Cold air slapped Willâs skin. His eyes fluttered open to a high vault of branches, sunlight filtering through in slow, gold shafts. For a breath he didnât moveâhe only listened. Leaves whispered overhead, a thrush piped from somewhere unseen, and the pond beside him lapped at its own shore with small, secret sounds.
Pond, he thought.
He jerked upright. Water flashed in his peripheral vision, silver-bright; he lay half in shadow on damp moss, completely naked.
Memory hit like a thrown stone: dragging feet through forest, the arrow wound burning, the pond âand nothing. He must have wandered out of the pond in his stupor in some mad dream. Either way, the chill that should have knifed his skin was missing; he felt⦠rested. Better than any morning he could remember, as though every bruise had slept as well and woken lighter.
For a long moment he simply breathed, tasting pine and distant river-silt on the air. It felt wrong to feel good.
His belongings lay where he dimly recalled dropping them yesterday: ash bow, quiver, satchel, sword belt, trousers, wool shirt. Neatly arrayed, almost reverent, as though someoneâor somethingâhad placed them there.
Will rose, wiping dew from his legs. Muscles answered smoothly. When he reached for the linen shirt his fingers hesitated at the shoulder seam. The arrow had pierced just below the collarbone; it should still throb like a hornet. Instead he brushed smooth skin puckered only by an old pink scar.
He pressed harder. No pain.
A tremor ran through himânot pain, but dread. He turned to the pond, glass-still under early light. Nothing stirred below the surface; only his own reflection stared back: gaunt face and wide eyes. He remembered water closing over his head, golden hair swirling, lips on his, warmth spreading. And then blackness.
âMaybe the night was a dream,â he murmured, but the words rang hollow. Miracles did not belong to boys like him. He pulled the shirt over his head anyway, cinched trousers, laced boots. When he fastened the sword belt the healed flesh pulled hardly at all.
Heart hammering, he slung bow and satchel, then forced himself to look one last time at the water. It remained placid, inscrutable. If there was magic here it had retreated with dawn.
âIâm not mad,â he told the pond, though he could not be sure.
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The campsite lay uphill, a ragged clearing now scattered with churned leaves and ghost memories. The camouflaged mound sat where heâd left itâdarker earth mounded over what had been a man.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The sight hit harder than the wound ever had. Even the renewed strength in his limbs could not dull the throb behind his ribs.
Will knelt, pressed a palm to the dirt. âIâm sorry,â he whispered. No tears came; exhaustion ran too deep for that. He forced himself to inventory instead: water skin nearly full, small pouch of salt pork, flint-iron, whetstone, spare bowstring, one change of linen. Enough for two or three days if he rationedâand if nobody found him first.
A practical problem remained: distance. He could never walk to the coast or into the highlands before Osric sent men hunting. Chud offered the only speed he had.
He turned toward the tree where the gelding still waited, reins looped low. The horse pricked its ears but did not shy as Will approached. Bloody smell off his borrowed clothes must still unsettle the animal; but Chudâs dark eyes held nothing like accusation nowâonly wariness.
âEasy, old friend.â Will stroked the neck, then untied the rein, looping leather around hand and wrist the way Garret liked. He glanced once more at the moundânothing stirringâand swung into the saddle.
Chud shifted, nostrils flaring. Will leaned forward. âWeâre leaving,â he breathed. âFar from here.â A squeeze of heel started the gelding down the forest track.
Theyâd gone perhaps five strides when hoofbeats faltered. Chudâs head snaked round, ears flat. Will clucked reassurance, but a tremor travelled up the reinsâresistance, then alarm. Without warning the horse reared. Will clutched mane; weight shifted sickeningly. He muttered, âWhoa, whoaââ
Chud bolted.
Willâs vision jolted green-brown blur as branches whipped past. He held only by tangled reins burning across knuckles. One foot slipped from the stirrup. Panic flared; he grabbed for the saddle hornâtoo late. The gelding plunged down a deer path and Willâs wrist wrenched. Leather tore free and he smashed to earth, rolling through bracken until he slammed against a rotten log.
By the time he staggered upright, Chud was a dark streak vanishing âtoward everything he planned to flee.
Will spat leaves, tasted blood again. Shit.
Without horse or road, time shrank to hours. He scanned the underbrush: sword still sheathed, bow unbroken, though shoulder ached where it struck ground. The healed wound held firm.
He tried not to read omen in that but it was unavoidable.
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âSouth,â he told himself. The Ashen Coast lay days away but smuggler routes cut through the forestâs lower skirts. If Will reached those coves he could barter passage or vanish in trading chaos. But the quickest approach skirted the Polock farms.
No choice. He started trotting, letting rhythm drive worry down deep.
Forest gave way to high meadow, then light woods again. He drank sparingly, sucked a strip of pork to keep salt on his tongue. Every time the sky opened he checked the sun's arcâhours until noon, and he needed every drop.
The new boots proved gift and curse; soles sturdy, but leather stiff enough to rub. He pushed pace anyway, breathing, counting heartbeats.
Memories hunted him as surely as Calrune's bounty hunters would: Garretâs last words; Bramâs blade-wild face; the stagâs mournful eye; gold hair drifting in black water. They lapped at his heels, but he did not slow.