Chapter 13: 13 : Carrion

The world narrowed to a point of silver.

“Yield,” Osric said, the end of his rapier hovering a hand-span from Will’s throat. “Or I’ll bleed you here—then carve that dim friend of yours for desert.”

Moonlight silvered the collector’s blade, still wet from Bram’s heart. Will’s legs folded. He sank onto damp grass without feeling knees bend, as though someone else pulled the strings.

“That’s better.” Osric flicked a boot at Garret’s fallen sword, sending it skittering across the grass until it stopped inches from Will’s shins. “On your conscience, orphan.”

Bootsteps pattered round the barn corner. “Will?” Ricket called, voice small in the dark.

Osric turned smoothly. “Stay there, young one,” he commanded, tone honeyed yet iron-hard. The collector angled his body so Ricket could see the tableau: Will kneeling, blood-streaked blade before him; Bram sprawled behind, a dark mound in the grass. “This is no goat thief. He’s a murderer. You’re safe only if you stand clear.”

Will’s mouth worked, but Osric’s rapier dipped; the warning was clear. Ricket’s face twisted—fear, disbelief, heartbreak. He slipped in the grass, scrambled up, and fled toward the farmhouse.

The moment the boy vanished, Osric’s warmth evaporated. “Understand me, bastard: you died the night your father did. Your brother merely delayed the hangman.”

He produced a short chain, snapped one cuff round Will’s wrist, the other round the rapier’s guard: a leash of steel—and humiliation. “A pity,” Osric sighed, slipping a short chain from his belt. One cuff snapped round Will’s wrist, the other to the rapier’s guard—the collector’s pet.

“Walk,” Osric ordered.

Will’s senses obfuscated reality.

Will did not remember crossing the paddock, only the sudden weight of another corpse as Osric slung Bram’s body across the gelding’s back like a sack of meal; blood dripped onto the dun hide. Will’s stomach lurched, but the chain jerked him forward before grief could root him.

“This brute has butchered his own blood” Osric announced to the Polock family witnessing Will’s departure.

Words tumbled in slow syrup. Will felt them land but could not lift them, could not lift anything: not his hands, not the ache chewing his ribs, not the thought of Miriam’s gentle laugh, or how it ended under hooves, or whether any of that had really been his life at all.

Elder deer, crystal antlers. Cave of bones, moon-lit sword. Garret’s cold eyes, Chud’s denial. Golden hair underwater, kiss made of light. Bram’s fury turned still in the grass. Fight, whispered from nowhere.

Will stumbled after Osric.

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They cut across fields that blurred from silver to ink as clouds ate the moon. Osric in front leading Chud, Will tethered a pace behind like a dog. Cold dew soaked his trousers; the slice Bram had scored along his ribs stung with every breath. Above, stars wheeled indifferent patterns.

Shame weighed more than the shackles. In Will’s mind the villagers he’d grown beside whispered new names for him—foundling, curse, kinslayer. He tried to summon the elder deer’s grave eyes, the pond’s impossible warmth, anything to anchor him, but memory felt dream-thin. Only Osric’s tug on the chain remained tangible.

At the crossroads a lantern party waited—two village watchmen on nagging ponies. Osric hailed them as if returning from a hunt.

Their questions smeared together:

“—tax collector—”

“—confessed murderer—”

“—brother’s corpse?”

They stared, aghast, but fell in behind.

Will’s mouth did not move; his tongue felt sewn to his teeth. Someone laughed—Efram? No, Efram was back at the farmhouse saying Makes me sick. Or maybe that had been hours earlier. Time flapped loose, a sheet in storm wind.

The chain dragged him on.

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Veyorth’s market emerged from darkness like a fever dream—stalls shuttered, dogs skulking, drunkards snoring in doorways. Yet as Osric led his procession deeper, shutters cracked and eyes glinted. Rumour outran hooves.

“Garret’s boys,” a woman whispered.

“The orphan did it,” a man spat.

Rotten roots and curses followed. A child threw a stone. It struck Will’s cheek; pain bloomed crimson then vanished beneath numbness. He wondered if this was dream-pain or real. Did dreams stink of turnip rot and horse blood?

Past the market stalls loomed the old stone bridge that spanned the river and split the town: market on one bank, the bailiff’s offices and wealthier homes on the other. Thirteen ropes already hung from its beam, swaying like pale vines. Two bodies swung there—yesterday’s thieves, faces blue in moonlight.

Osric paused atop the arch. “Look closely,” he said, turning Will’s head by the chain. “Tomorrow you’ll swing beside them. Justice likes symmetry.”

Will looked, and for a heartbeat the hanged men changed: their faces were Garret’s, then Bram’s, then strangers again. He shut his eyes; inside lids, antlers flashed, dripping starlight.

Will’s gaze drifted to the water below, black and bottomless in the dark. Part of him hoped Osric would shove him over now—one plunge, cold silence—but the collector tugged the chain instead.

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Civic guards ushered them into a stone hall lit by tallow torches. Everything rang: boots on flagstone, Osric’s crisp recital of charges, quill scratching as a thin-lipped scribe copied words that slid past Will’s ears.

He stood in the centre, chained wrists heavy, mouth cotton-dry.

“William Docket, called Will. Accused of patricide by blade. Fratricide by blade. Theft of horse and sword. Blasphemous consort with unknown forces. Verdict: guilty.”

No defence. No witness. Only Osric’s velvet certainty and the village elders’ need for swift order. Gavel cracked—an axe on rotten wood.

Will tried to speak once, to say I don’t know what’s real, but breath left as fog.

Hands seized him. The room tilted; ceiling stones blurred into black wing-shapes. He wondered if the cave of bones sat just above that ceiling, its sword glowing, waiting for him to climb.

An iron door yawned open. Cold, wet air rolled up, stinking of mildew and despair. Stairs plunged; guards shoved. Will’s boots slipped on slime. Each step on his fall down echoed until echoes tangled with memory: hooves, whispers, riverwater rushing into his lungs.