They would move on, as they had already done many times. There were enough forests and hills in Ferelden to hide an entire army, after all; even the Rebel Queen knew that. But what if the constable didn’t warn them? That thought worried Loghain now and had him staring into the forest. Men didn’t always get to do as they’d prefer.
A cold wind blew across the field, making him shiver. It was late, and the moon shone down from a cloudless night sky. He wiped the black curls out of his eyes, resigned to the fact that his hair was no doubt as dirty as his hands, and pulled his hood up. The spring had been more of a lingering winter that had refused to let go. The cold nights he and his band had spent in their makeshift tents had been less than comfortable, to say the least, but the accommodations were preferable to some of the alternatives.
Dannon, a big brute of a man with an untrustworthy air, walked up behind him. Loghain suspected that Dannon had once been a thief, the dedicated sort who lived in the cities, picking pockets and robbing travelers, and that he was here with them now because he wasn’t a very good one. Not that Loghain was in much of a position to judge him. They did what they could, all of them, and Dannon pulled his weight. That didn’t mean Loghain had to feel comfortable around the man.
“What’s that you’re saying? You saw something?” Dannon scratched his beak of a nose while he adjusted the carcasses he was carrying. There were three rabbits slung over his shoulder, the prize of the evening’s work, poached from the fields of a lord known for his Orlesian sympathies. Hunting in the dark was never easy, especially when one took more care to avoid being spotted then to actually hunt, but they had been fortunate for once.
“I said that something’s happening,” Loghain repeated irritably. He turned and glared at Dannon, and the man backed away a step. He had that effect on people. Loghain had been told before that his blue eyes lent him an icy, intense air that could put people off. And that was fine by him. Loghain was still considered young by most in the camp, Dannon especially, and he preferred that the man didn’t get any notions about trying to give him orders. “Are you telling me you haven’t noticed?”
Dannon shrugged. “There’s some tracks. I think maybe there’s some soldiers about.”
“And you didn’t think that was of any interest?”
“Agh!” He rolled his eyes. “Karolyn down at the village already told us that there’d be soldiers, didn’t she? Said she saw Bann Ceorlic marching through the north field with some of his fellows just this morning.”
Loghain frowned at the name. “Ceorlic is a lickspittle. Desperate for favor with the Orlesian usurper, everyone knows that.”
“Yes, well, Karolyn said he was marching well out of sight, and didn’t even stop at the inn. Like he didn’t want to be seen.” He gestured at the rabbits Dannon carried. “Look, whatever he’s up to, it doesn’t have anything to do with us. Nobody saw us hunting. We’re good. We should go.” He smiled, a nervous, friendly smile meant to be reassuring. Dannon was afraid of him. Which was as Loghain preferred it.
He looked back into the forest, his hand grazing the sword belted at his side. Dannon’s eyes followed the motion, and he grimaced. Dannon was skilled enough with a knife, but hopeless with anything larger. “Aw, come on, now. Don’t go making trouble,” he groused.
“I’m not interested in making trouble,” Loghain insisted. “I’m interested in avoiding it.” He advanced toward the forest’s edge, crossing over a ridge that led him downhill a ways. “Nobody has to have seen us hunting to know that we’re here. You know as well as I that we may have overstayed our welcome.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Dannon said, but he followed quietly after that. It was Loghain’s father who would decide, after all, and even a man like Dannon knew that Loghain and his father were seldom of different minds when it came to such matters.
