Food was a reason for Ferene to temporarily set aside her goal of ridding the world of a kind of basic evil. Growing up, her meals had mainly been dried meat, soup, stale bread and porridge. Things like this weren't common back then. In the dining hall of a tavern, she sat at a table, a bowl of fruit in front of her. A small knife had been provided, but she bit into a pear directly, her eyes on the bowl, considering which of the options to eat next.
Her free hand drifted towards her sword, laying across the wooden table, as a man sat down across from her. While he wore a simple outfit, his muscles and the way he moved made her wary. Ferene's instincts told her that this person was dangerous. She glanced at him as he sat down, taking another bite of the pear, then went back to studying the fruit bowl. Her visitor stared at her for a moment, then cleared his throat. Ferene took another bite.
“I want to hire you for a job.” Placing the core of the pear on the table, Ferene grabbed a strawberry from the bowl, tossing the entire thing into her mouth. She wanted to eat, not think about the future. The man watched her, and repeated himself, louder this time.
“I'm eating.”
“Just need you to listen. I know who you are, I've heard enough talk about you over the last month. You've been going around killing the thugs that watch the roads around here, something the city watch claims to be too understaffed to do. I have some information about a group to the northeast, and their hideout.” He spoke fast, but clearly, his hands flat on the table in front of him. Ferene eyed him again, watching him twitch slightly under her gaze. She sighed, grabbing three blackberries.
“These people killed my wife.”
Ferene stopped, holding the third berry in her fingers. “Revenge?” He nodded. Ferene crushed the fruit in her hand, covering her fingers with juice. In the end, it was always about revenge. Someone begging her to do a job for them, offering reasoning and payment for her to do it – she would have kept eating. This man wasn't a beggar. “You can fight?” She asked. He looked like he could. He looked like he knew what she felt, to some extent.
“I can. I have information, I know where the hideout is, how many of them there are. I can't do it alone.”
“I'll help.” Food was only something to do while waiting for more opportunities for revenge, after all.
“Some six years ago, the well here dried up. Several families of farmers left the homes they built around it and moved elsewhere. Two years ago, a group of bandits moved in. It's placed near two major roads, so they have a lot of targets to hit.”
Ferene stared at the map, looking at where the man, Tullund, pointed. There was a mark drawn on an otherwise empty area, with some letters written next to it. She nodded, looking at the spot and the two thick lines he indicated as the roads. “How far is that from here?”
“A week from here, but only three days from the closest city. They travel quite a ways to do their work.” He pointed to some other markings and writing on the map. Ferene watched his hand move across it. He had brought her to his own room at an Inn, where he had spread a map across the bed, since it was too big for the small table. “We should approach from this way, wait for a group of them to leave, then move in while they are out. Since they travel so far, we'll have plenty of time to attack when they have reduced numbers.” He pointed to a few other spots on the map. Ferene looked it over, seeing his own writing in places.
“What's this, down here?” She asked, pointing to a large square in the corner.
He looked at where she was pointing, then at her. “You...” He trailed off, taking his hands off the bed and running them through his hair. “I...I could have saved some time, if you had just told me you couldn't read.”
“You didn't ask.” Ferene said, jaw clenched. She stared at him defiantly. He had come to her for help.
“You don't know what a map legend is.”
“I know what the roads are.” She said, pointing at one.
“That's a river.”
She swallowed, looking at the map again for a moment, then back up at him. “How many are in the camp, and how many will leave?”
“There shouldn't be any more than eighteen of them, and usually six to eight would leave at a time to go raid. Of the ones that stay behind, at least four aren't good in a fight, so we're up against eight or less. I can pick some off from a distance, quietly. We can sneak in and take care of some of the others while they're still sleeping.” He watched Ferene nod, then continued. “There's one specific to this, though. I want to take the leader alive.”
“They all die.” Ferene said.
“They all die, but I want to kill her myself. I want her to know that I came after her.”
Ferene nodded. “I don't kill the leader.”
Ferene specialized in running. More specifically, she specialized in crossing distances using her feet at a higher than average speed. Naturally, this included walking, even long distances. Walking with Tullund, she found herself mildly annoyed at having to consciously slow down, as she would easily outpace him on the road.
He was also oddly talkative. Ferene vaguely remembered how talkative people could be, in close quarters. “So, you don't know how to read.” Tullund said, panting slightly as he struggled to keep pace with her. Clenching her jaw, Ferene remained silent. Reading wasn't important. She could make do on her own. “I always got the impression Hatharen would be really smart. A lot smarter than humans. Feels kind of odd that you can't read.”
“I'm not a Hatharen.” She said, rubbing her hands together. On some level, she hated going over this. It didn't matter, no more than her ability to read did. She found herself annoyed. “I've never met a Hatharen in my life.”
“Your, um, you have Hatharen ears. Or at least, you have ears that look like the ears Hatharen have in the pictures. I haven't met one myself, either.” He continued as he walked. In one hand he held a staff nearly as long as he was tall. He said it was a walking stick, but he made sure to never touch it against the ground.
“My mother told me that my father was a Hatharen. I never met him, so he might have been one. Might have also been an animal, for all I know.” Ferene snapped, finding hands curling into fists. She remembered her mother's face, and it didn't help her mood. She needed revenge, not conversation.
“Well then.” Tullund said, mostly to himself, and went quiet. They walked in silence. This was the second day of walking, the second day of dull gray skies, overcast but luckily not wet. The second day of plodding slowly down the side of the dirt road, out of the way of passing wagons. The plan was to follow the road for five days, then cut directly towards the camp in the last two, and wait several hours from it. Ferene was not looking forward to more of this conversation, but Tullund stayed quiet for hours, until he finally spoke again.
“Do you think you're like a mule?” Ferene stopped, turning to look at him. He wasn't looking at her, instead staring off to the side. He walked a few paces past her before stopping, turning back to look at her. “What?”
“Bandits killed your wife.” Ferene stared into his eyes. Tullund nodded. “Bandits killed your wife and we are going to kill them, and you're thinking about mules.”
Closing his eyes, Tullund took a deep breath. “I'm a farmer. My wife and I had a farm. Bandits came and killed the animals, burned the fields, and killed my wife. Yes, I want revenge, but I still think like a farmer. I miss being a farmer. I want to still be a farmer. I want to still have a wife. But I can't be a farmer, and I can't have my wife back. I can kill the people who killed her, and I can think about mules. That'll have to be close.” He smiled at her. His eyes didn't smile. Ferene nodded, and turned back to the road.
He was just making conversation. She had to deal with it. They shared a goal. “Isn't a mule just a kind of horse?” She eventually asked.
“It's a hybrid. Between a male donkey and a female horse. There's also the other way around, which makes a different animal. Mules are nice because they're big like horses, but act more like donkeys. You're probably a lot different than a Hatharen, when I think about it like that.”
“I've never met a Hatharen.” Ferene had, however, met both donkeys and horses, and did not find either kind of animal very appealing. She didn't like being compared to them, but she figured he was comparing himself to at least one of them, if she followed his thought process.
“Hm.” He fell into silence again, and Ferene felt relieved. She didn't like that conversation. She didn't like thinking about her father, or her mother. Or her past at all. The only thing she needed to think about was revenge. She didn't know if she was like a Hatharen or not, but she knew she had yet to meet a human she was similar to.
“So that's it?” Ferene asked, looking at the collection of houses in the valley. It looked like a farm, but there were no animals and no crops. Just six houses around a well. Ferene frowned. She knew to expect something like this, but she didn't like it now that she actually saw it.
“That's the hideout. Farmer houses, once. Bandit houses now.” Tullund answered from beside her. The two of them crouched under a tree, a day's walk off the road. With the tree covering them, they stared down a gently sloping hill, across the remains of several wooden fences. “We wait for some of them to leave, then move in at night on the ones that stay. I can take out anyone keeping watch from a distance.” Tullund held a bow in one hand – his 'walking stick' from earlier, when properly bent, could be strung as a very large bow.
“You shoot the watch, then I run in. I can kill anyone except the leader.” Ferene nodded.
“You're really just going to...run in and kill them in their sleep?”
“Is that a problem? They killed your wife.”
“No. No it's not.”
“So we wait, and then we kill them.” Ferene turned to look at him. His jaw was clenched, and he glared at the hideout in the distance.
“We wait, and we kill them.” Tullund repeated, holding his bow.
Taking a deep breath, Ferene placed her sword down in front of her. Then she unhooked her belt, taking her second, shorter sword and placing it below the first. Reaching into her boot, she pulled out a knife, and placed it below the short sword.
“Only three?” Tullund asked.
“The first is all I should need. If I use the second, something has gone very, very wrong. The third is for a situation where I don't need a sword to begin with.” She inhaled, then slowly breathed out. “I'm going to kill a lot of people tonight.” She said, staring at her weapons.
Her sword was scratched, the flat of it marred and scraped. She tried to imagine it clean, flawless, polished enough to shine. The image felt wrong. Her sword delivered death, nothing else. A tool for slaughter. Ferene clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth together. Tullund's talk on the road hung over her. What were Hatharen really like? Some people talked about them like they were somehow better than humans. Did they prey upon each other in the same way? Steal from each other, kill each other? Had her father abandoned her mother, or was it that idiot woman who ran away on her own and sold herself to bandits?
Ferene felt the hate. The anger. Her past never failed to make her mad. She focused on that, pushing the questions from her thoughts. She didn't know the answers to those questions, but she knew how to kill people. She shoved the knife back in her boot, and hooked the short sword back on her belt. Her long sword lay on the ground in front of her. This was her life. Why should something used for such a purpose need to shine brightly? Why should someone with such a purpose need to think about questions that they couldn't answer? Ferene stopped herself from laughing, but she felt it. She smiled, wrapping her hand around the hilt of her sword as she lifted it off the ground. The weight of it was a familiar feeling. This was all she needed. No questions, no answers.
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“You're different than I thought.”
Tullund's voice cut through her thoughts, and she turned to look at him again, her smile vanishing. “Different than what?”
“I heard some stories about you, from the locals. I thought you'd be more...vindictive. Hearing you say they are people is surprising. I imagined that you'd look down on them as less than human. Most people do.”
“There's only three kinds of people. Killers, victims, and those who are still figuring out which they are. I'm not going to let myself be a victim, so I have to be a killer.”
“If that's how you think of it, what makes you any different than the people down there?”
“The people down there kill victims. I don't.”
Tullund fell silent, turning his gaze back towards the valley. Standing up, Ferene paced back and forth, agitated. Tullund was annoying, but waiting like this was far worse. Her earlier trip, stuck inside the wagon, hadn't annoyed her to the same degree. She could feel the movement, know that things were happening. Now she waited, watching, listening to Tullund talk. She wanted to run, to kill. Her grip around her sword tightened again. “How long until we can start?” She asked.
“Even if they don't want to try for another robbery, some of them should go out to buy things at some point or another. These aren't the kind of people who enjoy sitting around.”
Houses. Houses for regular people. Peaceful farmers once lived here, Ferene reminded herself as she pushed the first door open. The locks were broken – these highwaymen didn't repair things, not like this. They didn't care. If anyone tried to steal from them, they'd just kill them. They didn't trust each other, but they feared each other. If someone stole from you, you stole right back. Security from each other wasn't needed.
Security from the outside, though, was another matter. One of the crew of thieves already lay dead, an arrow buried in his chest. Tullund followed Ferene into the building, bow in one hand. She didn't need him here any more.
The house showed signs of neglect. People who live by taking things from others don't care for their belongings, as they could just get more. The furniture was worn, placed haphazardly about the main room of the farmhouse. She walked across the main room, stepping over empty bottles and cups, bones from long eaten meals. It reminded her of a cave.
Sound travels in a cave. Forcing your way past a door would let others know. Here, things were isolated. Two men slept in the same bed. Friends? Lovers? Ferene held her knife in her hand. Murderers. Scum. She slit the throat of the first, then the second. They died together. She walked out of the room.
Another bedroom in the same house. Two beds. One person each. Two more dead. Tullund killed one as Ferene killed the other. Five dead. The two of them left the house, walking to the next.
The scene was the same. Neglect. Decay. Ferene could image this place, the fireplace lit, the chairs and their cushions not stained, the shelves filled with neatly organized trinkets instead of cluttered with stolen goods. This was an infestation. A bedroom without a bed, just a collection of pillows and blankets on the floor. Three more throats cut. The smell filled Ferene's mouth as she left.
She stopped outside the third house, Tullund's hand on her shoulder. She could hear sounds inside. She adjusted her grip on her shortsword as she placed a hand on the door. They all died, that was the promise.
The man inside the house turned to look at her as she pushed open the door. He did not react in time to stop her from stabbing him. She pushed his body away and quickly strode across the room, opening the door to a bedroom. A woman, half dressed, lunged at her. Ferene blocked the attack, grabbing her outstretched wrist with one hand as she drove her sword into her attacker's stomach. Two more dead. The house fell silent.
Tullund stopped her outside the fourth house. “The leader is in here. Don't kill her.”
“Is she alone?”
“There's one more of them unaccounted for.”
“You'll have to tell me which not to kill.” She said, and pushed at the door. It didn't move. Ferene threw her full weight into it, the lock breaking off the frame. Someone inside shouted. Ferene held her sword in both hands, looking around. The same neglect showed here. The shelves were empty, the table was stacked with dishes. A door opened and a man stepped out, naked, holding an axe in his hand.
“Shit, is that Tullund?” He said, smiling. “You're makin' a racket.”
Ferene ran at him, lunging forward, aiming her sword for his chest. He swung his axe at her, and she ducked to the side, barely avoiding the attack. The man towered over her, grinning downward as he stepped towards her, raising his axe for another strike. She retreated, stumbling backwards over discarded trash as she avoided the attack. Her foot touched a wall behind her and the man laughed, holding his weapon in one hand, then raising the other towards her. She didn't let him finish the motion, lunging forward, her sword swiping at his arm, axe falling to the floor in a spray of blood. He yelled, for a moment, before she swept her sword across his chest.
Tullund walked into the house, stepping over the man's body as he lay on the floor. Ferene slit his throat, putting an end to his twitching as she followed Tullund to the open door to the other room.
“She got away.” He said, pointing towards an open window above the bed. “Wait!” Ferene threw herself out the window, head-first, clutching her sword. She hit the ground, rolled to her feet, and looked around, finding the trail in the moonlight. The feeling inside of her changed. She was no longer an executioner, but a hunter. She ran, as fast as she could. Her quarry was frightened, recently roused from sleep. The footprints were uneven. It didn't take Ferene long to catch up to the woman – her pace, frantic at first, had slowed. Ferene caught up to her as she was jogging raggedly, pushing off of trees in the old orchard.
Slowing down, Ferene stalked her, sword in one hand, waiting. It would be easy, with a burst of speed, to simply impale the woman from behind. That wasn't what a hunter would do, and Ferene took the role of the hunter. This was no longer a person, but an animal. She listened to the beast's ragged breathing, ignoring the curses as it tried to run away, its path twisting, weaving through the trees. After a sharp turn, it stopped. Ferene slowed, her run turning into a slow, creeping walk, seconds between each footfall. She approached the tree, her sword held upright, her legs tense, waiting for the animal to bolt.
Not a bolt, but an attack. The beast struck out at her, a short sword in one hand, sweeping towards her chest. The illusion fell away as Ferene blocked the strike, the sound of metal against metal reminding her of the dangers of a human. The woman in front of her twisted with the redirected force, her sword turning away, swinging her other arm up towards Ferene's face. She barely managed to pull her face back in time, feeling the sting of metal across her cheek.
The bandit leader advanced on her, turning again, carrying and redirecting her momentum into another desperate attack. Calmly, Ferene stepped back, blocking the first strike as she moved to a one handed grip on her sword. Stepping forward, she interrupted the woman's second swing with a punch to the face.
Shocked, she stumbled backwards, dropping her dagger as she brought her left hand up to her jaw. Ferene advanced, still holding her sword in one hand, raising the other to strike again. The woman turned, starting to run again, but Ferene surged forward, reaching out and grabbing her shoulder. Her feet slid out from under her as Ferene pulled back, and she quickly found herself face-up on the ground, gasping for air.
Ferene sat on the ground, shortsword across her lap, holding a blood-stained rag in one hand. She examined the weapon, making sure she had properly cleaned away all the gore of the night's activities. Her gauntlets and armor lay spread on the ground in front of her, waiting for their turn.
“You gonna sit there the rest of the night, are ya?”
Larren hung over the empty well. Her hands were tied together with rope, which Tullund had looped over the top of the well frame. Her legs were also bound. Apparently the woman had left captives tied up like this, fearing that they'd be dropped into the shaft, until they agreed to join her. Tullund wanted to leave her there until morning before killing her. Some form of justice.
“I am.” Ferene sheathed her shortsword and looked up at Larren. The light from the moon and stars didn't do much to illuminate her face from this distance, but Ferene could see the dried blood of the other outlaw on the woman's face. She watched as the woman licked her lips, then spat, having tasted it.
“Look,” She started, frowning. “I don't want to die here. I can help ya out, ya know? There's coin hidden, and only I know where it is. If you let me down I can show ya. Lot of coin. Girl like you could move on from mercenary work.”
“I'm not a mercenary.” Ferene replied, tying the shortsword to her waist. “Don't care about money.” She stood up, stretching her legs, and walked in a circle around the well.
“M-maybe some information, then.” Larren said, trying to turn her head to keep Ferene in her view. “Tullund, ya? Good lookin guy, ya? I can tell ya all about him. All the things he likes. The ways ya could make him feel good.”
“Don't care about that.” Ferene said, coming to a stop on the opposite side of the well, behind Larren. The woman squirmed, trying to spin around to face her. “Just wanted to kill bandits. Killed a lot of them tonight. You'll be dead in the morning.”
Larren stopped struggling, slowly spinning back and forth for a time in silence. Ferene looked at her, then up at the sky. Without the torches and lanterns of the city, the light of the moon and the stars felt so much brighter. This could have been a peaceful place, but now it stank of blood.
“Hate thieves, huh?” Larren asked after some time, drawing Ferene's attention again. “Ya gonna kill Tullund after he kills me? He was one of us. Killed plenty. Robbed plenty. Wives and children. He's jus guilty as anyone else ya killed tonight.”
Walking back around the well, Ferene looked Larren in the eyes. “Shut up. I agreed to let him kill you but I didn't agree to listen to you talk at me.”
The woman smiled. “He lied to ya, didn't he? Didn't tell ya about what he used to be? He didn't turn clean out of the goodness of his heart, he just wanted the girl. He had her, too, till we figured out he wasn't dead in some ditch but instead playing farmer. Would ya have helped him out if ya knew the full story?”
Ferene sat down on the dirt again, laying back and staring up at the stars. She took a deep breath, instantly regretting it. Everything smelled like blood now. She wondered if she should try to burn the hamlet down, though she didn't know how.
“People like him don't jus turn into good little farmers. Ya kill and steal and ya like it. Ya can't go an live like a goodie after years of it. Ya can't pay a loafa bread for ten pennies when you could just stab the lad and take the whole cart.” Ferene stood up again, turning to Larren, her eyes locked on the woman's. The former leader's lips curled upwards. “That get to ya? Ya gonna have to kill Tullund, just like ya killed the rest. Ya think about that? Ya like thinkin about that? Turnin on him? Makes ya seem almost as bad yaself, don't it?”
Ferene stormed up to the edge of the well, glaring up at the smaller woman as she hung over the open hole. “You don't know anything about me,” She said, fists clenched so tight her nails dug into her skin. “You think I'm someone with honor? I just killed a dozen people in their sleep. You think you're the monster here, the killer? I know – know – I've killed more people than you have, and a lot of them weren't people like you. I was born in a place like this, surrounded by thieves and murderers. My mother sold herself to them. Sold me to them. I was raised by people worse than you. I was taught to fight, to steal, to kill. When I was old enough to lift a sword I was old enough to use it to kill a man. I hated them all, and when I had the chance I killed the leader and left the rest of them to fight over his place. Like a coward I ran, leaving the people who beat my mother and left her to die in her bed. I left them alive. I told myself that I'm not going to do that ever again. When I see a person who lives their life by taking from others, from hurting people who are harmless, I'm not going to leave them alive. I don't care what Tullund used to be. I know what he is now. If I hadn't agreed to let him kill you I'd slit your throat right now, just like all your followers. Save what little words you have left to beg him for your life when he wakes up because nothing you say to me will make me take any pity on you.”
When she couldn't say anything else, Ferene spun around, walking back to her gear. She had never spoken that much to anyone in years. Her face felt hot, her hands shook. Working with Tullund, not killing Larren, all of it felt wrong. Waiting here, for whatever reason, only served to make her more and more angry. She picked up her rag again, grabbing one of her gauntlets, and started rubbing at the blood, her jaw clenched.
A hand on her shoulder interrupted her work. “I'm sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” She asked, turning to look up at Tullund.
“It's too hard to sleep. Everything you said, I didn't know about that.”
Letting out a breath, Ferene picked up her other gauntlet. “Kill her and you'll be the only person that does know.”
“Are you going to kill me to keep the secret?”
“Don't care.” She said, wiping the cloth over the metal. There wasn't even anything to clean. He nodded, and let go of her. She looked over her shoulder as he walked up to the well.
“Sun is up, Larren. Time to die.”
“Hope the Hatharen stabs you.”
“She might.” He said, lifting a knife and cutting the rope tying her to the frame of the well. She screamed as she fell.
Tullund stood there after the sound faded, staring down into the hole, perfectly still, as if waiting for something. Ferene tossed the rag to the ground and gathered the pieces of her armor. She didn't feel like wearing it. “If you're done, let's get out of here. Away from the smell.” She called out, slinging her sword over her back.
“What are you going to do now?”
For most of the day, Tullund remained silent. Now, as they sat in a clearing to the side of the road, he returned to asking questions. “Find someone else to kill.” She answered.
He stood up from the well-worn stump he had been sitting on, stepping towards her. “Why?” He asked, kneeling, staring at her. “You don't have to keep killing.”
“I told you that I'm a killer.”
“The people you killed, I used to be like them. A killer, and not one like you. I killed helpless people. People who couldn't fight back. You didn't kill me. Why?”
“If you had been less driven, I would have. If you had hesitated to drop her down the well, I would have killed you on the spot.”
“But you didn't. Why?”
“You decided to stop being what you were.”
“And you can't do that? I changed because I found someone who helped me change. Someone that changed me. You don't think you can change, but maybe I can help you. I'm going to find a farm that is looking for help. You can come with me. I'll teach you what you need to know. You can start over, like I did.”
“I'm not a replacement for your dead wife.”
He looked away from her, and slowly stood up, walking back to sit on his stump. He stared at the dirt. Ferene frowned, clenching her jaw.
“I want to do this. I have to do this. I'm not lost and searching for answers – this is my answer. You found a way to change from a thug into a farmer. I found a way to change from a bandit into...whatever you call this. A bandit killer. I don't need to change into anything else.”
“Do you really believe that what you were doing back there is all you're going to do? Can't there be something more for you?”
He met her eyes, from across the campsite, and this time she looked away. “No.” She didn't feel that word the way she felt the others, but it was the only answer she had to give. She didn't want to be a farmer. She stood up. “We're parting ways here. Good luck, Tullund.” Grabbing the pieces of her armor, and her sword, she walked towards the road, back the way they had come.
Ferene stared down into the well. She couldn't see the bottom in the moonlight. The hamlet no longer smelled of blood, but Ferene was sure she caught a hint of it when the wind shifted. Somewhere in that hole was whatever was left of the woman.
Ferene closed her eyes. It could be her body at the bottom of the well. She could have been the leader of a gang, living by taking from others. She could have been hunted down in the night, dragged back here, and hung up to think about her choices before her death. Or would she have won when she tried to fight back, and lived to continue her evil ways? Somewhere in the world, there was someone stronger than her, and if she gave that person a reason to kill her, she would end up dead.
People like the woman in the well deserved to die, so Ferene and Tullund killed her. Ferene herself deserved to die, and eventually, she would. Tullund deserved to die, and eventually, he would. But Ferene hadn't killed Tullund, and she wasn't going to kill herself.
Of all the questions Tullund asked her, only the last one stuck with her. She didn't know the answer. Would she eventually kill enough to satisfy herself? Was there an end to revenge? If there was, what would she do then? Could she leave everything and become a farmer, as Tullund had?
Turning away from the well, she sat down on the dirt, looking up at the stars. What would it be like, to live with a roof over her head every night? Would the sounds of wind against wooden walls become comforting to her? She found herself asking the questions now, yet there were still no answers.
In the moment, the sound of grass and leaves rustling in the wind was her life. She put on her armor – this was who she was. The questions could wait. The weight of her armor on her body, her sword in her hand – that was who she was.
Footsteps in the night. The group that had left before the slaughter were back. Ferene took a deep breath, holding her sword in both hands. Her job here wasn't finished.