“This is the place?” Valentin asked.

Médéric had led Valentin eastwards from Aethin Wod. The cabin he mentioned the night prior sat a couple miles past the fork that branched away from the main road that would eventually lead to Povia.

Valentin had informed his deg that he needed to conclude some business while the rest would march ahead of him. He was hesitant to say that they were better. What he did know was that they thought upon his words the day before. A few were slick with the sweat of a morning training, something sorely neglected the past few days.

The only thing that was not going to plan was the person who sat in the saddle in front of him. Maeve resolutely refused to travel with the rest of the deg, saying nonsense about how she was assigned to him directly. No matter of requests was changing her mind. Without advertising to everyone what he was planning to do, he had to take her along with him. What she would say when she discovered what his intent was, he could only imagine.

“Yeah, this is the place,” Médéric confirmed.

“You said tomorrow?” Valentin asked without elaborating further.

“Last visit was about eight days past,” Médéric reported. “I understand that it is fairly regular, so the risk of missing a trip is low.”

“Very good,” Valentin said with a nod. “I will meet up with the rest of you before you get into the Povian hills.”

Médéric only nodded. He turned his horse and began to backtrack to meet with the southerly traveling deg. Before he made it very far, he stopped his horse and turned around.

“Deggan Valentin, it may grow quite boring. Would you like to borrow one of my books while you wait?” Médéric called out as his horse trotted back towards his leader.

“I have seen your taste in literature, Médéric. I am not interested,” Valentin responded.

The warrior shrugged, not inclined to offer a second time. He turned his horse and moved down the road, disappearing into the trees.

Valentin moved Vescal into the trees. The gaps between the pines were wide enough that he did not face much difficulty navigating the fifty pace distance into the cabin. A neglected hitching post made of rain softened wood sat outside the entrance to the wooden cabin. Valentin let his horse be untethered as it was mild-mannered enough not to wander.

After he dismounted and helped Maeve down from the saddle, he entered the cabin. The smell of fungal growth greeted his nostrils, but it seemed that the interior was in well enough condition to host them for several days if necessary.

He sat upon the ground and watched the road. Médéric told him it could be days before Rois Bothair was due to arrive, but he did not want to lose vigilance. He could not afford to lose his opportunity to reasons of his own control.

However, nothing happened. This rural stretch of road that tapered off to the distant communities was not often walked. There were not any travelers to investigate as passing curiosities. The only action that occurred in the opening hour was a small family of deer crossing the path and a squirrel that failed to jump between the treetops.

“You should have taken the book,” Valentin heard Maeve say to him from her sitting position. She was using some of the fabric that she purchased to sew a green outfit for someone half her size.

“Bad novels are a different kind of torture,” Valentin replied, shifting his position to find that his left leg had fallen asleep. Uncomfortable needles buzzed throughout the limb.

Nothing turned into nothing. Ortus rose, sat at its peak, and fell back towards the ground without anything that Valentin could even pretend to be the incoming Bothair. He had given up on seeing his target once zenith had come and gone. Instead, he trained. Tunneling his thoughts into actions and his emotions into the burning feeling in his muscles.

He rinsed his body from a bucket of water that Maeve pulled from a nearby stream a couple hours back. It was only until darkness fully enveloped the world that he turned his back fully to the road and went back inside the cabin.

A bowl full of food that had cooled waited for him inside.

“I made some vegetable stew,” Maeve informed him. “I didn’t realize you’d be out there for so long. You can put it back over the fire if you want.”

“It is fine, thanks,” Valentin replied, wolfing down the tepid contents.

He retreated to one of the walls and slouched against it, feeling the hard wood on his back. They sat silently in the quietus night, only insects and owls making their presence known.

“I thought you would ask me what I was doing here,” Valentin commented across the room.

“I didn’t need to ask,” Maeve answered plainly. “Your ancestor cheered all night and during the ride here that you were going to go slaughter.”

Valentin sighed, finding clarity in the actions of the morning. Her purpose was perfectly. The uncomfortable broaching of words was no longer required.

“Do you intend to stop me?”

“I will not stop you from gaining revenge on those that have wronged you personally,” Maeve replied. “But only if they wronged you personally.”

Valentin frowned. The answer he received hinted at further knowledge beyond just a slaughter. He gave another disapproving glance over towards the artifact housing his fake grandfather and allowed the topic to fall into silence.

Maeve’s words dug at the cracks in Valentin’s resolve. If his actions were so righteous, then he should not feel the iron ball of shame in his stomach when he spoke to her. If this was the correct action, she would support him wholly and he would have felt no real need to hide from her. But he did hide and he did feel shame, enough to make his cheeks warm with embarrassment.

Valentin decided to change his course of action. He would need to confirm Rois’ knowledge before anything else. What would happen afterwards, he had not even the smallest inkling.

Predictably, his sleep was tortured. His mind wandered and searched for a way to satisfy all aspects of himself. He still wished to pierce Rois’ head with a javelin before she even knew what had happened and quiet the voices of anger that bellowed within him. But he knew that the unknowns would haunt the genteel places of his heart that had yet to harden. Maeve would no longer support him if she watched him murder a potentially unrelated party.

When he woke up, he still had no solid plan and his head ached from sleeplessness and the odors that hung over him during the night. When he ate a meal of rations with Maeve at dawn, he wondered how he would approach them. As she helped him put on his armor, his mind was distant.

Suddenly, it was mid-morning and Valentin could hear the sounds of saddlebags jangling through the trees. Three warriors garbed in chainmail led a woman in a black cloak atop a horse. The hood of the cloak was down, revealing the fair face of a freckled young woman. Behind them, a druid led a donkey pulling a wooden cart. Even without a general description from Médéric, it would have been impossible to mistake this group as anyone else. They did not need bother concealing their identity. This was their territory.

Sweat formed on the Valentin’s fingers, turning his gloves into swamps. His chest felt light from anticipation and tingles that felt like the flapping of tiny birds flocked inside of his stomach.

He felt the buzz of his ancestor against his leg. Reluctantly, he donned the mask.

Wear me so that I may see your actions better. Let me see your revenge.

Valentin complied, leaving the mask fastened onto his helmet. While he did not like the thought of hearing his grandfather’s voice, the mask did not hinder his visibility and he did not mind the idea of concealing his face behind another.

He unwrapped the blade of his halberd from the cloth that covered it. The grim visage of his decapitated Goddess greeted him. Maeve bristled behind him, uncomfortable will the near heretical depiction. Slowly, he moved from the cabin to the trees bordering the road.

One more second, one more breath was all that he would need to center himself and steel his resolve. His muscles were too tight, anxiety filled his head with cotton, dulling his judgments. Endless hunger thrummed in excitement for what would happen next, whatever spirit it was infused with enjoyed the prospects of combat. The mask upon his face, even more gleeful to be a spectator to the bloodshed.

He made a promise to himself. He would not attack first.

It was enough to will his conflicted body onto the road way one step at a time. He turned and faced the oncoming travelers.

They immediately tensed, drawing spears and blades and huddling closer to their liege’s horse to watch for any other ambushers waiting in the cover of the shade. Their liege dropped low onto her saddle, making her a difficult target while maintaining her ability to quickly flee. The druid hopped inside the cart, concealing their wiry frame inside of the wooden refuge.

Valentin waited patiently. He knew that his words would be meaningless until they calmed down. Any proclamations, regardless of how truthful, would only be met with distrust. So instead, he held his halberd loosely and pointed it away from the travelers.

“Who are you?” The lead guard cried out from their position in front of the horse.

“Are you Lady Rois Bothair?” Valentin called out, ignoring the guard’s request for identification. “I am looking for her.”

If the guards were attempting to be discrete, they would have failed tremendously. All three craned their necks towards the woman upon the horse and pointed their weapons at Valentin. The woman that he presumed to be Rois, in an attempt to regain an air of dignity, sat upright on her horse. She smoothed her cloak and adjusted her brown hair before clearing her throat with a dainty cough.

“I am Rois Bothair, heir to Tiarna Athdar Bothair of Aethin Wod,” Rois said with an even tone and an icy stare. “Who are you and what is your business with me to be hiding out in the woods brandishing such a grisly weapon like some sort of villain? You speak with courtesy and stand with proper posture, yet you do not have the decency to wait for a proper audience.”

“I must admit that it is not you that I have business with, Lady Rois,” Valentin revealed, continuing to ignore all requests into his identity. “It is with your cousin, Sloane, and your mother, Eimear, that I truly wished to have an audience with.”

“The Deggan and Vice Deggan of the Royal Investigators?” Rois asked with a fair bit of surprise as Valentin nodded his response. “Unfortunately, neither my mother nor my elder cousin is in Aethin Wod. You will need to wait until Faur if you wish to speak with either of them. Now. I must ask that you move off of the road lest you wish to identify yourself as an enemy of the Bothair clan.”

Valentin clicked his tongue. The guards that had so closely clung near Rois realized that there were no other attackers. They began to fan out and push up the road but remained far enough away that they could not be taken unawares but a sudden charge.

“Allow me to ask you one more question,” Valentin requested as cordially as he could. “Do you know of your mother and cousin’s deeds in d’Gauval several cycles past?”

Fingers tightened on spear shafts, draining the blood from the appendages. Eyes stared unblinking at their adversary, not a gust of wind could bade them shut. Limbs trembled like branches in a storm.

“d’Gauval?” Rois asked, mostly to herself. She placed her chin in the crease between her thumb and index finger and tilted her head. “Yes, my clan was dispatched on behalf of our Sovereign some cycles ago. My mother executed a tiarna for the crime of treason against the crown and obstruction of an investigation. If you are hired by his son to obtain revenge, I encourage you to reconsider.”

Valentin’s stomach felt like it dropped onto the road. His mouth felt dry, drier than Allbost. Tiarna Lunoult had died for him. Yet another sacrifice for his life.

Thoughts scurried from his head. Deliberation was no longer necessary. Empathy and morality and logic fled their posts. The only remaining occupant holding the reins to his corporeal body was rage and indignation.

This could not stand.

“It is your mother who is the villain!” Valentin bellowed at Rois Bothair with a voice that rumbled with infused thunder. The sudden change in the volume caused the woman to flinch as birds absconded from their roosts in the treetops. “It is your clan who should be executed and excised from this plane. Even if you did not lift the blade that removed Tiarna Lunoult’s head, I will treat you as if you had.”

He moved his halberd ever so slightly. Just a twitch was all it took for the guards to react. They took the first step towards their foe, still several paces of distance between them.

“Lady Rois, you must flee!” Shouted the guard in the center. They did not turn their head to address their liege. To move their eyes from their adversary would be the same as abandoning their post entirely.

As the horse turned and galloped away, as the guards bore down upon him, Valentin reached down with his left hand and grabbed a rock from the dirt. It felt to be half the size of his palm. His hand already sparked before he even felt the edges press against his gloves. Favor crackled from his fingertips and spread all the way up his arm to his shoulder. He twisted his torso, tensing it like a bowstring as he pulled his arm backwards.

He felt the rock against his left index finger, the signal he needed to unleash his energy. A sharp pain exited Valentin’s finger as the rock flung forth. A burst of wind puffed clouds of dust. Eyes changed direction away from the Valentin and towards the projectile. Their hands were too tight to their weapons, their momentum unceasingly focused ahead. There was no stopping, there was no miraculous twisting of the body to heroically foil the attempt. Just looks of panic and a lack of focus.

The rock was not destined to hit Rois Bothair. A seldom trained left-handed throw by Valentin was not accurate enough to pierce the woman at that distance. However, the beast beneath her was too large a target to be spared from the attack.

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A thud against the horse’s rump caused a visible ripple of skin and hair like a disrupted pond. Skin ripped as the rock formed a bloody comet’s trail up the horse’s flesh. Each ridge, each point tore a jagged path that finally ended on the other side of the beast’s rear leg. The red rock clacked against bone and careened back into the woods to slam against a tree.

The horse did not whinny until the damage had already concluded. Its leg instantly went limp and the animal tumbled to the ground, taking the rider with it.

As Rois Bothair disappeared in a cloud of dust and animal blood, Valentin’s halberd was already cutting a path towards the oncoming guards. The tip of the weapon whistled a tune of death as it plunged into the leftmost guard. Their mail shirt offered little resistance to the empowered blow. A scraping of rib bone against metal reverberated down the halberd’s shaft to tell Valentin the story of its travel.

Their comrade’s wet gasp flipped the guard’s attention from their dismounted liege. The impaled warrior dropped their weapon and attempted to grip both hands upon Endless Hunger. Valentin yanked the weapon sideways, ripping a large gash across the flesh before pulling the halberd out.

Knees buckled and the guard fell to their knees from the fatal blow. Hands pressed against the wound in a futile attempt to keep life within their body. Their eyes were milky and unfocused as they leaked crimson into the road.

Unable to focus on the status of their liege, the other two decided to focus on eliminating Valentin first. They coordinated their steps, hopping in opposite directions to flank their adversary. Two paired stabs targeted their enemy. One aimed toward his chest and the other aimed at his knees, attempting to force one strike to land true. Energy sprayed out from the gaps in the armor around their joints.

Valentin’s muscles moved from memory. A slight infusion of power into his foot, a small shift in weight from leg to leg. He pivoted his stance and slid his foot from harm’s way. He changed his grip on the halberd’s shaft and pushed it forwards, deflecting the strike at his chest.

Perhaps a second passed and plumes of dust spread over the stretch of road. The smoke screen was quickly blown away by Valentin’s sweeping swing as both guards took a step back. They immediately pounced again, their attacks tantalizingly close to finding their target. A finger’s breadth between ending the fight.

The guards could not fight Valentin with the passive control one would use when fighting a wild boar. Whinnies from the horse and howls of pain kept spurring them away from a more guaranteed victory and towards aggression.

Valentin, himself, was trapped for the moment. His opponents were as skilled as any deggan and seemed to have more than an adequate amount of favor. Their spears had metal shafts that he could not easily snap. More troubling for him was that they were disciplined. He hoped to goad one into stepping out of place in impatience to get to Rois. No matter what sounds of anguish spread from the liege, they remained steadfast.

He could go after one with reckless abandon to ensure a more manageable duel, but they would certainly carve a piece out of him as payment for his victory. He did not feel death looming over him. He did not fear either of them. Reminders of the consequences of carelessness did permeate his mind, discouraging him from aggression. Even when caught in a pincer, he must be the one to drag the fight into a battle of endurance and the depth of one’s favor.

The dance continued. Grunts and clanging echoed out through the woods to sing the songs of this unnatural clash of beasts. Blows constantly landed short of their intended target. Breaths grew ragged from exertion. Sweat pooled on brows and brought salty waterfalls into the eyes of the combatants. Muscles burned and protested with each strike and step they were ordered to deliver by the soul captaining it.

Valentin began to lose his posture. His shoulders drooped and his evasion was growing more and more inefficient. The guards kept attacking, their own strikes growing weaker and inaccurate. It appeared that all three may collapse before a true winner would be determined.

With far more to lose and believing they the advantage, the guards moved for a decisive blow. The focus and desperation could be seen in dilated pupils that peeped through the slits of their helmets. Spear tips aimed at Valentin’s stomach and spine. Sparks cascaded from their limbs as they squeezed their veins of all the energy they could extract.

A flash of light and a loud boom echoed over the battlefield. Their exhausted prey no longer looked at the brink of consciousness. Lightning arced from the eyeholes of the jubilant face mask. A flash of metal swung before a guard, digging the blade of the halberd into the guard’s helmet. The steel helmet stood little chance against the blade made of Ciorrú Iron. It dented before splitting, allowing the blade to embed into the guard’s skull.

As the dead guard died in an instant and crumpled to the ground, Valentin let go of Endless Hunger. He smashed the surviving lead guard’s thrusting spear with his forearm. Dull pain throbbed in his vambrace. An empowered step put him right in front of the guard.

Before the lead guard could do anything, Valentin had already stretched his arms out. With a thunderous boom, Valentin’s hands careened from both sides into the lead guard’s head. The helmet offered some resistance, but ultimately crumpled in a popping sound. Blood and viscera squeezed through the eye slits to coat the smiling mask with crimson.

The guard’s body slipped from Valentin’s bloody grasp and onto the ground. He looked down at his blood-soaked hands, small scraps of favor swam in the dead guard’s blood.

Valentin pressed a finger up below the mask he licked the bloody leather and felt a surge of energy course into his veins. He tilted his head back and felt rejuvenation flow into his body. He could easily fight again now. This opponent was truly strong.

He felt electric.

Valentin planted his foot onto the lifeless chest of a guard. A spurt of blood leaked from the wound. He gripped Endless Hunger with both hands and wrenched the blade from the skull. Blood coated the blade and covered the engraving of the Mother in gore to create a sight that most make the faithful collapse to their knees. The smell of offal and drifting souls already filled his nose. The battle fervor made his mind and body feel weightless. His newly siphoned power made him feel stronger.

He heard screaming up the road. Rois, who had finally been separated from her flailing horse, lied motionless on the ground. She had watched the fight and had viewed its grisly conclusion. Now, she knew that she was next.

“Stay away from me!” Rois screeched at Valentin. “Please come no closer!”

Words would be insufficient to bar Valentin from approaching her. He took measured, unburdened steps towards her. Her body wriggled, her right leg kicked frantically, but it seemed her body was incapable of rising.

When Valentin stood over her, he gazed upon the broken woman. Her left side was crushed in the fall and subsequent flailing. Her left leg bent and twisted, broken in several places. Fingers and elbows were popped in unnatural angles like snapped twigs. Cuts caked with dirt covered her cheeks. Helpless tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

“P-please,” she pleaded, her face contorted into silent sobs that could not form sounds. “Please let me live.”

A pitiable sight. She could not stop Valentin from ending her life, allowing him to treat her leisurely. He knelt beside her, his grinning mask dripping the blood of her guards upon her face. She winced at the sensation and, upon realizing what it was, began to weep more.

“Tell me what you know about the heir hunts?” Valentin demanded.

Rois quivered at the sharp tone. She raised her hand over face to meekly shield herself from Valentin. Choking back tears, she weakly cleared her voice.

“I-I don’t know a-any-thing a-about heir hunts,” she stammered before swallowing her tears and calming slightly. “My mother never spoke much about her investigations, less so after she returned from Povia a few cycles back. Deserters burned an entire village to ash. There were no survivors.”

“Your mother ensured there were no survivors,” Valentin asserted with a snarl. “It was through the Bothair clan that countless died on the whims of our sovereign. It was the actions of your mother and clan that you find yourself in the dirt. If you truly did not know of their transgressions, then I will feel anger on your behalf. Curse the sky that you were left naïve to the evils of your clan. Your peace was built upon my back.”

Valentin gripped Endless Hunger and slowly rose to his feet. He needed to do this. He needed to send a message to Eimear Bothair and all that supported her clan. He was dangerous and he knew where they lived. Let them fear him. Let them look over their shoulders at night in worry that his visage hid within the shadows.

“Do you know what I had to endure to get here?” Valentin roared rhetorically, knowing that the woman likely never struggled in her life. “Do you know what I experienced? Do you know how I’ve felt?”

“Ah, so you were wronged,” Rois said solemnly, her eyes closed and her face looking strangely peaceful. “Your words are wrought with too much anguish to be duplicitous. I still choose to believe in my mother, but I’m sorry you suffered. You didn’t deserve whatever happened to you.”

How strangely words could affect one so deeply. Where he expected anger and vitriol and argument, he found empathy and regret. An apology was strong enough to cause his heart to waver. She did not even know what he had experienced, yet she claimed he did not deserve it all the same. Anger’s grip loosened, allowing for other thoughts and emotions to flood into his mind. The halberd slid in his grasp and the base planted into the ground. He stood still over Rois Bothair with uncertainty.

Why have you stopped? Valentin’s ancestor spoke directly into his mind. Don’t tell me a few tears are enough to wash away your rage? There are no innocents in this world! There are none that are worth mercy! Now, lift your blade and end it.

“Wait!” Maeve called out. She ran down the road from the cabin, her face shrouded in cloth. She carried her sack of belongings over her shoulder.

Valentin acquiesced to the request, he even welcomed it. He needed more time to deliberate, to decide what was best for him.

“You cannot kill her,” Maeve asserted, her eyes glowing with adamant belief inside the cloth covering. “You can see that she possesses no favor. She cannot be the one that made you feel so. Her death will give you nothing.”

This druid speaks of ideals. His ancestor hissed in his skull. Ask her the actions humanity took to allow her to spew such drivel. Did we fall back on ideals of softness to get the freedom we deserved? No. We are beasts of revenge. It is only when we achieve our vengeance when we truly feel alive. Do you think that sparing her will heal you? Do you think allowing Bothair to escape from this ambush will make them regret what they’ve done?

“Close your ears to your ancestor,” Maeve pleaded, privy to the private words delivered to Valentin. “You know what a miserable creature it is.”

Do not do things halfway!

Valentin pressed his hands to his ears. It was too loud. He couldn’t think anymore, his thoughts were overridden by the voices of others. Other wills were trying to gain dominance over him, making him a puppet for their ideals. He would not buckle to the expectations of others.

“Silence!” Valentin shouted. His voice created shockwaves that drowned out the noise. “Speak no longer, either of you! I am the one that gets to choose! I am the one who is in control!”

Maeve took a small step backwards at Valentin’s outburst. She placed raised her hands and imitated a surrender. “Alright, alright, you’re in control. You get to make the choice.”

His ancestor similarly went quiet. He knew that the old goat still had more that it wanted to say, he could feel the spirit thrum in frustration against his skin. However, it did not want to risk being violently removed by a raging grandson.

Valentin sighed. Through his tantrum, he regained control and, with it, sole responsibility over what happened next. His heart no longer felt anger towards Rois Bothair, there would be no true satisfaction found in her death. It would be easy to fall back on Maeve’s suggestion and leave here to regroup and try again when the timing was more opportune. Yet, he could not help but remember all the times that his kindness was scorned. People do not respect forgiveness, Eimear Bothair will not fear his capabilities if he could not dispatch of an unfavored cripple. He needed to do something.

“You are right, my friend,” Valentin conceded to Maeve. “But my ancestor’s words should not be censored by your disagreement. The Bothair clan must be made to know that I am not soft-hearted. The must know that I finish what I start.”

He paced back and forth, mulling over what he should take from Rois. Her hands? Her eyes? Her tongue?

As he gazed down the road, he saw the corpses of the three guards that he slew. The thoughts in his head came to a consensus and conjured up a scheme. There was still a prize worth having.

“Rois Bothair, I will give to you a gift I was never offered, a choice,” Valentin announced, his eyes drifting down to the broken woman. “Your first choice is to die here. Sacrifice yourself and I will not pursue your clan any further. Or, I will spare your life and will never again pursue you. You will be able to live your life without worrying about me ever again. But, you will allow me to drink the blood of your guards.”

“You’re underhanded,” Maeve spat her words at Valentin. Her eyes pierced him with an indignant stare. “How could you make a person choose between such things?”

“This is the price I’ve determined to prevent this from becoming meaningless,” Valentin said, leaning in closer to speak to Maeve in a low voice. “It is as much your choice as it is hers. Without being able to safely drink it, I will only have one option.”

Maeve’s focus turned inwards and she stepped away from Valentin.

He resumed his pacing, waiting patiently for Rois to come to a decision. A frown crossed his face as he walked. The longer that she took to make her decision, the worse that the blood would taste when he finally got to drink it. It would grow tepid and unpleasant with a disgusting consistency.

“So what will it be, Rois?” Valentin asked, masking his growing impatience. “Will it be your life or the souls of those that serve you?”

“T-they would have wanted me to live,” Rois replied, her face twisted in a deep self-hatred. “My mother and cousin would want me to live. I-I do not wish to die.”

Valentin glanced a questioning look towards Maeve. The druid turned in a frustrated huff and walked towards the corpses. She revealed a large bowl from her bag and began to extract the metallic liquid from its lifeless owners. Words were whispered into the contents of the bowl, mantras of peace and forgiveness to dispel the malice of the spirits.

Maeve returned with the bowl. She averted her eyes in protest to him but still held out the offering nonetheless. Valentin shifted his mask to reveal his mouth and emptied the contents inside. Fortunately, it was still hot with exertion and went down with a trained ease.

Valentin dropped the bowl as an intense rush of foreign energy charged through his veins like wild stallions. Those he slew were truly strong. Never before did he ever face such resistance to his assimilations. He squeezed his eyes shut and watched the favor course behind his eyelids. He had to focus. Surround the new power with his own. Attack it. Subjugate it. Infuse it back into his own cycling favor.

It took a few moments for Valentin to fully tame the new power. Once every defiant scrap had been swept away in his mass of energy, his body felt incredible. He truly had not seen such quality in some time and understood just why the Bothair clan allowed her to travel with only three guards.

“It is done,” Valentin announced, allowing a small snap of lightning to flow over his fingertips. “Come, we need to leave.”

“Wait,” Rois protested, raising her right arm to reach out to her assailant. “What about me? Weren’t you to spare my life?”

Valentin tilted his head at Rois’ question. “Whatever do you mean? I am going to leave you alive. You didn’t think I would take your broken body back to your castle and allow myself to be executed by your warriors, did you?”

Rois balled her right hand and shed tears of frustration.

“Don’t worry, someone will go and inform your clan of where you are,” Valentin reassured.

“Who?” She asked.

Valentin took a few steps to the donkey cart. A tarp was draped over the contents inside. He tapped his gloves knuckles on the wood, creating dull thuds. He gripped the cover to show a young druid cowering inside. The one-lined boy looked at him with a face of frozen panic, his mind preventing him from fighting of fleeing.

“Get up,” Valentin ordered the druid.

The druid scurried out of the back of the cart and stood stiffly. His knees shook and his eyes spun in his head as he absorbed the scene around him.

“He will go back to Aethin Wod and tell your clan of what happened,” Valentin informed, pointing at the druid.

“M-me?” The young druid stuttered.

“Yes, you,” Valentin confirmed, before pointing in the direction of the city. “The longer you stand there shaking and quivering before me, the longer it will take for Rois Bothair to receive aid. Start running unless it is your wish that she sleeps on the road, exposing herself to the night air and whatever beasts patrol this area.”

The druid looked at Rois and back to Valentin. He turned and broke out into a sprint. Arms failed unceremoniously and without training. If he persisted, he may be able to reach the city just after zenith and Rois would be recovered in the early evening. But that was only if the young druid pushed himself the entire way back. Each break, each lessening in pace would only put the Heir of Aethin Wod in deeper and deeper peril.

Valentin saw that Maeve was staring at him, her medicine pouch held close to her chest. She gave a quick look to Rois before looking back at Valentin.

“You may tend to her wounds if you wish,” Valentin answered Maeve’s silent request. “I will not leave you behind.”

As Maeve rummaged through her bag for treatments, Valentin walked back down the road to retrieve Vescal. The loud noises and lack of suitable hitching post had caused the horse to retreat deeper in the forest. However, he was well trained by Ferron and did not stray far from where he was meant to remain.

Valentin ushered the horse over towards him with gentle whistle. Vescal obeyed immediately, stepping to his owner’s command thoughtlessly. He grabbed the horse’s reins and slowly led him to the road and, further still, to Maeve.

Rois had fallen unconscious in the moments that Valentin had left. Peace finally blanketed her visage and her chest rose and fell with gentle breaths. Maeve was scouring the woods for suitable sticks to splint some of the nastier breaks.

“I gave her something for the pain,” Maeve explained from her position off the road. She pulled up a large branch that leaned against a pine tree. “I put something extra in so that she would fall asleep. Moving her limbs to properly set them will be agonizing to be conscious for.”

With the two thick branches, Maeve straightened Rois’ leg and tied a branch to either side using some twine. With far less difficulty, she repeated the process to the snapped arm. Uncorking her waterskin, she filled a small bowl with water and soaked it with a cloth. She wiped Rois’ face and cleaned the debris from the cuts and gashes in the woman’s face.

She stood and frowned at the shoddy work, unable to do any more than this to repair the damage caused to the body.

“I could do more, but I do not want to die for your revenge,” Maeve commented as she clambered onto Vescal.

“Goodbye, Rois Bothair,” Valentin said to the unconscious woman. “Pray the Mother blesses you in a way I was not.”