> "Have you forgotten that he calls you sons? What dad doesn't punish his sons? If you go unpunished, then you are orphans, not sons."

>

> - from an ancient letter, author unknown

PRESENT DAY

The Moon and Goose was packed. Standing room only.

Whether this was the usual crowd or a peculiarly rambunctious night, I did not know, nor did I care. The tavern was my choice for the evening because 'wild and coarse' is good for becoming just another face in the tide.

The mass of bodies around me ebbed and flowed, lifting and pushing folk without the strength to break through. Drink ran strong and the singing was so loud you couldn't tell if they were off-key or not.

In the flood of sound and motion, everybody had too much clamoring for their attention to pay much mind to one more passing face, even one you stop for a quick chat with.

Yes, this place would do just fine.

I brushed folk aside, jostled by drunks, jostling them in return. I'd grimed my face up real good to hide the scars, and beneath my oilskin cloak, I wore simple worker's garb scuffed up nicely and smelling of smoke.

Let them think I was a blacksmith or some-n-such.

Or perhaps a carcass-miner. Hm, hadn't thought of that.

I wedged myself in at the bar, knocked, and hollered for a drink and some stew. When a barmaid came about, I made sure to be just rude enough to make her want to be done with me, but not so much as to point me out to her boss or the thick-armed slabs of meat passing for men who stalked through the crowd. No, I had taken this risk of being exposed in hopes to hear the rumors on the lip and spread some of my own, so while a hearty tussle would be fun, it wasn't on tap for tonight.

After all, I was a stranger tonight. Not knowing how uncommon a fight might be, they might remember me better for the black eye, or if it might make me even more worthy of forgetting.

Stew came. Thick stuff with great hunks of meat and carrots. A dark tear of rye with a gob of butter was stuck in the bowl to act as both spoon (or shovel, really) and, well, bread.

Bread was good.

I liked bread.

"God, I like a hard-working town," I mumbled in prayer through a mouthful.

Any tavern with this many hardworking men knew how to make a proper meal. Sure, I'd never forget the meals in the emperor's kitchen and what wonders they could produce.

But sometimes, after a long, hard day's work, a body just wants something down-home and dirty.

I'd shown special care to find a cook for the barracks who could make my old boys feel at home, and they loved me all the more for it.

That slowed me down in my chewing.

Kel once asked me what hurt the most to leave behind. I don't know what folk might expect. Perhaps the honor. Perhaps wife and kids. But honor was only as good as the people who gave it, and as for family, I'd never spent a great deal of time with them.

I'd not suffered with them.

Out of all the echoes of what was left behind, the men I'd bled with sang the sweetest pains.

I'd always loved men. Not in the way a man loves a woman and makes children by her. No, it was a love born of strength. There is a bond you make with the ones who have arm enough to keep you down as you scream under the surgeons knife. With those kinds of men, you develop a deep and rough affection nothing else can-

"-sighting of the little god. Right near. Up by Treeford-"

My attention dropped-and-flipped topic like a knife switching hands mid-fight.

"-say he got a greyhorn right good with its own horn! Snapped it right off and speared it in the heart!"

The voice was young, but not a youth. Too full of energy for an older man, but with a reign over his tone and volume that youth did not give the years enough to train.

A slower, gruff voice replied.

"What's a greyhorn up by Treeford for? Them's a norther beast and we too far south for that."

"I don't know, but it's what they say. The earth all tore up as if he used a godly plow, and a slew of beastparts sowed like seed for harvest! Brittlespines by the dozen. Dogswallows. The greyhorn, of course. A blistermouth-"

"A blistermouth?! Boy, somefolk went and set you after a goose. Ain't no blistermouths east of the Gleam Ranges."

True, that. It was a strange report.

"But it's true! I heard it straight from the carcass-miner's mouth who saw him-"

"And wha'chu chat to a carcassminer for? Boy, I oughta-"

Ah, the sound of a man considering a switching. Definitely a dad and son here.

"I wasn't talkin' to him!" the son protested. "Swear it! Just heard 'im is all. You know how easy it is to catch good rumor in a busy tavern-"

I grinned around a mouthful of rye

"-and it was a good rumor!"

A third voice spoke up. "As a matter of fact, Sten, I heard it too. Don't give the boy a hard time. You know he's good. Got a sharp ear and a lick of sense, while most folk only got one."

Hm, probably friend of the father. Maybe an uncle to the son?

"Aww, alright alright," Sten replied. "Don'chu two bully up on me now. Maybe the carcass-miner saw wrong."

"Maybe," the son amended quickly, more than happy to move on, "I only know what he says. Anyhow, and here's the real kick, the little god walked right up to him after and struck up a chat! Asking him all sorts of odd questions, like if he had kids, and if he wanted any."

"Now that sounds like the little god." It was the third voice again. "Been a while since I heard of him try talking to folk. Happened all the time when he first started showin' up."

"Yeah, well, the carcass-miner said he got outta there right quick," the young man said.

Sten snorted. "I would to. A god is bad enough news. But a child god? Imagine the tantrums! Things go wrong with an adult god, you can at least reason with 'em."

"Aw, I think kids are easy to deal with," his son replied.

Sten harrumphed like a proper old man. "Cuz you can whup 'em, sure! You can't whup a god. Y'can only hold onto your breeches and hope you're well enough alive after to pick up the pieces. I'd sooner get caught in that storm out there with my balls out than face a god's wrath. 'Least with nature's wrath y'can pray. Can't pray for safety when the one who's s'posed to save your ass is the one whupping it."

That brought a lull to their conversation.

I mopped up the dregs of my meal with the last bit of my bread and stuck it in his mouth. Without looking up, I pitched my own thoughts into the fray.

"Can pray for mercy," I said through the food.

A pause, then a wary, "True enough, stranger."

I took my time to speak slow and mimic their manner of speech, or something akin to it. "Fact is, I've me own experience with that kinda screamin' and beggin' and pleadin' mercy-"

I turned my face halfway towards the group and flashed a grin I hoped to be disarming.

"-with me own pa, that is."

I watched the humor wash over them. Shoulders slumped in a goodnatured way, a general softening which set them up for a laugh, if one wasn't already pulling at their bellies.

I aimed the next line at Sten's son. "Y'know what I mean, ain't that right, boy?"

For the price of the young man's embarrassment, I got the third man to chuckle. Sten gave a huff, but I guessed that was close to a laugh for the man.

They were all big. Perhaps the biggest of them was the one they kept calling 'boy', moreso a title than a descriptive, and one he'd wear til he threw fists over it, or a younger man joined the group.

None of them were as big as me, though perhaps one was as broad in chest and another near as tall. But I was not exactly a fair standard to judge men by. In these parts, these three were about as big as they come.

The man and his son sat at an actual table, while the third man stood at the end of the bar, on the other side of a man minding his drink, though certainly listening in.

"I liked your rumor," I continued, as none of them seemed soon to speak. I picked up my beer and leaned sideways on the bar. "So let me make a fair trade."

I took a long swallow to make them wait. But not too long.

"They say ghosts rise on the battlefields," I said. "Making war for men with family at home." I eyed them and others nearby who seemed to be paying attention, gauging reactions.

It wasn't a rational argument. Men on every side of the war had family at home. No, it was an irrational argument, aimed at the heart, not the head. The play was to connect the ghosts to the protection of family.

Nobody believed I was talking about ghosts, of course. At this point, wasn't a town in the empire who hadn't heard tale of the strange fighters who invaded skirmishes between greathouses. Little was known of them, but one thing was for sure...

They weren't ghosts.

And folk love correcting others.

"Ain't ghosts," Sten said. Of course it would be him. "Ghosts don't like crowds. They lonely creatures, keeping to their forests and dens. Tis but men. Mad men, looking for death," he scoffed.

"I don't know, pa," Sten's son replied. "What I hear, they only kill soldiers of the great houses. Larky says he heard some soldiers from Tain talk 'bout how relieved they was when the Own Guard showed at the battle of Tain-Faire."

Sten scowled and muttered something, but it was lost in the general racket.

Own Guard.

It was an odd name. Nor was it a name we chose for ourselves. We had debated on names for months, knowing we needed to settle on something simple. Simpler than the names Kel proposed, for sure. A name that would stick. A name that connect our cause with the desires of the oppressed.

In the end, we decided to spread a few names by rumor.

In the end, none of them took. Instead, the people latched onto a simple poem one of our fighters had taken to shouting during and after battles:

we fight for our own,

we fight for our home,

we guard our own,

we guard our own.

Joahin took to it the moment he heard it.

Of course he did.

Not that he was allowed in a battlefield. Too many folk who might recognize him.

"Ghosts or not," I replied, "They sure are angry. Got unfinished business, seems like. Can't find peace." I took another swallow of my beer. "Sounds like ghosts."

Sten turned away and waved a hand in gruff dismissal. I let it go. After all, I wasn't here to make friends or be remembered. Can't let folk get too long a look at me, lest they start to see beneath the grime, lest they start to remember old stories about a man with scars and built like a bear...

It had been a short exchange, but then again, I wasn't Kel. Most of my rumors were short. Easily remembered. A sucker punch to the heart of the matter.

Men are angry.

They have no peace.

Why can't the wars just be done?

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Where is justice?

But somebody out there fights for them. Somebody claims them as his own.

Seeds. Words like seeds, planted in the soil of a man's heart, a heart roughed up by pain. Seeds, grown into ideas, given time, given rain and given sun. Words, blooming into action.

A harvest to reap.

I slapped some coin on the counter and turned to go.

"Where you up for, stranger?" the third man called out. "We've a storm on! It's a bad night and we've a good roof here. Stay for a while and tell us more of what you've heard,"

"Thanks for the kindness, friend," I replied, wrapping my oilskin about me and drawing the hood. "But I've a home I need to be at, some of my own to see to, and I've fought through worse gales than this."

The man let me go with a kind word.

He wasn't wrong. As I opened the door, people shied away from the spitting rain, spraying off the cobblestone. Still, I walked out into it to find the stablemaster and my horse.

Yes, for now, I gave them rumors like rain, and plenty of it.

But soon, soon, I would given them sun...

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The sky was black with power and the lightning white as death.

I could barely see five feet in front of me. The lantern flickered sporadically on its pole, its housing shrugging off the water and wind, while beastiron in the oil encouraged a larger flame. Still, it ever seemed on the edge of winking out, and that threatened to make me anxious.

Thankfully, the drake could see better than I.

Unthankfully, the drake was a hard ride, and my eyes were open by sheer force of will.

The Moon and Goose sat in a coastal town only a few hours ride from the boundary of the the outlands. Add another hour, and I found one of our posts. Our men took shifts living there, both to stable horses and stranger mounts, and to be a quick retreat for somebody pursued.

The men had begged me to stay the night, and I almost gave it too them. But, frankly, I wanted to be home. I had been gone for months this time, and even if it meant a sleepless night of hard riding, I wanted a hot bath and my own bed as soon as I could.

So the men relented, sad at not getting to share news, and gave me a drake for the last stretch, and some tough cured meat and wakeroot to chew for energy.

It was a bit smaller than a horse, slower, with a widdling gait and attitude worse than an ass. But, nevertheless, it was an asset for its nightvision, stamina, and most importantly: the ease at which it moved over mud.

That last trait came in quite handy, as the road was nothing but.

A wide, flat head pointed the way through the storm. Instead of bit and bridle, reins were attached to sensitive spines along the base of the neck. Tug on those, and you would cause the drake to move in that direction.

Well, 'cause' is a strong word.

More like 'strongly encourage'.

And right now, I wished it was closer to cause. The drake spat and hissed in agitation, worsening by the second. It skittered here and back, then surged forward. I jerked on a spine, causing it to scream angrily, but obey. It slowed down...

...only to immediately launch off the path, into the woods.

I did not have the energy for this. Too little sleep, and anxious at that. The food had carried me only so far and my jaw ached from chewing the wakeroot, so I'd put the last small piece in a pocket. We had been widdling and waddling through rain and darkness for hours, and my clothes were near to being soaked, despite the oilskin cloak.

So as the drake lurched off into the woods, I let it do so for...

...just...

...a second, and then took a deep breath, bent over, wrapped a thick arm around its neck and pulled. The drake screamed and raged, but I grit his teeth and tightened.

"Steady," I growled, not that it could hear me. "Steady..."

Maybe there had never been a light in the drake's eyes to begin with. But as it calmed, I thought it's gaze seemed to dull. A trick of exhaustion and the light.

With the drake fully calmed down, I sat up, warily letting go. Odd, but it was back to normal, and I didn't have the mind to question the good fortune.

Was it even calmer than when first saddled it? Not that I trusted my memory in this state.

Miraculously, the lantern hung safely on its pole. The pole itself was the greater worry for being the weakest link. Hitting a trunk or branch would have shattered it into an explosion of splinters. I heaved a sigh, ready to fall out of the saddle, and looked ahead of us. Where were-

A body lay in the mud.

A small body.

The rain fell with a sure roar around us.

I didn't have the energy to feel anything. Sliding off the drake, my boots kept my feet dry, but they sank a good hand-span or two into the mud. Each step was more than I wanted to take.

Frankly, that had nothing to do with the mud.

The kid lay on his back, wearing a simple shirt and pant, both fully soaked through. Dark hair glistened like blood. Raindrops slipped down his cheeks from open eyes. Dead eyes.

The eyes shifted a speck to look me in the face.

I scowled at the trick of the lantern. The flickering of flame cast all sorts of lies in the dark, every shadow a sneak, stealing past, living only at the edges of sight. This was only more true in rain when the whole world was overlaid with a filter of shivering.

"Damn shame," I muttered.

I was long since tired of looking at the dead.

But then the kid blinked.

For a moment, my spirit seemed unable to accept what was happening. Maybe I was too tired. Maybe it was too absurd. Whatever the reason, I stared dumbly at the kiddo for a few seconds.

The kid's gaze remained dead. Empty as flawed glass. His head fell to the side to look at the drake. He mouthed words I couldn't hear, and rolled, curling in on himself.

At that point, my spirit returned to me and I did the only things that could possibly make sense. I scooped up the kid in my arms and turned back to the drake.

He tensed, looking at me with eyes shocked wide. A bit of spark returned to them. Maybe he would survive after all.

"Is anyone with you?" I yelled over the rain and leaned my ear toward the kid's mouth.

He stared at me, as if unable to process why I was there. Then, as if on habit, as if you simply answer when a large man in the rain picks you up and yells at you, he simply shook his head.

Hopping up and dropping down into the saddle, I tucked him into my oilskin to keep him warm with my own body heat. It wouldn't be enough, but it might keep him alive til we got home.

He wasn't shivering, which was a bad sign, meaning the cold was in deep.

Honestly, there wasn't much hope for him.

But I held him to me with one arm, grabbed the reins with the other, and moved forward.

It's all you can do sometimes. Just keep moving.

----------------------------------------

We entered the gate in the early hours of the morning, after the farmers wake, but before first sun even begins to break the hold of night. Second sun wasn't set to rise for another few days, last I knew. But at that point of exhaustion, time meant nothing.

The guards dutifully asked for the code, even though they knew who I was. I didn't begrudge them, even with the boy dying in my arms. He'd started shivering soon after I found him. Squirmed, and then curled in on himself.

A violent shivering.

A good sign.

I don't know where I put the drake.

Someone helped us to the baths and stoked the flame. I rinsed us both down, then held him in the hot waters for a short time, just to get his core temperature back to baseline.

I might've fallen asleep right there, since a bathsteward slapped me on the back of the head and soon beckoned me out.

There's only one thing I remember clearly: the boy threw a fuss when the bathsteward tried to take him. I mumbled something about seeing to him, I think.

I found a bed.

Then, nothing.

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I woke late in the day. Shutters were opened, letting in a gentle breeze. Curtains fluttered here and there, adding to the hush of the air like voices overlapping.

The kid lay next to me, breathing steady, but labored. A rag sat on his forehead. Someone had tucked him in. It hadn't been me, as somebody had tucked me in as well.

Nobody else was in the room.

The events of the previous night came to me on waking. The drake was a concern, but not immediate. We didn't enter the town with drakes usually, instead switching them out at the gate. But I trusted my people to deal with it rightly. The more pressing matter was laying next to me.

Did I just bring home a god?

I took a good look at the kid in the gentle light. He was dark in hair, like mine, but fairly pale of face. Well, pink at the moment, due to the sickness. He was also very young, likely in the early stages of the middling years when a boy's voice deepens and hair grows on his balls.

Another dark-haired kid came to memory. I couldn't quite see his face anymore.

When was the last time I thought of Sheesa? My eldest son.

Well, I suppose he wasn't my son anymore, by law, or by truth, as I never got to raise him. There is something to be said of seed, as he came from mine. Many folk would say he was still my son for that reason alone, but I hardly thought like that anymore.

Anyway.

This kid didn't look like a god.

Then again, none of the gods looked like gods. They looked like men and women, resplendent in armor and clothes, glorious in power, but otherwise simply men and women. Why would a kid god look like anything other than a kid?

He wasn't wearing any fancy clothes. Then again, we'd taken his clothes last night.

Then again, I recalled nothing special about his clothes when I'd first picked him up. Nothing to set him apart.

Besides, could a god even get sick?

I didn't know.

I got out of bed, carefully, to not disturb the kid. He needed his rest. This wasn't my room, but somebody had laid out some of my clothes for me. A uniform the color of bleached wheat, and socks, boots, and a loincloth.

The last bit amused me, as whoever chose these didn't know I rarely wore anything underneath.

I dressed quietly. My hand was on the door when a noise came from behind me.

"-ait," he said, looking at me. He swallowed. "Please." It was a pitiful noise.

I rounded the bed and sat on his side. He pulled his arms out from under the sheets and reached for my arm and...

...and hesitated.

"May I?" he asked, trailing off.

"May you what?" I asked, unsure what he was going for.

It seemed hard for him to speak. "Hold your arm," he whispered.

What a strange question. "Of course you can."

He took hold of my forearm with both hands, not able to make his fingertips touch around it. He pulled it to his chest and put his face to the back of my hand and just... held it there.

I reached up with my other hand and took the rag, feeling his forehead. It was burning. A pale of water sat on the floor, which I hadn't seen from my side. I dipped the rag, wrang it out, and put it back on his head.

Yes, all with one hand. You get dexterous after long enough with a weapon.

"-feels good," he mumbled.

We stayed like that for a few minutes. I had so many questions, but it wasn't time. Not yet. Not while he was sick. Talking took up so much strength.

I was amazed sometimes how tired a talk could make me.

Eventually I told him I had things to check on and he let me go. I tucked him back in, but before I could get to the door, he spoke up with that small voice of his, first syllable never voiced quite loud enough to be heard.

Poor kid was so hesitant.

"-you be back?"

I recalled him making a fuss last night, when somebody tried to take him away from me. How had he grown so attached to me in but a few hours? Maybe I underestimated the power of sickness and carrying him close to my belly.

I smirked, seeing potential for a joke about pregnancy, but didn't have the skill to make it myself.

I'd have to tell Kel later.

"Yes boy, I'll be back for you. You're one of the thing I gotta check on now."

He nodded, but his eyes followed me until I closed the door.

Outside, I memorized the room's number. Not that it was exactly needed. We were in the men's guest wing, the room right across from the entry to the baths.

Of course.

On my list of priorities, I needed to find out what happened to the drake, as well as who was in town and what news was about. But highest on the list was breakfast.

As Kel said, 'You can't end the world on an empty stomach!'

Or dehydrated, for that matter. The foggy-headedness from lack of water could kill a man on the battlefield.

It was a distraction, after all.

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The kitchens were warm from the ovens and the friendliness of the maids. I'd come in from the back, where they connected to a hallway near the guest quarters. Because we had no guests at the moment, the girls were the first faces I had seen all morning.

Well, apart from the kid's that is.

And oh, what lovely faces they were!

Tikka was the eldest among the maids, a dark woman a bit too crocked about her ways. Not like Kel, who was wrong all right, but more like a pot with a lid that won't sit straight, or a pan you used to hammer something in.

You could hear it in her voice, mostly, and in the way she had to be told the same instructions again and again. And again. And again. There were very few things she truly learned.

Likely it was connected to her misshapen skull, a bit bashed in about the crown. She'd been a city beggar far away before one of us brought her here. Most of us assumed her to be a gasper addict from the way she'd moved overly slow, cringing in circles, with awkward limbs that never quite moved right along. But she never showed the hunger for the grey powder, or the gasping for which it was named.

She took to our attention like a thirsty flower, blooming into the woman she was today. When she smiled, there were no teeth. But she was beautiful anyway.

She just gawked at me with delight, as she would with anyone she hadn't seen for a day. I pressed a kiss into her temple, right where the bash was. She giggled like a maiden no older than six years and pressed a fresh sweetroll into my hands.

"You should take somma the hardmilk," she said, leading me to a tub on the counter. "Gots it in just night before yous did. From the- the-" she stalled.

"Rether's," one of the young girls piped. Nikki, I think? She had long hair the color of dark rye and pinchable cheeks, and kept sneaking peeks at me from behind her bangs as if she thought I couldn't see.

Or perhaps she didn't care.

She was of that age, after all.

"Thank you Nilli," Tikka said.

Ah, so there were things she learned better than me, it seemed.

Tikka proceeded to tell me about the Rether's goats and far more details than anyone else would share. There was a time when I would've cut her off. I'd never been one for pretending to care when I didn't. But now I could just stand and give her room to take up as much space as she wanted, all without pretending.

It was nice, to have that freedom.

Then Miri entered the kitchen, from the side connected to the commons, and clearly had not been expecting to see me here.

"Gareth," she exclaimed over Tikka, who abruptly stopped her chatter.

"Is something the matter?" I replied.

"Ah, no," She tucked a stray bang behind her ear, then smiled, a bit of humor tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I just thought you'd sleep all day."

"Come now!" I protested.

I gave Tikka's hand a squeeze and used the excuse to move on. I stuffed the sweetroll in my mouth and took the bowl of hardmilk Nilli had prepared as Tikka chattered, then snagged a mug from where a flock of them hung under the cupboards.

"Haven't slept that late in ages," I continued, speaking around the roll.

Miri lingered, giving one of the girls a list, then followed me into the commons. I filled the mug from a keg of softbeer on the bar, bit through the sweetroll so it dropped into the hardmilk, and took a long, long swallow.

"Of course," she replied, still with that not-smirk teasing at her lips. "The bathsteward thought you were drunk. You fell asleep in the bath..."

"That's not so rare! It's warm. I was tired"

"...in less that a count of ten."

I peered sidelong at her. "Who's counting?"

"He picked your clothes of the floor and, oh, look, you were asleep."

I harrumphed. And then I recalled Sten and cringed. Was I an old man now?

"Who's the boy?" she asked.

"Not 'how'?"

"I'm the one who checked on him."

"Ah. You are one of the few with keys to my room, too."

Miri just smiled.

I smirked around another bite of the sweetroll, dredged in the hardmilk. Good stuff, that, if not as sour as I liked.

"I don't wear a loincloth, you know," I said in retaliation, adjusting myself indecently. Most folk would read that as flirting, perhaps even an outright suggestion.

Miri knew me better than that. She rolled her eyes. "How would I know?"

My smirk dropped. "Fair point. I don't know who he is yet. Just a kid. Alone in the woods. Laying in the mud." I watched Miri for a reaction as I added, "Not an hour past the post."

She lifted her brows. "Outside," she mused.

"Outside," I confirmed.

I leaned against the bar, eating and drinking in silence as she digested that information.

"He doesn't look like a god," she finally said.

"That's what I thought."

"Then again, gods don't look like gods..."

"That what I thought!"

Her lips pursed. She always got that look when thinking through a particularly nuanced issue. "Can a god even get sick?"

"Woman, we have the same mind! Tell me, you're better versed at lore than I am. What do you know?"

She shook her head, then tucked the bang that had come loose. "Kel would know better. Or Jeerieth." She tapped a finger to her lips. "Nissom might have insight from a different angle. Both are in town, although Jeerieth is busy."

And we knew how much Jeerieth loathed interruption.

"Jo is with Kel," she added, "visiting the farms in preparation for Basteing Day, but should be back tomorrow." And there was that hint of a smirk again as she looked sidelong at me, "They tend to listen when asked to stay the night."

Of course she'd guess rightly that I had rushed the night before.

Her hair slipped out from behind her ear again. Hair the color of morning dew. Hair fine as spun silk and longer than most knew, wrapped up atop her head. She tucked it back.

She didn't intend it to be such a beautiful movement.

"Well, I guess I'll pay Nissom a visit," is all I said.