Liam grew up riding horses with Alex. The steady rhythmic pounding of their hooves as they galloped across the grassy plains outside the village brought Liam a sense of excitement and joy.
A sound which now created nothing but fear.
They ran as fast as they could, heading straight for the dense thicket of trees that marked the forest edge, knowing the horse wouldn’t be able to follow.
An arrow whistled past Liam's face, thudding into the ground just in front of him. He glanced back, pushing mana to his eyes to increase his night vision and turning everything a washed-out grayish color.
He could see the rider.
It was a man wearing the same leather armor as the other attackers. He was drawing his bow back to fire again.
Another arrow flew towards Liam, the boy just barely managing to duck out of its path.
Liam heard a sharp cry of pain as they entered the forest. Slowing down a little to navigate the dense foliage that surrounded them.
After running for another few hundred meters, they stopped to listen for signs that they’d been followed. Nothing.
Evelyn set Kira down and leaned against a tree, breathing hard.
“I think we lost him” Liam said, turning to look at his mother.
She looked ill. The color had drained from her face, and it was clear she was struggling to stay upright.
“Ma, what’s wrong? You don’t look so good” he said.
She slid down the trunk of the tree, sitting on the ground and using it to prop herself up. That’s when he saw it, the arrow that was stuck in the right side of her back below her shoulder blade.
She strained against the pain, her voice not much more than a raspy whisper.
“I’m sorry, my darlings.”
“You’re going to have to keep going without me for now.”
“No! What’re you saying Mama? Why would we leave you?” Kira cried; Liam made sure that she couldn’t see the arrow so as not to alarm her.
He knew that Evelyn wouldn’t be able to travel farther like this. He knew not to remove the arrow, doing so would only worsen the bleeding and he had no way of stopping it. He cursed himself for not learning healing magic sooner. At least then he would have been able to stop the bleeding and stabilize her.
“I’ll catch up to you, don’t worry” Evelyn said, reaching out her hand to squeeze Kira’s.
“We’ll go find help so just stay here and wait for us ok Ma?” Liam said, kneeling and placing a jacket he had packed over her. He set her pack down against the tree next to her.
He knew that it would take several days to reach Midwood Hollow. Chances were slim that they would be able to retrieve someone that would be able to help her in time, but the pack held food and equipment that would be vital to her survival if she was going to even have a chance.
Evelyn gave a weak smile and put a hand on her son’s arm.
“Look after your sister” she said.
Liam squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head.
“I love you mom”
He was fighting back tears, trying not to scare Kira. She was already crying softly.
Liam backed away from their mother, looking at her and smiling sadly.
He grabbed Kira’s hand and checked the compass he had grabbed.
They started walking eastward, trying to move quickly but not overexerting himself or Kira.
They had to get far enough away to throw off anyone that might try to follow them into the forest.
There was a good seventy miles between the siblings and Midwood Hollow. Liam thought he might be able to walk about twenty miles a day if he was alone and walked for about eight hours, but with Kira it would be closer to eleven or twelve. She wouldn’t be able to keep that pace for very long though since she hadn’t been training like Liam.
He was grateful that he had paid attention during his land navigation lessons with his stepfather, he knew these woods well because of them. He’d be able to use the terrain to their advantage.
“When will Mama and Papa catch up to us?” Kira said after they had been walking for nearly an hour.
She had stopped crying; her eyes were puffy and red and the look on her face suggested she had more of an idea as to what was happening than she let on.
“I’m sure we will see them soon” he said trying to comfort her, but the way his voice cracked as he said it made the words lose their desired effect.
The rain was still coming down hard as ever and the two children were shivering from the cold as they pushed on.
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Jack wheeled his horse about. There was no way he could ride into the dense underbrush that lined the entrance to the forest, and he wasn’t willing to chase after the woman and her children alone on foot without reporting to the commander first.
He had struck the woman with an arrow so he knew they wouldn’t be getting far, and he doubted the children would be able to make it far without someone to guide them.
He was riding as fast as he could back to the town, slowing down to a trot as he reached the gate.
There were corpses everywhere, the rain was mixing with the pools of blood and creating small red streams that made it seem like the village itself was bleeding.
Jack knew what he had signed up for when he took this job. He knew how many would die because of his young master’s plan. The nearly one hundred innocents that would lose their lives.
But he had gone along with it. The payout for this job would be enough for him to settle his family on a nice plot of land and retire.
After tonight he’d never speak of the horrors that took place here ever again.
As his horse trotted through the streets, he saw a few of the knights that had come with them dragging a screaming woman into one of the stores.
He looked away, an image of his daughter coming unbiddenly to his mind. He wished the men would just kill the woman and be done with it. They were being unnecessarily cruel. Jack wasn’t willing to participate in such savagery, but he couldn’t stop it either. They were far above him in both rank and status. Doing so was very likely to get him severely punished or killed.
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He dismounted his horse once he was in front of the village’s guard house, walking in the front door and looking around. The tables had been arranged into two lines on either side of the large room. A separate table had been set at the far end directly in front of the door creating a horseshoe and allowing its occupants to see anyone who entered the building.
Jack approached the table, the young man who sat in the middle looked up at him. His red hair was a few shades lighter than the blood that stained his leather cuirass.
“Jack! Perfect timing, we just found the guard captain’s wine cellar. Why don’t you sit down and join the victory celebration” the young man said smiling.
“Thank you, my lord, but there is a matter I need to bring to your attention” Jack said bowing.
“Well spit it out. We need to prepare to move out soon and I’d like to enjoy what time we have to rest before we set sail again” the man said leaning back in his chair.
“There was a family that escaped into the forest. A woman and her two children” Jack said.
“What!” the young lord shouted, rising from his chair.
“I hit the woman with an arrow before they escaped. She won’t get far, and the children will be helpless without someone to guide them. They are days away from the nearest town and no one knows what is happening here, no help will come for them. There’s no need to worry my lord” Jack said.
The young man sighed, leaning on the table. The room had gone deathly still when he shouted. All eyes were focus on the two of them.
“Even so I don’t like to leave loose ends. Vincent, grab a few of the men who have some skill in tracking magic and chase after them. They might just die on their own, but I don’t want to leave it up to chance”
“Yes, my lord” Vincent replied, motioning for two of his men to follow him as he left the dining hall.
Jack felt slightly guilty about having spoken up about the children, there was no telling what would happen if the three men found them.
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Liam and Kira were curled up in a blanket together in the trunk of a fallen tree that was big enough to have fit their whole family. They had traveled for nearly six hours before the rain and the cold urged them to rest their weary muscles.
It was sometime after daybreak, daylight spilling in through the tangle of roots.
“Kira, it’s time to wake up. We need to keep moving” he said.
“Mmm, just a few more minutes” she replied.
Liam helped her sit up, handing her a waterskin which she took.
“We are still several days from Midwood Hollow so we need to cover as much ground as we can during the day” he said thinking aloud.
After a few more minutes of grumbling about getting up, the pair continued on their journey.
The day went by relatively uneventfully.
They stopped to eat some of their dried rations and fill their waterskins from a nearby stream around noon.
As the sky started to turn orange, Liam began looking for a good place to set up camp.
He wouldn’t risk a fire. During the day the smoke could give away their position to anyone searching for them. And at night the light from a fire would be visible for quite a distance now that the trees had become less dense the deeper into the forest they went.
After walking for nearly an hour the pair decided to stop and use a natural blind that had been created when two trees had fallen across each other.
Liam began to set up traps to hopefully catch some small game during the night.
When he returned, he found Kira sitting quietly staring at nothing, a blank look on her face.
Liam wasn’t looking forward to the conversation they were going to have to have, he honestly didn’t want to be the one to say it since he didn’t trust his own emotions. He was only able to keep going because of his sister, knowing that if he broke down now like he wanted to it would likely get them both killed.
They had put significant distance between them and their village in the last day, heading east into the forest and angling slightly north to reach the river that ran right past Midwood Hollow. But it wouldn’t be enough to throw off their pursuers should they have any sort of half decent tracking mage.
Tracking mages could read a mana trail like how dogs could track a particular scent. While most normal people wouldn’t be able to tell the subtle differences between different mana’s, Trackers trained specifically for that purpose.
Liam had tried to be careful when he used mana, limiting it to only a few times when they initially set up camp to see if he could sense anyone around them to make sure it was safe to stop. But his mana control was far from perfect, and he was worried the traces that he left behind trying to protect them might put them in more danger since mana could linger for a couple of days before dissipating and merging back with the ambient magic.
He wrapped his sister in a blanket and sat next to her. She leaned into his shoulder and closed her eyes, exhaustion taking her and quickly falling into a fitful sleep.
As Liam stared up at the canopy of leaves above them, he wondered why this had happened to them. Aside from the silver mine that was just north of the village, they didn’t have anything of value.
While silver was used to make coins and other luxury goods, there were many larger mines that produced significantly more than theirs. The port wasn’t in a strategic position from a militaristic standpoint. And about a hundred and fifty miles to the southwest was Castle Harbor, one of the largest exporters of magical artifacts on this side of the continent. It would have made far more sense for them to have raided a few of their ships.
Just one of those ships would have been worth as much as a month’s worth of silver from the Northmoor mines. And they wouldn’t have needed to lose as many men to take them as they did to take an entire village.
As he contemplated the rationality behind their mysterious attackers’ identities and reasoning, he started to hear sounds in the distance.
He stiffened, going deathly still while trying to make out what was coming. He risked using his mana just a bit to increase his hearing ability. Voices, two maybe three of them, were only a few hundred meters from where the siblings lay. It sounded like they were arguing over something, but Liam couldn’t make out what at this distance even as loud as they were being.
It was fully dark now, the moon overhead casting shifting shadows through the leaves and giving the eerie forest an ethereal feeling. He was thankful though; with this much moonlight he would be able to move without needing to rely on enhanced vision.
They would have to move quickly but quietly.
Liam woke Kira gently, placing a finger to his lips to indicate that they needed to be quiet.
He carefully placed the blanket back in his bag and slung it over his shoulder.
Helping his sister to her feet, they carefully made their way through the winding trees. Careful of the gnarled roots that poked up from the soil trying to snag at their feet.
They made it a few hundred meters and stopped when they heard a scream.
Liam with his hearing still enhanced so he could keep track of which way their trackers were headed, heard one of the men cry out in pain and anger.
The man hadn’t been paying much attention to the ground and had stepped onto one of Liam’s traps. The spring-loaded spike which had enough power behind it to kill a large rabbit had gone straight through the top of the man’s boot and deep into his foot.
Liam celebrated inwardly; this would slow them down considerably.
He doubted they would have brought a healer along with them and potions would only stop the bleeding and increase the rate of recovery, not heal him all at once.
With this new development they pushed on a little faster, still being careful to make as little noise as possible.
They traveled like this for several hours, only pausing for a few moments at a time to drink water and listen for any sign of their pursuers.
The two of them made it to the river and followed it east keeping the water to their left as they were able to move quicker now that there were less trees along the embankment.
Hours passed and Kira was pushing herself hard, struggling to stay on her feet after hardly sleeping for two days. Liam was also having a hard time keeping up with the grueling pace he had set for them. But only death, or worse, awaited them should they slow and wind up getting caught.
Daylight was beginning to peak over the horizon now. The first rays of the sun reflecting off the water and splashing across their weary faces.
Liam squinted into the light. It was making it hard for him to see anything that might be coming towards them, but their only other options would be to cross the river to the far side shoreline or to head back into the trees which would slow their progress.
While he was thinking this, a shout came from behind them. He turned his head to see what it was, and all the blood drained from his face when he saw the man running towards them.
“Kira! Run!” He yelled as he grabbed her hand and pulled her along after him.
They only made it another hundred meters before their pursuer reached them. The man grabbing hold of Kira’s arm and dragging her from Liam’s grasp.
Liam spun around in an instant, drawing his dagger as he did. The man had Kira by the hair, his own dagger held against her throat.
“Drop it! Or I’ll bleed this one here and now” the man said, his voice was raspy with exertion.
“Let her go!” Liam screamed holding his ground, looking for a way out of this.
“I said drop it” the calm low threat in the man’s voice made Liam pause.
The man pressed harder with his blade. A small trickle of blood seeping from the cut he’d just made under Kira’s chin making her wince.
Liam dropped his dagger from a trembling hand. He knew there was nothing that he could do, not against a foe at least twice his size that he didn’t have the drop on and had his sister hostage.
“There’s a good lad. Now kick it away” the man said, moving the dagger away from Kira’s neck while not taking his eyes off Liam, squinting as the sun continued to rise at the young man’s back.
As Liam looked down to kick his weapon away from him, he heard the man grunt. When he glanced back up, he was startled to see an arrow shaft sticking out of the man’s eye.