The rest of the night went on without any other event on Ezril and Urden’s side of the tavern. The Northman and his companions continued their conversation. They talked on various topics from the proper way to kill a man to the proper way to fuck a woman which inspired a few disagreements from the woman and everything else in between. The rest of the tavern did the same. They stepped over Njord’s body as if it was naught but a floor ornament. Whether the older brother didn’t care or took too much pleasure in it, Ezril couldn’t decipher.

As the night aged, the animals fell silent. The birds returned to their trees of nesting, and the drunks began their nightly rituals of passing out in their own vomits or perhaps that of their colleagues. Urden rose from their table and Ezril followed. They left the tavern in silence and under the watch of wary eyes.

The door closed behind them and Ezril found himself wondering if his eyes played tricks on him. He was more than certain he saw Agda climbing up the stairs with the woman his younger brother had been so buried in and the tavern girl he had saved from watching two men fight over her attached to both arms as he and Urden left.

Ezril and Urden walked down the length of the street and Ezril found himself vaguely reminded of the underbelly. There was no doubt in his mind that the place was a slum of its own. He studied their surrounding with the faint light coming from the moon. A few buildings with lanterns shone their lights through the slits in their windows, illuminating the night in a distortion of colors. Between the light of the moon and the lit candles, the night was touched in a hue of cold blue and warm orange.

The place, as it had been when they’d come in, was littered with rubbish at every corner. A dead cat, probably two days gone, laid smashed at the center of the road with a conference of flies tingling the air with buzzing sounds scouring the remains. Chances were it had been trampled upon by one horse or the other—maybe two—before it had been able to get out of the way. For every breath Ezril took, his nose was bullied by the tinge of sewage. It was so much that he often found himself struggling for air.

They walked a good distance from the tavern before taking a turn down an alley. They strolled into another road, walk another distance, then took another turn. Ezril’s nose wrinkled at the smell of detritus all around them, smelling what was possibly a dead body. It was hard to believe such a place existed just outside the capital’s walls.

After three more turns, Ezril came to realize that they weren’t making their way to Dainty. Urden had them walking in a complex circle…or square. Ezril deduced with a frown that should they take the next right turn before them, instead of the left, it would place them back at the tavern. It was a trick he had learnt when he was younger, but not from the underbelly. He had learnt it from aunt Teneri. She had told him of something eerily familiar once.

“If you think someone’s following you and you’re not sure,” she had told him. “Take four right turns.”

“And if there are no right turns?” he’d asked.

She’d looked at him with a fondness one used for an unintelligent child they loved. “Then take left turns.”

Urden pulled off a more time consuming and intricate form of this, and Ezril hadn’t even noticed. He looked up at the man. Urden ignored him and took the wrong turn. He took a left instead of a right. It led them into an alley and brought them to a dead end. There, Urden let out a resigned breath.

The first sign of their followers was a not so subtle sound of snickering. It came from more than one mouth and piled at the entrance of the alley. In time, four men slowly stepped into view. Each one held a knife of his own. The blades held nothing to that of Agda’s, but they were sure to put a man in the ground if stabbed. Ezril wasn’t so sure it would be very effective against a Hallowed.

“Wrong turn, old man,” the one to the far left snickered. He was the shortest of them, and he seemed to snicker the most.

“Shoulda just taken that last turn. Woulda delayed the outcome.” This from a man who stood with a hunch. His teeth were a dark yellow and he was missing a few. Ezril was amazed at how he noticed it from the distance.

“You know what we want old man. We seen the pouch already. Just giv’ us the gold ‘n we be out o’ yer ‘air,” the shortest said with a ravening smile on his face that didn’t match his offer.

Ezril, terrified by the prospect of violence, was watching aptly when something went wrong.

His mind went blank and he broke out in a cold sweat. He was touched by the cold hands of terror, or perhaps it was just the night’s air. Even frowning refused him. He realized what held him a moment later. He was afraid, held captive by the strange companionship of a fear he’d never known. It was almost as though everything he hadn’t known he was afraid of watched him from the secrecy of the darkness that surrounded him, feeding off his fear, promising a gift of paralysis as the air slowly drained from his lungs.

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Despite how much his instincts willed him to run, ignoring the presence of Urden which should have been assuring, his legs did not obey. Besides, where would he go when he was terrified of everything?

With no alternatives, he stood in place behind the priest. Shaking.

“Oi! Papi! What’s wrong?” yellow teeth asked one of his comrades.

The man’s knife fell from his grip as he stared. Eyes wide with fear, he shook with a terrible shiver. Ezril wondered if the man would piss his pants, too. One by one each man’s knife fell with a clatter. Yellow teeth was the only one left that still held his knife in shaky hands.

“W-w…what’s h-happening?” he stuttered.

Urden gave him his answer.

“Fear is a strong instinct,” he said regally. “It helps us survive.” His voice, yet calm, carried a weight with it. “Do you know that some animals hold their breath in order to become undetectable to predators?” He took a step towards the men but continued to address Yellow teeth. “It’s quite amazing to think that the action is almost entirely instinctual—born of fear. The things fear can do,” he marveled. “I’ve even seen men faint from it.”

He took another step forward and the three men around yellow teeth fell.

“Painful, is it not?” he asked. “It grips your heart and you can’t think straight. It even turns the leg to jelly.” Now he stood before the man.

“Did I only say faint?” He sounded nothing like the man Ezril had been traveling with, nothing like the man who’d shared a joke and a laugh with aunt Teneri. Urden sighed. “You must forgive me. Did I say faint? I’ve even watched men die.”

Ezril could see nothing but Urden’s back. For some reason it terrified him more than the previous thought of being stabbed in an alley. Urden seemed to grow with the darkness.

When he raised a hand to Yellow teeth, the man crumbled like a wet rag before it reached him.

Along with the smell of rotten fish and excrement, the alley now seethed with the foul stench of urine.

Urden turned his gaze to Ezril. “Come, Ezril,” he said. “It’s time to leave.”

Whatever had held Ezril prisoner, released him. He rose to his feet, confused. He wondered when he’d sat on the floor. He took a step toward the priest and embraced the returned command over his body. He placed one foot in front of the other in slow and systematic steps. Eventually he was walking properly. Command of his body was returned to him.

They took a few turns after leaving the alley and soon found themselves in the forest where they had left Dainty. No matter how many times they stayed among civilization, or the closest things to it, Urden never allowed them spend the night there. They always returned to the forest, or whatever part of nature was nearby, be it mountain or hill.

Ezril always dreaded the days when nothing akin to a forest was nearby. It meant they would ride through the night while he slept on the saddle, which was unsurprisingly the worst place he’d ever slept.

The moon was at its peak when they found Dainty. The night was so old there was nothing left for it in its growth than to begin its path to death. The horse had chewed any vestige of grass around it in a circle so that Ezril wondered if it had been trained to do such. It was silently waiting when they returned.

Urden handed Ezril a canteen and a piece of cloth before unwrapping his weapons and driving them into the dirt—a habit he was prone to. He found shelter under a tree where he settled himself for the night. The realization of how thirsty the ordeal in the alley had left him hit Ezril a moment sooner.

Looking up at the stars and noting how few of them were out tonight, he drank from the canteen Urden gave him. He reminded himself to save some for his clothes, knowing how much he needed it. He wondered how Ardin, the capital city, could have such insanity just beyond its gates without doing anything about it. The thought was too heavy. It weighed on his young mind and he pushed it aside. He lowered the canteen and tilted it over a small piece of torn cloth. He wet the cloth with a few drops. He refused himself the urge to ponder on how the priest had known he would need water, convincing himself there was no need. The abilities of a Hallowed were so much they were almost rumors. Besides, in a few days he would be a seminarian training in the seminary. He would be on his path to becoming a priest, a fate he’d finally digested sometime in the past few months.

Aunt Teneri had seemed so sure he was going to be a good fit for the seminary that Ezril had himself convinced his awakening was inevitable. Though he had never considered the possibility before, he was greatly certain he would awaken as a Hallowed one day.

They will teach you well but you must understand that humans, be they Hallowed or Tainted, are not always right. No matter how confident we may seem, we don’t know it all.

Teneri’s parting words slipped into his mind and Ezril smothered them. They were doubts seeking to dissuade his growing hope of being Hallowed, and he didn’t want that. Because if he was being honest, a few things had happened in his life that he feared, things that made him fear he was Tainted.

Ezril shook his dread and hope from his mind. Tonight he was the adopted son of a priest preparing to sleep through a cold night with no fire. Nothing more and nothing less. He could make a fire easily but something convinced him if the priest hadn’t made one, taking up such an endeavor would be a terrible idea.

Satisfied with how wet the piece of cloth in his hand was, he walked towards the privacy of a nearby tree. Ezril reminded himself that the rise of the sun would have them on the road under its warmth. It did nothing to make him forget how cold he was as he squeezed the water from the damp cloth and bit back on his shame.

Tonight he was standing under the night sky with no knowledge of where exactly he was. But at least he knew who he was. And that was enough for him…

He sighed.

Another thing he knew was that he was standing in piss-soaked trousers.