Yatner gigged his horse into motion as he and his five riders broke from the misty tree line. They wore necklaces of bones, had tattoos like dark stains upon their faces and shoulders, and wore skins from the animals they had slain in the wilderness.

Yatner wore the skin of the silver wolf mother he had masterfully tracked and outmaneuvered late into the evening several years prior. The six made for the road in the distance where an unguarded carriage was ambling on the south road.

Multen, Yatner’s second, readied his bow and aimed at the carriage’s exposed driver atop the front of the jostling vehicle. His silver-ringed forearm held the arrow in place as he glanced over his shoulder at Yatner.

Scanning the road south to the bridge leading over Gohorn River, Yatner saw no cover guard. It was their duty as the thieves of the forest to uphold their stature within that wood that they called their own. Yatner gave the signal.

Three arrows were fired in succession, each meeting their target within the breast of the carriage driver, who lulled in his seat helplessly as he bled out. The horses continued at their pace, ignorant that their driver was slowly bleeding to death as he lay on the bench of the carriage.

The six broke from the fog, Yatner moving ahead to block the horses from the front. As the large carriage came to a stop, the blood-curdling wail of an infant sent shivers down the raiders’ spines.

One of the riders pulled the wheezing driver from the bench and let him fall to the muddy morning ground as he gasped for breath that could not fully come. He carried little in the way of money or valuables, but the raiders took his shoes, hat, and wendigo hide jacket.

In the back of the carriage, the raiders discovered three bags of shards that someone had been transferring to Scerasa, probably to a bank for a small business. Other than the carriage itself—which they had no need of—the horses, and the money, the gain was minimal.

Two men hauled the bags of shards to their travel cart as Yatner peered into the carriage at the sobbing infant. Based on the small shoe prints leading away from the carriage in the opposite direction from where they’d initiated their ambush, the child’s guardian had abandoned both the baby and escaped their fate of being captured by the raiders.

Oppo circled through the tall grass alongside the road and searched all the way up to the trees but couldn’t find the traveler.

Yatner watched the little girl in her bundle of pink blankets cautiously. There was something about an unspoiled child; a clean slate. She was too young to have held any preconceived notions of her upbringing.

Yatner considered leaving her, but she wouldn’t survive for long out here in the elements. He picked her up and scooped her into his other arm as her big green eyes met his. He turned, grinning at his companions who didn’t seem as intrigued by the baby as Yatner.

“Nans lost her son not long ago,” said Yatner. “Think this one might be able to fill the hole left behind?”

“More mouths means more food to gather,” said Multen. “Do you think the owner might come back if we leave her?”

“We can’t risk it, and we can’t be seen out in the open for much longer without giving away clues to our camp. Let’s move.” Yatner nodded and carefully climbed onto his horse with the child still tucked in his arm.

The carriage was an empty husk with the doors open, and all goods from within taken. Road guards were frequently moving up and down the roads to make sure thieves didn’t get comfortable alongside the traveling paths. If a road guard came across the carriage, then they’d send a force into the woods to put them down.

Urasey climbed onto the driver’s platform. Lashing the reins across the horses’ backs, he gigged the horses and carriage into motion. He would take the carriage south, all the way across Gohorn River and leave it in the Dyans’ territory. Urasey would bring the horses back with him. Someone would either happen upon it and take it, or the guards would discover the carriage out there and not near the area of forest where Yatner’s tiny band of followers congregated.

Yatner nodded at the treeline and the four others followed him through the grass. They had roped the driver’s body and dragged it through the brush so they could dispose of him properly.

Back at the camp, Yatner and the group split the earnings from the ambush equally and returned to their makeshift huts. They had been moving throughout the continent of Ire for the last twelve years.

Their number had dwindled to the low count of eighteen family members. They weren’t all related, but even the ones who had cashed out on their haul from the raids were still considered family.

Yatner had always been the leader, and he considered this way of life a means to an end, not a permanent sentence. His followers could rejoin the rest of society whenever they wished.

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Until then, however, they made small farm plots at a new location each spring, hunting and gathering while avoiding the guards from the big cities, whichever new city was in charge. The word was that Harrol Roah was the new king, and that the capital city had been changed from Narcuss to the tower city of Roah, on a completely different continent. So all towns and provinces had to pay taxes to Roah instead of Narcuss.

It was this form of politics that Yatner despised about regular society on Aallandranon. What did any of it mean when one could go outside and grow food from the planet? Who needs money when you can live just fine without any of it?

Yatner had once lived with the rest of society. He had been a Knight Captain in the king’s army, long before his days of pushing a till or chasing down fleeing civilians for their money and possessions. He knew the way the cities worked, knew the way they governed, and how they searched and maintained the lands around them.

After six seasons of watching the Narcuss guard ruin lives and commit atrocious acts against their own citizen populace, Knight Captain Yatner Wills faked his death. After, he used that knowledge he had gained to avoid detection so that he and the other vagrants he came across could survive on their own.

It was illegal to pay no taxes as a citizen of the country, so if one didn’t have a properly up to date tax tattoo on their wrist, they would be arrested and sent to the mines or the prisons—whichever was more prevalent to the city.

He entered his hut where Nans was just finishing the deer stew for their dinner that night. The infant in Yatner’s arms was put to sleep by the bounce of the horse, and the warmth of his silver wolf cloak. Nans turned, her long brown hair behind her ears, and saw the child. Her eyes filled with the light that had been absent from them for so long.

“I brought you a gift.” Yatner said, handing the girl off to Nans. As he did this, an item slipped from the pink sheets and dropped to the floor. It was a small stuffed handmade doll with the word ‘Susi’ on a tag at the doll’s neck. Nans gave Yatner a loving look.

They had found their new daughter.

For five years, Susi lived with Yatner and the other raiders. Yatner taught Susi to set rabbit traps, how to craft and thread a bow, and how to track animals or other Aallandrons in the wild. Susi was a quick learner, and smarter than any child of five years that Yatner had ever encountered.

Rather than lavish her with praise and adoration as her step-mother did, Yatner pushed her. He got her started on sword fighting, but that was of her own choosing. She insisted on learning when she watched Yatner spar with one of the other men from the camp. Both Yatner and Nans thought it not only important, but necessary for a woman to be able to protect herself in such a harsh world as theirs.

Unfortunately, Yatner was getting old. After the death of King Cerveys Narcuss, Harrol Roah’s rule had grown more oppressive rather than progressive as many believed it would be initially. Their number of mouths to feed had grown to forty-six, and many of their new younger members were more aggressive than some of the older, nobler vagrants among their number. The younger men eyed Nans as she was eight years younger than Yatner. He knew many of them considered challenging his position as their leader.

This became evident when one Vendei, the Aallandron holy day or Sunday, several of their newer numbers—headed by the ruthless, Bully Wilmer—knocked over a royal caravan. One of Harrol Roah’s advisor’s daughters was in the coach, and Bully Wilmer decided to live up to the allegations leading to the price on his head.

He and the group were too stupid to clean up after themselves, so they left the poor girl in the coach on the side of the road with her throat slit for the world to find. Bully told no one. He and his mates gathered their things in the night and departed quietly.

It was early in the morning when the thunder of hooves woke Yatner, Nans, and Susi. The light of fire filled the night sky and choked their lungs with smoke. Yatner grabbed his sword and threw open the woolen skin that covered the threshold to see the camp in chaos.

Fire burned the thatched roofs of their huts. Soldiers in red—the Sceresian guard—galloped through the trees and cut down members of their family as they attempted to get away. Several tried to regroup and fight back, but they were taken by hails of arrows. There was nothing they could do to stop this. Their only hope was to escape.

Yatner whistled for his horse. The dark brown mare came charging through the smoke to meet them. Yatner, Susi, and Nans emerged from the hut. Yatner mounted his horse as quickly as he could and threw Susi on behind him.

Nans clambered onto the horse’s back rear, but was pulled off by a soldier before they could get away. A horse-mounted soldier threw a net over her and dragged her through the forest brush as Yatner’s reflexes took over. He jammed the balls of his barefoot heels into the horse’s hindquarters, firing them into motion.

They galloped to fresh air. Susi peered over her shoulder and saw at least twelve soldiers in red on horseback following them through the woods. Occasionally, an arrow would sail past them as Yatner avoided their aim.

Yatner’s skill is all that kept them from being killed quickly that early morning. His mare became wet with sweat beneath them as it galloped through the dewy grass where Yatner continued pushing her. He had only one hope, and that was the cathedral.

Behind them, the whole horse-mounted troop of guards were tailing them through the misty morning. They passed under an archway of trees and crossed a short bridge before the horse slipped and fell on the dewy grass on the other side. Yatner and Susi went sprawling through the wet grass in front of the large cathedral towering overhead.

The crowd of soldiers dismounted behind the two as they scrambled up the grassy incline to the steps of the large cathedral hall. Yatner threw Susi to the glossy marble steps of the building.

The soldiers surrounded Yatner and cut him down in the drizzling rain before he could draw his sword. The leader wore the same style of red tabard over his armor, but his had a white ring around the shield on the center.

He stepped away from the group and grabbed Susi by the arm. His sword, still stained with Yatner’s blood, was in his other hand. He was going to kill her, right there in the rain as they had killed everyone else in their family.

Susi fought. The soldier lifted his sword over his shoulder, meaning to make a single clean sweep to finish the job without error. He finally had to wrangle her to the steps of the cathedral before bringing his sword-point to her chest. A little pressure and muscle, and his problem would be over. He and his troop could go home and get out of this damned rain.

“What in Omne do you think you’re doing?” a voice cut through the air like a blade.

Susi looked up to see the silhouette of a woman in the doorway to the cathedral. The question seemed to jar the soldier back to his senses as he realized he was about to end a five-year old girl in cold-blood. She was technically on sanctuary property, so he could be indicted by an inquiry were a complaint toward him to be filed.

The guard leader pushed himself up, wiped his blade on his cloak, and sheathed his sword. He didn’t say anything, but mounted his horse and motioned for the party to follow him back the way they came.

Several soldiers grabbed Yatner’s defeated corpse, and dragged him away as he had dragged away the driver of the carriage so many years ago when Susi had become part of his family.

She sat up and looked over at the woman standing in the doorway nearby.

“Well, if you’re going to come then come.” The woman turned and entered the cathedral that seemed so warm to Susi at the time.

Susi got up and followed the priestess into the cathedral.