Julie was making her way north along the king’s road. Her mind kept trying to dart back to the blood, but she shook it off with a jerking tremor in her hands. It had to be done. They were villains and she brought them to justice, just like the heroes in the stories always did. She adjusted the straps on her leather backpack and forced herself to smile. Thinking of the magistrate doubled over in pain clutching at his groin was enough to make it a real smile. At least for a moment.
The road here was wide enough for two carts to pass each other. She’d been heading north for nearly an hour, and hadn’t seen any other travelers. She wondered if she was going to be able to catch up to Ravenhair, Sevil, and Toby. She wondered if they had just been humoring her when they told her to meet them. They probably just sent me back to get rid of me. A pestering voice in her mind kept trying to tell her she should cut her losses and go home. She had enough money in her pouches that she could probably start her own farm. The thought of farming was more sickening than the memory of the blood racing down her hands. Barely.
On either side of her, the road was flanked with dense foliage. The trees here were heavy pines. She couldn’t see very far into the forest, and could not hear the sounds of movement through the wind whistling in the trees. A pair of filthy men stepped from the forest in front of her. They were large, and grubby. Neither was wearing a shirt, and she noticed that the pants they wore seemed to be made of burlap sacking, tied at the waist and ankles with rope. She stood downwind of them, and they had a rotten smell of sour alcohol and unwashed bodies. The larger of the two spoke, “Alright girl, that’s far enough. Time to give back that money you stole from the magistrate.”
Julie looked from one leering face to the other. They put her in the mind of weasels, with thin narrow faces, close set eyes, and red stubble on their cheeks. Neither man seemed to be carrying a weapon. Her hand went to the hilt of her shortsword. “I didn’t steal anything. The magistrate gave me a reward! I brought a villain to justice.”
The smaller of the two men took a step towards her now. “Right, and I never stole a thing in my life neither. But you’re gonna give us that money, ya ken?” He reached out to touch her, and before he could she took a step backwards and drew her sword.
“I’m not giving you anything!” She said, holding her sword out. “I’m warning you, don’t come any closer!”
“Or what?” The shorter of the two men leered at her, “Jeb do you think we could have a bit of fun with her?” The smaller man lunged at her, his hands flailing out to grab her. Reflexively she pushed the sword into his midsection. He let out a horrible gurgling sound.
The larger man took several steps backwards and said, “What the blazes did you do that fer? Crazy wench!”
“She stabbed me, Jeb! She stabbed me!” The shorter man was clawing at the blade, and Julie gave it a sharp twist before she pulled it out, letting blood from his hands mingle with that from his gut. Ravenhair had told her that she needed to be quick to twist and pull with a shortsword. She said that stabbing was all well and good but letting the weight of an opponent’s body drag the sword from you hand could be the last thing you ever did. Julie held the bloodied blade in front of her in a defensive posture, her heart was pounding and her mouth tasted like dry copper. She thought the larger man was going to attack her. Instead he dropped to his knees and was cradling his companions head in his hands. The smaller of the two men was making gurgling noises and coughing up blood.
“It’ll be alright, Mervin! We’ll get you fixed up!” The larger man was cooing to his bleeding partner, “We’ll get you to the midwife, and she’ll fix you up.”
“Jeb, I’m cold,” Mervin’s voice was growing weaker as his lifeblood spilled out onto the road and turned the dust into mud, “Tell mama I love her.”
Julie wasn’t sure how to react to this situation, she thought it might be a ploy. “Are you going to leave me alone now!” She screamed.
“You’re crazy! Bleeding mad, you are! You killed my brother! His blood is on your hands!” The man was beginning to sound deranged, he stood up now and stared at Julie with eyes full of horror, at his feet his brother continued to make choking noises.
“Well, you attacked me! What did you expect to happen!” Julie was enraged by this turn of events.
“I don’t know! We wasn’t going to kill you! We were just going to rough you up a bit, and take back the money.” He looked around like a trapped animal, “I’ll go for help Mervin, we’ll get you fixed up.” With that promise, he darted for the treeline like a frightened hare.
Julie was taken aback. The man, Mervin, was turning a ghastly pale color at her feet. She couldn’t leave him like this, to bleed to death on the road like an injured animal. There was a long bolt of cloth she’d purchased at the store, and she cut a length of it off. She stuffed it into the man’s gaping wound, and made her way into the trees. She looked for saplings cutting them down with the hatchet Emile had suggested she buy, and carrying them back to the road in a bundle.
“This is better than you deserve.” She said, laying the saplings out on the road next to each other. She laid the two longest sapling lengthwise, and then began fastening three smaller ones to them to make crossbars. She tested her makeshift sledge, pulling on the runners, and satisfied with her work, she rolled the man over and onto the litter. “Better than you deserve.” She repeated when he let out a startled gasp.
Progress now became grueling and slow. It took all her strength to get moving, and most of it to keep going. The runners were thin and dragging the man on the road was arduous. He still let out the occasional horrible gurgling noises, and sputtered blood leaving a gruesome trail in their wake. The sticks kept sliding out of her hands, and the bark was rough on her skin. She was considering stopping long enough to try and rig up better handles, when she saw a man walking on the road leading an animal in the distance.
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“Hail!” She called out to the stranger.
The man waved back to her, and continued making his way towards her. When she got close enough to make out some detail, she realized that the man must be a charcoal burner. His clothing was covered in soot, and his hands and faced to seemed to be stained black. He asked, “What seems to be the trouble?” With the casual air of one who sees men bleeding to death on roads everyday.
Julie let go of the litter and made her way over to the man. “Please, you have to help me, he’s injured.” She implored.
“What happened?” The man asked, taking in the gristly scene.
“He was stabbed. In the gut. I think he’s going to die, is there someone we can take him to nearby?”
The man stepped closer and looked at the scene over Julie’s shoulder. “Oy! That’s Mervin, one of the magistrate’s mad dogs. I knew it wouldn’t be long before someone put him down. Merciful thing to do would be just to finish the job. Gut wounds never heal.”
“No! We can’t!” Julie looked shocked at this callous indifference.
“Well,” the man tucked his thumbs into his pockets as he spoke, “I suppose we could take him to Clara, the old witch woman what lives up the road a ways. I could hitch your little up to Jezebel here. Still, I think we should just put ‘em down.”
“We’re not going to ‘put him down!’ He’s a human being, not some rabid dog.” Julie was beginning to wonder if the man was right, but she knew she had to stick to her convictions. Heroes always did the right thing, even by their enemies.
“Right then, if you insist.” The two of them used some rope to attach the sledge to the man’s donkey. They began making their way north again, and Julie tried to pass the time with idle conversation. Every subject she broached with the man was met with one word answers or grunts. He was a charcoal burner, on his way to sell his charcoal in Kentvale. He had no interest in knowing what Julie was doing, where she was going or where she had been.
After half an hour of traveling in near silence, only interrupted by the occasional sound of blood being coughed up, the man stopped and pointed into the forest. “Clara keeps a little cottage in the trees a ways, maybe half a mile off the main road. I’ve taken you this far, but you’re going to have to make the rest of the trip on your own. Suns going to be going down soon and I ain’t going to be caught on this road at night. Tain’t safe.”
Julie thanked the man for his help, and he continued back on his way south. Pulling the litter through the trees was much harder than it had been on the road. Every few steps she had to stop and untangle the sledge from the roots and undergrowth. Her hands were cut and laden with splinters. She would leave Mervin, and scout ahead looking for the clearest path between the trees, then double back and force the sledge and the man through the woods. More than once she had to push him off the sledge entirely to dislodge it and then roll him back onto it. Mervin was white as a sheet by the time the thin trail of smoke became visible. Julie ran up ahead towards it and saw a neat little cottage with flagstone walls and a thatch roof.
There was a woman in front of it, on her hands and knees pulling the weeds from a small herb garden. Julie sprinted over to her, and asked, “Please, are you Clara?” She gasped for air and continued without waiting for an answer, “You have to help me!”
“I might be Clara and I might not, but I certainly don’t have to help you child.” The woman stood up and dusted the dirt off her heavy work pants. She looked Julie up and down.
“Please,” Julie implored pointing back the way she’d came, “There’s a man over there, and he’s going to die!”
“Ahh,” said Clara, “I see. Friend of yours is he?”
“Well, no. Actually he was trying to rob me.” Julie was beginning to feel exasperated, and she realized how thirsty she was.
“Rob you eh? Then why would you want me to help him?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do! We can’t just let him die!” Julie was stifling a sob as she said this, and she could feel tears in her eyes.
Clara placed a hand reassuring on Julie’s shoulder and said, “Come child, let’s see if there’s anything I can do.”
The two women, made their way back through the trees to where Julie had left Mervin. It was much easier to pull the sledge with the old woman’s help, and there was even a footpath leading up to the cottage that Julie hadn’t noticed at first. She had tried to ask Clara if he was going to survive as soon as they had reached him. Clara just shook her head and said that she’d have to examine him.
They brought him into Clara’s cottage, and in spite of the situation Julie was taken aback by the show of wealth. There were many books lining the walls, at least a dozen, and the furniture all seemed to be very well made. The kitchen was clean, and together they moved a table and laid him out of the kitchen floor. Julie had expected a bed and asked why they were leaving him on the floor.
Clara gave her a long look before she answered, “Child, this man’s bleeding like a stuck pig, and once I pull this rag out of the hole in his stomach, he’s going to spray like a fountain if there’s any life left in him at all. It’s easier to clean the hardwood floor than to replace my sheets.” She removed the saturated cloth from the wound, and placed it in an earthenware bowl, “This is not your home, and you are barely a guest here. Can you even pay me for my services?”
Julie’s hand went to her money pouch, and she started to untie it, “I can pay you-” She started to say before she was cut off.
“Heaven’s name, child! A sack of chips as heavy as that one looks should not just be dangling from your belt, are you stupid?” The woman’s hands were stained red now, but in spite of what she said the man wasn’t spraying blood like a fountain, it was barely a trickle now.
Julie thought of Frederick offering to hold on to the better part of her money when she had left the inn. There was no doubt in her mind that she could trust him, but she needed to buy the things that Ravenhair had suggested, and they simply weren’t for sale in the tiny town of Kentvale. She had strapped the coin purse to her belt without giving it a second thought. She felt a pang of shame being chided like a child by this old woman. “How much do you need?” Julie asked and added, “To save him.”
“I don’t think I can save him, and he’s bleeding all over my floor.” The woman seemed to have forgotten about the question of payment, “Help me move him to scullery, it’ll be easier to wash up in there.”
Julie was beginning to feel uncomfortable about the whole situation. She had expected the woman to be kind and helpful, but she was rude and insulting. “Look, if you can’t do anything to help him, maybe I should take him and go.” She said trying to sound confident about the idea.
“You won’t get far, child.” Clara stood up and washed began washing the blood off her hands in a basin of water. “Best thing I can do for him is give him something to ease the pain and make him comfortable.” She dried her hands on a towel and began rummaging in her cupboards. It didn’t take long for her to reveal a glass jar, it was filled with black berries and strange looking roots. “Do you want me to help him, to make him comfortable?” The old woman asked solemnly.
“I just want to do the right thing,” Julie said feeling defeated.