David Dalglish - A Dance of Blades

“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 set the boy down. He wrapped him tighter in his cloaks and did his best to keep hope. The boy’s lips were blue, his skin a deathly white. He’d lost so much blood, right when he needed its warmth the most.

Still standing, Haern pulled an emblem hanging by a silver chain from beneath his shirt. It was of a golden mountain, and as he held it, he prayed over the boy.

“Just keep him warm and alive, Ashhur. And don’t forget me, too. I could use the damn help.”

He put away the emblem, sat down beside his nameless boy, and pulled him close so they could share their warmth.

“It’ll get better,” he said, not sure if the boy could hear him or not. He was so thoroughly wrapped Haern couldn’t see his eyes. “Don’t worry about any pain. As my father once said, pain is a tool that should always be under our control. It teaches us when we err. It distracts and weakens our opponents. And for you, it’ll help you for the rest of your life. Who cares about a silly scratch from a sword when you’ve been struck to the bone, yeah?”

He felt like a moron yammering on, but he did so anyway. At last he heard the boy snore, and he leaned his head back against the bark. His eyes looked to the clouded heavens.

“Couldn’t you at least stop the snow?” he asked Ashhur.

Ashhur didn’t bother to respond.

*

H aern slept through the night, waking only once at the sound of hoofbeats. He curled his body tighter against the tree and kept perfectly still. From the corner of his eye he saw the light of torches. Unable to see his tracks veer off the road because of the fresh snow, the horsemen rode right on by.

“Never mind,” Haern whispered once they were gone. “Go ahead and let it snow.”

He closed his eyes, leaned his head against the boy’s, and slept until morning.

*

H aern had little food and water, certainly not enough for two. He ate the food, deciding he needed the strength for carrying the boy. He did his best to get the child to drink, though. Other than a few quick sips, he was unsuccessful. His back ached, and his arm throbbed, but he forced the pain far away, as he’d been trained to do by his many mentors. He carried the boy, stopping every hour to rest and catch his breath. Any time he let him go, the boy collapsed to the ground.

So much for making the brat walk, Haern thought.

He shook his head and immediately felt guilty. Of course the boy couldn’t walk. He was sitting at the reaper’s door. That he had his eyes open was a miracle.

They walked along the road, encountering no other travelers. Evidently no one else was dumb enough to make their way north in such weather. The snow had stopped in the morning, and as he followed the road, he observed the chaos of hoofprints. None crossed over or appeared to be heading back. Either they would continue on to Veldaren, or at some point turn around and meet them. Haern stayed alert just in case. He was in no shape to fight a group of horsemen.

Keep walking, he told himself. Keep walking. Keep going. The son of Thren Felhorn would not die unknown in the wilderness. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Near the end of the third day, he finally found a farm. He crossed the fields, every bone in his body aching. The boy hadn’t had a drink the entire day, and his skin was hot with fever. Part of him wondered if the cold was the only thing keeping him from burning alive. At the door to the home, he stopped, hid his swords with his cloak, and knocked.

“I come in time of need,” he shouted, surprised by how hoarse his voice sounded. “Please, I have a wounded child with me.”