The horse foundered under Caterina and her father two miles from their home.
Her heart broke for the animal. It had blown itself out, giving her every ounce of its energy, and it had nothing left, not even to regain its feet. Under any other circumstances, she’d have stopped and let it rest hours ago. Her throat tightened as she put her pistol to its head and pulled the trigger. She hated herself for killing it, but she’d already pushed it past its breaking point. Doing anything else would be torturing the animal. She hadn’t had a choice but to push the poor stallion.
Her father was dying!
He’d been trying to speak for the last hour, but she couldn’t bear to hear him. Instead, she’d listened to the thump-thump of the black warhorse’s hooves against the forest paths. It mirrored her heartbeat, and neither slowed until the moment the poor beast had collapsed.
Kneeling next to her father in her blood-stained gambeson, weapons forgotten next to the horse’s body, she unbuckled his mail coat and cut away the wool shirt below it. The hole in his back didn’t look like much. A coin from her pouch would cover the wound perfectly.
It was the damage inside that was killing him.
Tears welled in her eyes as she bundled cloth and pressed it against the bleeding wound. They started flowing, then stopped as his hand closed around hers. “Stop,” he whispered. “Listen carefully.”
“I will, father,” she said, helplessly pressing her hands against the hole in his back. Blood soaked her fingers, but she kept the pressure on it as best she could.
“Six decades ago, there was a nobleman. He owned all the land around the Old King’s Road. The forest. The villages. Everything. He was…” he coughed. “He was fair. His people lived comfortable lives, with enough in each harvest to sell for a few silvers each year. The people were happy.”
Caterina held her breath, trying to keep from sobbing. Her eyes widened. It was one last story from her father!
“Not everyone was happy…with this noble, though. He had rivals in the king’s court, and one day, they conspired against him. They accused him—falsely—of every crime they could think of—and a dozen embarrassments on the side. The king had no choice. It was the word…of a dozen nobles against one lord. He stripped the lord’s title and lands from him, divided them among his rivals, and exiled him from his home.”
He coughed again, his face a mask of pain, and Caterina slipped a hand into his. Even as pale as he was and as much as he shivered, his grip threatened to crush her fingers. After a minute, he continued, voice fading. “The next week, the Highwayman struck for the first time. He attacked the carriage of one of the lords who’d conspired against the nobleman and left no survivors.”
“You’ve been the Highwayman for a century?” Caterina asked. It didn’t match the story he’d told her earlier, not the one about being a farmer and losing his wife to a noble’s promises. It also felt impossible. He was old, yes, but not centuries old!
“No.” Antonio coughed. He stared up at the trees, and Caterina saw the light starting to fade from his eyes. She squeezed his hand even as his grip weakened. “The stories say the Highwayman can’t be killed. I’m the fifth one, though. As the first Highwayman grew old, he realized he wasn’t ready to let go. He passed the mask and sword down to a successor, who passed it down. And so, too, did it come to me. The Highwayman cannot be killed, Caterina.”
He coughed again and reached up, pulling her closer until she could feel the heat of his breath on her ear. “I’ll ask you again to set this all aside.”
“No. No, I can’t.” Tears flowed freely now, and a sob wracked her body.
“Then do three things for me.”
She nodded. She couldn’t speak.
“First, bury me in the woods near the waterfall.”
“Yes.” That was his favorite spot, overlooking the cave. He’d spent hours there, nursing a glass of red wine and watching the creek cascade into the cavern’s depths. It’d be a perfect resting place for Antonio Romero.
“Second, the Highwayman leaves no survivors.”
For a moment, she refused to understand his request. Then she thought back to the man in the carriage. He’d lived. Antonio—no, this request was the Highwayman’s, not her father’s—needed the myth to live on, and he’d chosen her to do it. She nodded again, breath catching in her throat.
“And finally, don’t let the Highwayman die.”
◄▼►
Caterina threw her shovel aside. It clattered against the hill’s rocks but, mercifully, didn’t roll down. The hole overlooked the waterfall, just as she’d promised. It’d taken hours to bring him back to their house; she’d splashed through every creek and pond she could to break up her trail like he’d taught her to. Now, the sun sank slowly to the west as she lowered his body into the pit.
She’d dressed him in his finest clothes—the ones he wore to the villages after they sorted their coins. A white linen shirt, black breeches, and a coat that went to his knees. Then she’d wrapped him in a sheet so she couldn’t see his pale, lifeless face. She’d tried hard not to touch him, but every time she had, it reminded her of the dead men at the wagon where she’d discovered his secret, but colder. Even less alive.
As she blinked back burning-hot tears and shoveled sloppy blades full of dirt over him, the earth slowly swallowed Antonio Romero. Twice, she sat down and let her anger and sorrow rip through her until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and the moon had crested the hill their—no, her—house was under before she finished. She stood beside the unmarked grave, watching the pale moonlight reflect on the waterfall and bounce through its mist. For a long time, she watched the moon and cried, occasionally looking down at something in her hand.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Then, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she slowly trudged back to the house. It wasn’t fair. She’d lost two fathers, while most women her age hadn’t lost one.
Then, another thought struck her like a thunderbolt.
She hadn’t lost two fathers. This one had been taken from her.
She looked down at the steel mask she clutched in her hand. Then she turned and ran headlong through the cave to the room by the waterfall where her father had always shaved with a straight razor in the mornings. She looked into the tiny mirror. Her face was puffy from tears, and her eyes were bloodshot.
She held up the mask so it covered her face, and the eyes of the Highwayman stared back at her, deep-brown and filled with anger as hot as a forge.
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Fernando Merici had been a lord for less than a month, and he’d already achieved something his father, gods preserve his soul, had only dared to dream of.
The Highwayman was dead.
In the comfort of the inn’s finest room, Fernando dreamed about all the possibilities his pistol shot had opened up. The Merici family had controlled Highmarket for generations, but his father had made the bold decision to take over the Bernoulli family’s failing enterprises in Three Towers. It’d been a hard fourteen years for the family as they recovered from that debt, and Fernando had grown up poor compared to the other lordlings, but now the legendary Highwayman was dead, and the Old King’s Road could once again be opened to traffic.
The Merici family stood on the cusp of greatness, and for his next move, he had a proposal for the king and his daughter—one that could launch him or his heirs to the throne.
A bell rang outside for a moment, then went silent. Fernando shivered and pulled himself from under the blankets. Nude, he stood and stalked to the fourth-floor window. The village was quiet. No one moved on the rough dirt roads, and the moon rose over the hills to the south.
He shivered again and pulled on a robe. Something picked at the back of his mind. He hadn’t seen the body. The boy had taken it and disappeared into the woods before he could finish the deed. What if the Highwayman wasn’t really dead?
Then he laughed. No man survived a gutshot like that. It might take him hours or even days, but he’d die all the same. He’d done it! He’d killed the man who could not be killed and survived the man who left no survivors. When word got out, he, Lord Merici, would be a hero. That it had cost three men-at-arms was a small enough price. The Highwayman had killed hundreds over the decades.
The bell rang again, once, and the hairs on his neck stood up. A figure dropped from the village’s wall behind a house, and he flinched.
What did he have to worry about? He was surrounded by his men, the man who’d stopped a nightmare, and no one would be stupid enough to come after a lord surrounded by his guards. It had to be a burglar or something.
A pistol rang out, and the bell started ringing frantically.
“Guards! Guards!” He shouted, scrambling for his breeches and hopping around on one foot, then the other, as he pulled them on and looked for his gun at the same time. His throat tightened. He hadn’t seen the body, but the Highwayman had to be dead.
So, who was that out there?
His guards burst in, swords and pistols drawn. He took a deep breath and pulled a coat on, not bothering with a shirt. “There’s someone out there shooting a pistol. Find him and bring him here. You two, stay in the inn. Everyone else, go.”
As his guards filed out, he breathed a sigh of relief and strapped his sword belt on. He still couldn’t find his damn flintlock.
The next pistol shot was closer. Much closer. So close that he could hear the glass shatter outside. He peeked out the window as a figure looked up, then disappeared into an alley—a black figure with a face that reflected the moonlight on its steely surface.
The Highwayman.
He stared at the alley in horror. How could that be? He’d seen the bullet punch through the villain’s cloak—seen him fall. He’d even seen the blood on the road! It seemed impossible that he was alive. And yet, no other bandit on the Old King’s Road wore a steel mask. No other bandit couldn’t be killed.
No other bandit left no survivors.
A pair of pistol shots crashed just outside, then the sounds of two men crossing blades in earnest. One screamed a high-pitched scream that cut off in a gurgle. Then something thumped as the winner kicked in the door.
Fernando’s nerve broke as the bell rang on and on. The village below was dark; not a single person moved on the streets, not even his guards. He opened the window and began climbing out. If he could reach the road four stories below, he could get a horse and flee. He could be safe in Highmarket by morning.
His feet touched the ground, and he started running toward the stable.
He made it ten paces before a pistol cracked, and pain ripped through his thigh. He hit the cobbles hard enough to clack his teeth together. His sword flew from his hand, and he rolled over and scrabbled at his chest for a gun that wasn’t there. A figure loomed over him, black against the moon and menacing. A small part of him noted that the Highwayman seemed thinner—slighter—than he had. But the rest only had eyes for the sparkling steel saber pointed his way.
“W-why?” He asked, feeling his leg bleed. “H-how?”
The Highwayman knelt, and Fernando stared into his eyes. They were brown, expressive as any he’d seen, and filled with anguish—and hatred. They narrowed, and a high, musical voice said, “The Highwayman leaves no survivors.”
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The steel mask shimmered in the morning sun as Caterina turned it back and forth in her hands. The smell of citrus and porridge filled the house, and she could smell it even here, but she wasn’t going back inside. Not yet. She stared at the grave for one more moment, dressed not in her woods dress but her father’s black cloak and darkened mail. She carried his saber in one hand, while his two remaining pistols were snugly strapped to her chest.
“Father, I’ve done it. Just as you asked.” The words came haltingly. “He’s dead. The Highwayman leaves no survivors. And, on my trip home, I had time to think.”
She sat down next to the freshly-churned dirt. “I’m angry, Father. I hate them for taking you from me. It burns inside me like a fire, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make it the icy wrath you held inside you. I can’t stop it from burning, and the truth is that I don’t want to try. And that scares me more than anything.
“I thought about your last request while Lord Merici’s men hunted me through the woods. And I know you didn’t mean it. You want me to be happy and safe. You’d let the Highwayman die if it meant I could live happily ever after.”
She turned the steel mask in her hands, staring at its eyes for a long moment.
“But, Father, I can’t.
“Instead, I’m going to be the best Highwayman. I’m faster than you were, and I’ve got twenty or thirty years to learn everything you knew and become the terror of the Old King’s Road. That’s what I want, Father. I want them to suffer for what they did to me. For what they did to you.”
She set one of her father’s flintlocks on Antonio’s grave, pushing it into the dirt until it formed a sort of headstone, a fitting marker for the man her father had secretly been. “You told me that the Highwayman couldn’t be killed and that he leaves no survivors. After I killed the bastard who shot you…” She stopped talking and breathed until the shivers faded. “After…that…I started thinking.”
She held the Highwayman’s mask out, sunlight reflecting across her face. “I was going to leave this for you. Maybe I still will, someday in the future. Maybe my anger will cool in time, but it’s too hot right now. That peaceful, content life would feel wrong.”
She pushed the mask up against her face and fitted the strap holding it to her face. Then she stood up. “Maybe someday I’ll let the Highwayman die and find a village man to settle down with. But not yet. And maybe not ever. You and I both know that the Highwayman leaves no survivors.”