A woman had collapsed eighty paces up the trail, her prone body obstructing our progress more surely than any stone or monster. Kit and I were standing several paces in front of the caravan, having been called there by Rita.
“Oh, gods,” Kit muttered harshly, caressing the hilt of her sword. Angry teeth flashed from behind her lips, their whites more arresting for her dark skin. “No two ways about it. That’s a trap.”
Rita hummed her assent.
“She could actually be hurt?” I offered, knowing how unlikely that was.
“An’ that’s,” Kit jeered, “is th’ kinda thinkin’ that gets you trapped.”
“Well, one of us- “
“No.” The short guard’s interruption was solid and unyielding.
I drummed my fingers along the length of my halberd. “…We have to get through there- “
“Nope.”
“Rita…”
“Nuh-uh.”
Once Rita’s final denial was finished, I reversed my position and stared down the caravan’s length. At the very front of our procession was the wagon of the three reserved men, of whom I’d still not managed to learn their names. Past them sat Aron’s spearwood wagon, the man himself leading the oxen and chatting to Atifi while his wife and daughter sat, hidden from the eyes of the world. For once, they weren’t silently sequestered within their wagon.
In the middle sat Tully’s carriage, each end of it bookmarked by the Smiths and Growers, who’d been separated after several days of Snapper and Atifi’s arguing fraying nerves. Past that was Kit’s family: Jana dozing while she held the mule’s reigns while Tippi and Crumpet played some quiet game with Whip in the back of the cart. And at the very back, our cart trundled along, the teenage Taja staring daggers into our obstinate donkey.
The introduction of the trio of nomad siblings had freed up a bit of time for us monster-hunters. No longer did we have to spend every waking moment patrolling: with three extra sets of eyes breaks were more common. Ronnie had justified it to Tully, signing that it’d help us ‘refresh ourselves’. Our additions had proven more than capable of identifying any monsters rushing through the trees, and as of yet none had managed to reach the caravan before being slapped down by a pair of us.
Beside the Smith wagon, Gast and Odrin were using the runestone they’d put together to reduce the vehicle’s weight for half a moment, giving the oxen hitched to its front a chance to pull it from its stuck position. Though they did so dozens of times a day, the solution the two of them had pieced together in response to the poor quality of the trail had likely already saved us over a day’s worth of time.
The obstacle had bought us time to investigate the problem, but time was running out.
“We’ll need to stop the caravan,” I concluded.
Rita nodded and opened her mouth to say something to Kit, then thought better of it and turned to me. “Vin, go get our boss, eh? An’ tell th’ rest of that lot to halt fer a moment.”
I shook my head. “As I was trying to say, if it is an ambush, they’ll get suspicious seeing us take this long. Someone needs to go out there; might as well be me.”
Kit glared at me. “Godsdamnit Vin, this trash again?”
“Lizardblood, Kit.”
Rita frowned.
“It’s either that or let them attack our main body.”
She closed her eyes for a moment.
Kit stared at the mercenary, wide eyed. “Rita, you really thinkin’- ”
“When ‘e’s right, ‘e’s right.” The short woman slapped me on the shoulders weakly. “Go ahead. We’ll put somethin’ together: jus’ try ta hold ‘em off for a while.”
With a nod, I began making my way across the divide between the caravan and the woman. The river rushed beside the trail, now a savage white rush of water pounding over rocks. I glanced towards the heartwoods; the light of the day making its shadowed confines inscrutably black. Every second step was punctuated by the dull thud of my halberd’s shaft meeting the ground, while several deft pats assured me my kit was in place: bandana on head, buckler on arm, halberd in hand, Gast’s arrow-deterrent in pouch and sword on belt alongside my sling and stolen dagger.
“You alright?” I called as I approached.
The woman groaned. Her hands were placed across her abdomen, and red stained the ruptured tunic beneath. Flakes of dried blood blew in the wind, trapped by the rough weave of the clothing.
Upon noticing the tunic was slightly too small for her, I spoke. “Hold on a moment.” I trapped my halberd in the crook of my elbow to make the sign for ‘danger’ with both arms. Kit wound understand, even if Rita did not. “Are you bleeding right now?”
She nodded, the motion causing her to bark in agony.
I clicked my tongue. “Before I can help, you need to tell me what happened.”
In response, the ‘injured’ woman let out another low moan, which escalated into a wail.
“Ox’s balls,” I spat. “I’m coming.”
I shoved the tip of my halberd underneath a rock and walked over. Before she could move, I gripped both of her wrists in one hand and shoved them above her head, then knelt on top of them. Her movements gained far more vigour during the process.
“Apologies,” I muttered. “Can’t have you thrashing when I’m treating you. So where’s- ”
The woman shuffled onto her buttocks and lifted her head upwards, twisting it sideways. A sharp prick emanated from my neck, and I felt a bead of blood form at the pierced site. At the bottom of my vision, a long iron needle stretched from her clenched teeth to my skin.
A vicious swear slipped from behind my lips. The need to strangle her convulsed through my hands, only halted by an insistent prodding on my tender flesh.
“Don’t ‘ove,” warned the bandit. “Or I’ll shtab ya.”
“Blood forbid you shtab me,” I viciously retorted.
Her response came in the form of a sharp jab. “Wanna die?” she warned. “No? Lishen. Call th’ odder guards over.” Flecks of spit fled from her mouth.
“You lishen,” I spat. “The moment you stab me I’ll gut you for keeps. My comrades have seen this- ”
“No,” she answered, tilting her head.
I furrowed my brows, then hissed angrily. From range, the iron spike was too thin to be visible, and the angle of her body concealed her actions.
“Siik’s bloody fangs,” I swore. “Okay. Okay, fi- “
With as much speed as I could muster, I jerked my body backwards while simultaneously wrapping both hands around the back of her neck. As I did so the bandit attempted to thrust the needle into me, but my awkward position still allowed enough strength to control her head. We writhed for a while, her trying to free either her head or the arms trapped beneath my legs, and I slowly squeezed the wind from her airpipe.
Beneath the sounds of whistling sliding from her throat and my own stifled grunting, a quiet tapping of wood against wood pierced my perception. I flattened myself against the ground and pulled the bandit over me moments before an arrow sped from the heartwoods and shuddered into my human shield, where my torso had been moments before. She screamed and clutched at her abdomen.
Peeking around her body revealed fresh blood seeping into the dried flakes. A grin erupted from somewhere deep inside of me. It was immediately widened by another arrow flying from the heartwoods, its course directly towards my face. I caught it with the bandit’s head, and the impact of it sliding through bone and into brain shuddered up my arms moments before the arrows tip erupted from the back of her head, covering my face in chunks of skull and gore, soaking through my bandana instantly. My eyes widened.
That was twenty-two.
Someone howled from the shadowy forest. Fear spiked through my body.
Your family lives among red dirt and cattle, each slaughter offered to the earth another opportunity for-
An exertion of will closed the channel between myself and her fading life, the only remnant of the vision being a pounding migraine and a memory that was not my own. A keening was conceived within my throat and died, stillborn, as moments later another arrow flew towards me, exploiting the fact that the corpse was smaller than my own frame to aim for my leg. Shifting the limb saved it, but more ammunition began peppering the rocky dirt around me and the corpse in front.
I shuffled backwards, scrabbling with both feet as one arm wrapped dragged the corpse with me while its partner hastily protected my head and neck using the buckler. After a few paces’ worth of frantic scrabbling, the trail transformed into a riverbank. The damp from the stones quickly soaked through my tunic and droplets from the rapids scattered across bare skin. Fortunately, the decline of the slope prevented my prone body from being riddled with arrows, unless they started arcing their shots; however, the canopy of the heartwoods would prevent them from doing so accurately.
Which was why the crunch of many light pairs of footsteps sounded from the trail. A glance behind showed the rapids still frothing a rabid white, hungering to dash swimmers across its rocks. I shoved the body off myself and rolled onto my belly, bruising my knees and elbows on the rocks as I crawled sideways. Drawing my sword was awkward in such a position, but doing so quietly was well within my capabilities.
Fresh blood gushed from my nose, like I had severed a limb and not stolen a memory. The migraine distorted my world, setting the afternoon light pulsing to the beat of the agony in my skull. It grew worse with every passing moment. My pulse pounded in my ears. For whatever reason, the world seemed airy, and fleeting; liable to blow away on a gentle breeze. Denying my blood had been easier, once.
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Through it all, I kept an ear on their movements, and levered myself onto the balls of my feet in preparation to sprint. Judging by the footsteps, there were around half a dozen people on the trail, however unless their tactics were seriously deficient, there would only be two or three currently wielding bows. The rest would have to protect the archers from any close-range combatants or enemy projectiles – doubly important now that they were in the open.
I’d have to identify the archers and quickly dive in-between them all – loosing arrows would risk hitting their fellows then – but that wasn’t a sure thing. Gast’s runestone might deter a few, but it could only foul a projectile’s flight. At close range, it might turn a pierced liver into a pierced lung. In any case, deliberately surrounding oneself was a poor idea for even the greatest of warriors. With my vision buzzing with blackened spots and my balance constantly listing to either side, I couldn’t bet on being counted amongst their ranks. Yet there weren’t any better options.
My head’s pounding scattered thoughts like swarms of dead bugs. I turned around and looked at the rapids again. They screamed at me. I turned away. No better plan revealed itself.
“Come out, coward!” someone yelled from the road, barely five paces from my head. “Murderin’ a woman and duckin’ all roach-like? Be human! Face yer end like a person!”
A man’s head breached the incline’s lip, and I slowly flattened myself against the ground, concealing him once again. He hadn’t seen me.
Something flashed across my eyes, and I jerked my head quickly. White light flashed from the caravan, then stopped. Kit had been using her sword to reflect sunlight across my face. Ronnie stood next to her, and gestured towards a cart – our cart – which had someone been brought to the front of the caravan, and mimed me moving further away. The Missus was conspicuously absent. Gast and Odrin squatted behind it, fiddling with something concealed by the cart’s bulk. Ronnie downed a vial of liquid; I recognised it as an enhancer, for fortifying the tendons and muscles of Oxbloods. The giant turned back to me and motioned urgently.
I scrambled back towards the corpse and glanced over at the caravan again. With the exception of Kit, those arrayed at the front – just Ronnie, Gast, and Odrin – wore their mouths in grim lines. The swordswoman had stepped forward, and stared down the trail toothily grinning. Her gaze fell directly above me, directly where the collection of bandits stood.
The two groups were facing each other. “Give up!” the man bellowed. “We outnumber you two to one! We’ll take some food; give ya time t’get back t’Spires ‘fore you starve.”
I felt Kit’s response before I heard it. “Lick a hairy bunghole, bastard!”
The exchange of offers continued.
Next to me, the corpse’s eyes stared sideways, accusing in their mild manner. Agony pounded behind my own, twisting my stomach and threatening to pull its contents out on the ground. I sucked in a breath, and tore the pair of orbs out of the dead woman’s head. They squished slightly as a long nerve caught. Bile rose in my throat, so I pinched myself hard enough for my dirty fingernails to pierce into flesh. I sheathed my sword and used my belt-knife to sever the connection. As soon as that was done, I crawled past the empty-eyed body, grabbing two smooth stones as I went. The smooth wetness of the eyes in my palms embedded themselves in my perception indelibly, far heftier than any sight or sound could be.
Two paces away; Four; Seven… When I made it twelve steps from the bandits I scrambled back onto the trail. Six bandits stood on the trail, their roughly spun tunics peeking out from beneath a mismatched assortment of armour. A single person could wear a leather gorget, fur pauldrons and a padded gambeson. Two carried bows while four, including the negotiator, held bronze swords or spears. Parallel to them stood four others holding crossbows, partially concealed in the tree-line.
As I pulled the sling from my belt, one of the men on the road jerked his head and pointed me out to his fellows. Their response was too late to prevent me lobbing a projectile at the group, which splattered against the back of the leader’s head. He whirled, face contorting into a sneer, and I threw the remaining eyeball underhanded, to land at his feet.
The man looked down, felt the back of his head, and looked back up. Disbelief and horror warred in his expression, trying and failing to reach equilibrium. His eyes met mine. With trembling hands, I placed a stone in my sling and began whirling it. The group watched dumbly, and recovered moments too late to warn their fellows in the trees. The stone flashed, meeting bone with a cracking retort. The woman it hit fell instantly. The sudden lack of weight provoked a bout of intense vertigo, and in the wake of the sudden spinning I barely managed to catch myself on my knees.
Twenty-three, I thought to myself.
Simultaneously, the caravan behind them burst into motion, unnoticed by the bandits. Ronnie braced themself against the back of the cart, and accompanied by a flash of purple, propelled it forward at astonishing speeds – as if the vehicle were a child’s ball and not half a tree’s worth of heartwood. Kit sprinted behind it.
The bandits raised their bows and crossbows and managed to loose several arrows in my direction, but Gast’s arrow-trap – made active by my scratching its talc – flung them wildly. Only two reached me: one I caught with my buckler and the other I avoided entirely by falling to my side. Then it was too late for the bandits standing on the trail: the cart cracked into their backs and from beneath its wooden lip Rita and her guards stood and fired a volley of bolts at the group in the woods while Whip and Davian loosed their respective projectiles at the few still standing.
Only one woman remained upright and unpierced. She gripped her axe and swung for the cart, only for Kit’s blade to fall, severing both arms at the elbow. Before the bandit could scream, her throat was slit.
The guards vaulted the cart and fell onto those recovering with clubs.
In the distance, Tully watched, her lips raised at their corners.
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In the end, four of the bandits survived. Rita and Tully had taken two of the more grievously wounded of them somewhere. One of the guards had suffered a bolt to the arm, and had left to get it cared for. That left the rest of us – minus Whip and Gast – to guard the remaining pair, tied up and unconscious where they had fallen.
Kit sniffed, gazing down her nose at them. “We gonna sacrifice them or what?”
At some point, Maddie had made her way over. She carefully stepped over the corpses, her expression inscrutable within the shadows of her hood. At Kit’s question, her head jerked towards us. “N-no.”
“I wasn’t askin’ you, princess,” the swordswoman drawled. She jerked her head towards those of us remaining; the scavenging Ronnie and Davian; one guard holding his crossbow; and myself. “You didn’ bleed for this.”
“I’m Tully’s daughter,” the young woman stressed, straightening her body. “There’s- “
“Yer mum’s my boss, not you,” Kit stated blandly. “You fought; you’d have a say. You didn’t.”
Davian paused where he squatted, inspecting a sketch withdrawn from the leader’s pack. “I believe it best to wait for Tully, Kit.”
“Aw, c’mon.” Kit lazily waved a hand. “What were her words? ‘Do whatcha want with ‘em?’ We’ve got three extra mouths to feed; could use th’ grain.”
He breathed out heavily. “Aggravating the relatives of our employer has never been- “
“You seen th’ woman?” she said. “Tully won’t care. Could probably kill a puppy’n front of her an’ she’d clap.”
Now fully facing Kit, Maddie responded angrily. “You don’t know anything about- “
“Oh, I’m sorry.” The tall young woman raised her hands in the air, looming over the shorter girl despite the distance between them. “Will she care?”
“I care!”
“You don’t matter.”
Maddie made a strangled sound.
Kit spat on the dirt. “What’re you gonna do, huh?” she mocked. “Shout us out of it?”
Hands outstretched, Maddie turned to the remaining guard. “Do something!”
The man released a hand from the edge of his crossbow and scratched his bearded chin. “Miss, what else’re we supposed to do with them?”
“Let them go!”
“They might get more and come back.” He looked away. “I’unno, Miss. I’m real sorry, but we can’t risk you gettin’ hurt.”
She pointed a finger as if to accuse him of something, then lowered it quietly.
“Vin,” she pleaded.
Pain pulsed in my skull. The world swayed. My leg splayed to catch me before I fell.
“…Vin…?”
Ronnie gestured something. However, without Whip – who had almost immediately left the site – to interpret, no one could translate succinctly.
The old man gave it a shot. “…Sad…Girl?”
Kit snorted. “I couldn’t care less whether whiney over there- “ she jabbed a finger in Maddie’s direction, “- is upset. She should grow up.”
The giant shook their head, and jerked a thumb the other way.
“…Whip?” Davian ventured.
A nod.
Tutting, the swordswoman replied, “She won’t know; she won’t see.”
Maddie’s high voice rose over them. “Is Vin okay?”
An eyeball sat in the empty space between corpses, its gaze directed diagonally, towards the sky. Though I didn’t face her, I knew its owner lay slumped on the river-bank, empty sockets staring at the stones next to her.
Unprompted, my hands drifted to my Face. I took it out of its pouch, but for whatever reason its contours remained unwitnessed by the tactile realm. A ghost, I thought, looking at it. With excessive care, I tried to bring it to cover my own face – sharpen the world, focus it through a narrower lens – but it slipped through my fingers, falling silently to the ground.
“His pupils…” someone said. “Why is one so big?”
The ground rose suddenly, slamming itself into the side of my head.
“Vin!”
Shapes and colours. The sky was very red. There was a name for that red.
Another voice. “Vin, I need you to talk to us. We need you to tell us how you’re feeling; what’s happening to you.”
There was a name for that red. I’d read it, somewhere. Back home? So many books.
“What is this, Davian. What is this? They poison him? These little godsdamned rats!” A sharp thud.
“Kit, we have no time- “
I tried to ask what colour it was, but my mouth was too numb.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He might have gotten hit in the head.”
Saliva spilled from numb lips, dropping in thick ropes against the ground. I couldn’t seem to swallow it.
“Gods, his brain’s bleedin’?”
Something was wrong with me. I tried to get up, but failed.
“I don’t know. Maybe! Give him space.”
“Damn this.”
My mouth moved. “M’fine,” I mumbled. I gathered my arms beneath myself, but only one obeyed my commands. Without its counterpart, I only rolled to the side.
“Kit. Kit!”
“I’ll teach these wastes of flesh.”
Someone was dragging something towards a mass of shadow.
“Please!”
“I can’t, Miss; she’ll turn on us.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to focus my vision. “M’fine,” I repeated, as if it were some sort of mantra.
“Spend a life waterin’ the dirt with others, huh? Shoulda been stronger, bastards. Shoulda been like me.”
I lifted my head towards the speaker. Its silhouette was blotted against a wall of inky shadows, its droplets bleeding through the sky to snake upwards, past the reach of my eyes, to send its twisting veins to wrap around the sun and squeeze. And in the figure’s hand a spear or halberd or knife, poised above itself. A sudden chill stole across my body, sinking deep into my body, its fangs wrapping around sinew and tendons to set my limbs shaking.
My limbs stretched towards it all, fingernails scraping over red dirt and hidden stones. “Stop,” I breathed.
But the momentum of the scene was too great for me to change, and the darkness loomed and contorted and warped with long white figures dappled with eyes, countless eyes, and all the murmuring around me and I could not decipher it and my eyes were thick and swollen in their sockets and ready and they did not belong and I could not understand the sounds and I reached out again-
“Stop!” I screamed.
And then the shapes and sounds reoriented themselves, and became just Kit, and just the bandits, and nothing more.
The swordswoman held her blade towards the two bodies while jerking her head towards me. She slammed her blade back into its sheath, gripping the jutting hilt tightly. “Lucky,” she spat towards the two unconscious bandits. “So godsdamned lucky.”
Despite a ubiquitous numbness, I managed to slowly work myself into a seated position. Surrounding me was everyone present, except Kit and the guards. Davian was on his knees beside me, lightly touching parts of my head. With my thumb and forefinger, I began pinching parts of my body to ensure they could still feel.
“Are you okay, Vin?” came Maddie’s voice. I looked up at her, and though her gaze was concealed I could almost hear her emerald eyes swimming with concern.
I looked back to myself. “Yeah.”
Ronnie made a short, simple sign: ‘question’.
Davian squinted at them, then nodded. “What happened to you?”
“Yeah, th’ blood was goin’ on there?” Kit had walked over to us, leaving our bound captives near the trees. The lone guard kept his crossbow levelled in their direction.
I ran my tongue along the inside of my mouth, slowly extracting one of my teeth, which had sunk into the flesh of my lip. A metallic taste filled my mouth. There was no pain.
Blood drained into the abyss of my throat as I sucked at it. The eyeball looked upwards. My own gaze was directed at the ground. The words emerged almost silently; a slurring of what ought to be comprehensible. “I… don’t know.”
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After some interrogation, Davian chalked it up to a head-injury. It was impossible to tell whether my head was bleeding or not, beneath the gore, and the lack of scabs or clotting could be explained away by the divine nature I was purported to wield.
I waved off Gast’s attempts to use her ‘borrowed’ runestone to check the density of my skull. It would require my blood, and I said that it seemed a waste.
Everyone said that no one but a Lizardblood could’ve survived such a blow to the head. I would’ve laughed, if I didn’t feel so much like crying.
In the end, Tully executed the prisoners anyway.