Let’s take a step away from Camp Trin for a moment. A few miles away from Camp Trin, there’s a cute little farming community. It doesn’t have a name because it’s just that quaint and small. Just a small handful of families living off the land together. They hunt, they farm, they feast. It’s a quiet, calm life, far removed from the hustle and bustle of places like Camp Trin, New Boston, or Seven Cities. If this were a Disney movie, there would probably be a bunch of dancing cornstalks, some singing clouds, and a charming Lin Manuel rap number.
In our happy little farming community lives the happy couple of Farmer Farooq and Farmer Francine. They spend their days harvesting crops, planting seeds, and tending to their one cow, Frenchie. They’d never use Frenchie for her meat. They’d planned to at first when they acquired her, but now they just love her too much. Together, the three of them are one big, happy family. If this were a Disney movie, they would all have a rousing, showstopping song together, punctuated by a bridge with a key change in which Farmer Farooq and Farmer Francine profess their everlasting love for each other.
Unfortunately, this is not a Disney movie. Farmer Farooq spits a glob of blood out of his mouth. Through his blurry vision, he sees he’s lost a tooth as well. He’s facedown in the dirt, one eye nearly swollen shut, forehead bleeding profusely. Hands and feet tied together. Body aching. He cranes his neck up to try to get a better view of what’s going on. It’s tough to see through the sweat and swollen eye, but he can make out at least half a dozen dark figures lined up in a semicircle around him. Earlier on, he’d gotten a good look at one of them -- the one who had broken into their cabin, knocked them around a bit, and tied them up. She looked young, she couldn’t have even been 20.
There’s another dark figure standing on top of him that he can’t see at all. The figure digs the heel of her boot into the back of Farmer Farooq’s neck, shoving him back down into the dirt. He wishes he had gotten a better look at her earlier when he and Farmer Francine had been brought here into the center of their little cluster of cabins. She’s the one who’s been doing all of the talking since the group arrived this morning. She must be their leader.
“Where’s the rest of your food supply?” The figure asks. Her voice is like steel ringing in his ears.
Farmer Farooq spits a mixture of blood and dirt out of his mouth. “Please, we’ve already given you everything that we haven’t already eaten ourselves.”
Farmer Francine, who is also currently face down in the dirt with her hands and legs tied together, looks at her husband. They’re only inches apart from each other, but it feels like miles. She wants to wriggle closer to him, to at the very least feel the warmth of his skin against hers, but she’s too terrified to move. The mad woman with her boot pinning her husband’s neck, Farmer Francine worries that the slightest move might set her off. There’s no telling what she might do.
To Farmer Francine’s surprise, the mad woman takes her foot off of Farmer Farooq’s neck. At first, Farmer Francine is relieved. Maybe the mad woman will show mercy on them. They have so precious little, and they’ve already given so much away to these bandits. Hopefully they’ll realize this and go on their way. Whatever relief that Farmer Francine felt, though, dries up just as quickly as it came. Later on, Farmer Francine will swear that she heard the crunching of bone even before she saw the mad woman’s boot come crashing into Farmer Farooq’s face. Farmer Francine shuts her eyes and screams.
“I’m not asking again. Where is the rest of your food?” The mad woman waits for a reply. Frustrated when she hears none, she bends down to looks Farmer Farooq right in the eye. She discovers why Farmer Farooq hasn’t given her an answer. He can’t give her an answer. When Farmer Francine finally opens her eyes, she tries to scream again but finds no voice. The face of her husband, the face that she’s looked so longingly upon for so many years, is gone. It’s become a scrambled egg plate of hair, teeth, and blood. His eyes are glazed over and rolled back. Her husband is gone.
She finds herself squirming uncontrollably, as if her body is reacting on pure instinct while her brain reels from the realization. She tries to look up at her captor, but she feels the commanding presence of a boot against the back of her head. Snot and tears turn the dirt into mud before it even enters her mouth.
“Please,” she sputters, “Please. We don’t have anything, I promise--”
The mad woman yanks Farmer Francine’s head up off the ground. She points at one of the cabins in the clearing. “That’s your storehouse, yes?”
Farmer Francine nods frantically, tears flying off her face. She sees seven other members of her quaint little farming community, all of them bound and gagged among the surrounding bandits.
“And you expect me to believe that there’s enough food in there to feed your entire village for the winter?”
“We’re hardly a village. We’re small, just look! Only nine of us--” she looks again at her husband. She swallows the lump in her throat. “Nine of us. We don’t eat much. And with all of the wars, there just isn’t--”
The mad woman growls and slams Farmer Francine’s face back into the dirt. Her teeth dig into her lips and the taste of iron fills her mouth. She grimaces and spits it out. She’s hurting, she may even be minutes away from the same fate as her husband, but she can’t stop now. She’s been lying, of course, but there’s no way for this mad woman to know that. She saw only seven members of her community being held captive by the bandits. The hunting party that left earlier that morning still hasn’t come back yet. With any luck, the bandits won’t realize that their strongest fighters are yet to be captured. She holds out hope that they’ll return soon, and with enough strength to save her and all the others.
The mad woman presses her face even harder into the ground. “I don’t like being lied to.”
“I’m not lying, I swear.”
The mad woman squats down next to Farmer Francine. “There are nine of you here.” She laughs. “Well, eight of you, now. Do you want to do some counting with me?” She unties Farmer Francine’s arms and yanks one of them, pointing it around at all of the cabins as she counts. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven cabins. Now, I don’t know exactly what it is that you farmers do in your free time, but I can’t imagine you’re all so prude as to sleep in separate beds. Certainly doesn’t make sense for everyone to sleep in their own cabin, now does it? And my accomplice Sofi told me that you and your husband were together in your cabin when we arrived. So, tell me, what’s a village of nine people doing wasting their time constructing seven cabins?”
“I-- no, we--”
“I’m also quite aware that you don’t have much livestock here. A cow here, a pig there. Not nearly enough protein to keep even nine people alive. You’re too far from any of the bigger towns to be doing any significant trading. You are, however, close enough to the forest to hunt deer, probably turkey as well. There’s a lake not too far from here, I’ll bet there’s plenty of fish. Your community hunts, does it not?”
Farmer Francine doesn’t know what to say. She wiggles her head up and down.
“Of course you do. So I’m going to assume that there are more of you, probably six or seven? And they’ll be here soon with whatever fish and game they’ve caught today. If I were a betting woman, I’d say that you’re probably making some bets yourself on the hunting crew sweeping in to save the day. Am I right?”
Farmer Francine grimaces. She can’t say anything. She can’t let them have any more than they’ve already taken. Winter will be on them soon, and there’s no way that they’d be able to stockpile enough food in such a short span of time.
The mad woman puts her face right up against Farmer Francine’s ear and whispers to her. “I promise you, my dear, your story will have no such happy ending.” She stands back up and addresses the entire clearing. “If no one here will tell me where the rest of your food is kept, then...” she smiles. “Well, then, I’ll just make it easier for you. I know you’re worried about not having enough food. So very sad. I’ll help you out. You won’t need as much food if you don’t have as many people to support.”
Farmer Francine watches with horror as the mad woman turns back at her. She takes a step back and winds her foot up like a field goal kicker, and Farmer Francine knows that her head is the ball. She shuts her eyes and prays that she’ll be sent to the same place as her husband. She hears the mad woman grunt as she takes a step towards Farmer Francine.
“May, wait!” A voice calls out from the perimeter of bandits.
Farmer Francine hesitates, then opens her eyes. The mad woman’s boot is just inches from the bridge of her nose.
Stolen novel; please report.
“What?” the woman grunts. She trudges over to the woman who called out, another one of the bandits. Farmer Francine shakes the filth off her face and is finally able to taken in a clear look at her surroundings. All of the bandits are young women, all of them wearing floor length black cloaks. The leader, whose name must be May, has dark, thick, curly hair down to her waist. She’s speaking with the woman who called out to her. Farmer Francine recognizes this woman as the one who had first ripped her and Farmer Farooq from their cabin.
“I know you know what you’re doing -- you’re so good at what you do, everyone knows that -- but maybe they’re not lying? Maybe this really is all they have.”
“Shut up, Sofi,” May says.
“Yes ma’am. It’s just that, if we leave them alive, we can come back later and take a tribute from them after they’ve grown more food.”
“Yeah, that’ll work out great after they’ve told the king of New England to send guards here because they know this is where we’ll be.”
“Oh. Right.”
“The longer we stay in one area, the more chances we’re giving both New England and the Seven Cities armies to find us. We take what’s here, we leave. We go west, south, anywhere that will have more supplies. There will be no coming back here. We’ll make sure there’s nothing worth coming back to.” May scowls. “That’s not how Mother does things.”
“You’re so right. And so smart. And pretty, and funny, and amazing.”
“I know. Which is why I know that there’s another storehouse hidden around here somewhere. We’re not the only ones that our poor farmer friends need to be afraid of, now are we?” She walks back over to Farmer Francine and kneels down to her. A wicked smile spreads across her face. “Bandits displaced by the war, wandering troops from both New England and Seven Cities, not to mention the Shattered Shield pillaging anything they can get their hands on-- I’m sure your little village has plenty of reason to keep your supplies hidden. That storehouse there, that’s fool’s gold, isn’t it? Someone comes along demanding tribute, you give them whatever’s in there then wax poetic about how little you have. Then they leave, night falls, and you all feast on whatever hidden supply you’ve got. Am I right?”
She leans down even closer to Farmer Francine and offers her a smile. A dead, cold smile. “If you don’t think I won’t kill each and every one of you, then, my dead, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m leaving here with food. I don’t care if its crops and jerky or if it’s nine corpses. The choice is yours.”
The only answer that Farmer Francine gives is a defeated whimper. She tries to speak, but the words turned to a garbled mess on her tongue. May frowns and takes a step back. “Have it your way. Sofi! Give me another one.” Sofi shoves a hostage into the center of the clearing. Farmer Francine’s heart drops. It’s Farmer Felicia. Farmer Farooq and Farmer Francine never had any children, which was fine with her because the village was small enough that everyone had a hand in raising all of the children. Even still, Farmer Felicia had always felt most like her own daughter. The two of them had a close bond, and Farmer Francine was seconds away from watching her befall the same fate as Farmer Farooq.
None of the villagers have the strength to cry or scream. They’re spent. The clearing is eerily quiet as May winds up a kick to take the life of yet another hostage. Before she does, though, she hears something. The sound is quiet enough that Farmer Francine doesn’t hear it. Even the rest of the Marauders who are trained to hear the slightest of noises don’t hear it. But May hears it. It’s the gentle sound of footsteps and rustling leaves. A faint whistling noise. May immediately jerks her head to the side just in time to see a small stone flying through the air where her head just was. It collides harmlessly against one of the cabins behind her. She turns to Farmer Francine.
“I guess the non existent hunting party is back, no?” She turns to the cluster of bushes on the opposite side of her Marauder semicircle. “It was a nice try, but it’s going to take more than that to get me.” Suddenly, another volley of rocks shoot through the air. May dodges every one of them. She frowns. “Oh come on, you may as well come out. I know you’re in there.”
Four farmers emerge from the bushes, armed with knives, pitchforks, and slings, all of them shouting over each other.
“Farmer Francine, what’s going on?”
“What do we do, Farmer Fatima?”
“Oh my gods, they’ve got Farmer Felipe!”
“Let’s get ‘em, Farmer Felix.”
May smirks. “Very cute little town you’ve got here. Surprised you haven’t run out of ‘F’ names.” The farmers don’t find this very funy. Instead, they all scream and charge at May, their weapons high in the air. May bites her lip the way a seductress might do while she sits naked on a bed. “Good, I could use a little fun.”
She reaches inside her cloak and grabs hold of a thick chain. As the farmers run towards her, knives and pitchforks swinging wildly, May whips the chain towards them with blinding speed. The farmers have no time to react that what’s happening: Attached to the end of the chain is a large bowling ball that is now screaming towards them. The bowling ball cleaves through the farmers legs like, well, like a bowling ball through pins. In less than half a second, Farmer Force Four is reduced to a handful of torsos perched on broken femurs and fibulae. They don’t even have time to cry out in pain before the other end of the chain, which also has a large bowling ball attached to it, sweeps above their heads and shatters the bones in their arms.
All of the pent up panic and anxiety that all of the villagers have been holding in bursts out like water through a broken dam. Screams of pain, screams of fear, screams of sadness. In the span of less than a second, May has reduced the last hopes of the farming community to a bleeding, crying heap of skin and bones. She grins and retracts her weapon, coiling one end back into her cloak and swinging the other end lazily back and forth.
“So, let me get this straight. Those folks over there, you had no idea that they were coming to try and save you, right? You must not have ever even seen those four before in your life. Because you promised me that the nine of you, you were the only ones who lived here. And I know that you wouldn’t lie to me, because you know that lying to me would just get more of your friends killed. Right?”
Farmer Francine sucks and spits out tiny, rapid punches of air. “Please, I’m sorry, you have to--”
“No no, no apology necessary. I understand completely.” She turns back to Farmer Felicia, who’s still in the center of the clearing. May spins the loose end of her weapon up above her head like a lasso. “My dear, before I turn your friend’s head into spaghetti, I just want you to know that you could have prevented this if you’d just told me where your food was. But now, she’s going to die, and it’s going to be all your fault.” May spins the bowling ball around a few more times, her smile getting wider and darker. She licks her lips. She’s about to tug the ball down onto Farmer Felicia’s skull when she’s interrupted by a voice coming from one of the cabins.
“Stop.”
May frowns and lets the bowling ball fall harmlessly to her side. “What is it now?”
Every head turns to see where the voice came from. A sickly looking man with long blonde hair stumbles out of one of the cabins, barely able to walk straight. It was just yesterday when the young man came to the village. He was huge, strong, a Knight of the Oaken Tail. But he had been bitten. With what little energy he had left by the time he had clawed his way to the village, he told them his story: how he’d been abandoned and left for dead, how he’d fended off a pack of bugs, how he’d been bitten on the forearm. The farmers had given him whatever first aid they were capable of and allowed him to sleep in their cabin. It was a huge risk letting him stay with them. Farmer Francine had heard that people of enough strength, conviction, or will could stave off the curse without turning, but she’d never seen it herself. If anyone could survive it, though, it was this man.
The man takes a few more beleaguered steps towards the center of the clearing. With each step, Farmer Francine gets a clearer picture of him. The curse had already chewed through much of his vitality. He was a hollow shell of the man who had arrived yesterday. She could also see that the curse would not be taking any greater hold of him. It had been removed, but at a terrible cost. As the man takes another slow, stumbling step toward the scene, Farmer Francine sees that the arm that had been bitten was now replaced by a bandaged stump. His days of being a knight were over.
May crosses her arms. “Yet another farmer, hmm? It breaks my heart to know that you’ve lied to me so much. How will I ever reconcile with this?”
Sofi cups her hands around her mouth and cries out, “Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em all!”
May smiles. “Yes, yes I think that will do.”
The man takes another few steps forward. He’s now standing just a few yards away from May, with Farmer Francine and Farmer Felicia on the ground between them. “I’m no farmer. I’m a Knight of the Oaken Tail of the Kingdom of New England. My name is Sir Taran, and I will not allow you to hurt these fine people.”
May cackles. “I knew the war was taking its toll, but I didn’t realize the king was reduced to recruiting emaciated amputees. Things must be getting really bad. Sofi, tie him up. I don’t care if he’s a knight or not, he’s dying with the rest of them.”
“Yahoo, will do!”
Sofi took a few steps towards Taran, but he lifted his hand up towards her. To her surprise, she stopped dead in her tracks. Gaunt and injured as he may be, the guy still oozes charisma. “What if I told you that I could offer you something in return for these people’s lives? Something more valuable than food.”
May cocks an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”
“Information.”
“Information, huh? I’m listening.”
“There’s a town a few miles south of here. Camp Trin. If you leave now, you can get there before nightfall.”
“Yes, I know it, as does every map that’s been made in the last hundred years. Hardly enough information to bargain with.”
Taran says, “Listen to me. There’s a prize there waiting for you if you’re fast enough to catch it before it leaves. A prize that could get you enough money to feed you and the rest of your clan for a year, maybe more.”
“Oh really?”
Taran nods. “Prince Lexington Adams of the New English royal family.”
The incredulity on May’s face shifts to genuine curiosity. “The prince is in Camp Trin?”
“Without any royal guard. The boy is completely alone.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, because I have no reason to believe you. If you are a Knight of the Oaken Tail, why would you tell me this and put the prince’s life in danger?”
“Because these people that you’re tormenting, they’re good people. They took me in when I was on death’s door. They risked everything by treating me, knowing that I could turn into a bug at any moment and attack them. It is because of them that I am alive. I owe them my life.”
May rolls her eyes and nods. “Yes, yes, that’s very sweet of you, but it doesn’t actually answer my question. You swore an oath to protect the crown. Aren’t you afraid that breaking your precious little oath will send you straight to Hell?”
Taran’s face darkens. “Ma’am, I’m counting on it.” He takes in a deep breath, then lets the air tumble out of his nose. “When the prince gets there, I want mine to be the first eyes he sees.”
May’s face lights up and she breaks out into fits of laughter. “Well, there’s no honesty quite like vengeance. I can hear it in your voice. I don’t know what that kid did to you, but I like your style. What’s your name, again, ‘knight’?” She asks, using heavy air quotes.
“Sir Taran.”
She shakes her head. “Drop the ‘sir’, you don’t need it anymore. Oh boy, the Shattered Shield will love you.” She turns around to the semicircle of Marauders behind her. “Sofi.”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Mother sent Tay to Camp Trin last night, no?”
“Yes ma’am, she did!”
“Wonderful. Oh, what luck. Sofi, untie these people. Our new friend Taran has bartered their lives for the prince’s. Tonight, we give Camp Trin a cordial Marauder hello.” She smirks. “And we give a very special Marauder hello to my sweet sister, Tayna.”