Page 4 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
The boy tossed his pickax aside and grunted as he picked up Michael, trying not to jostle him too much. His brother whimpered. The boy’s already aching arms protested, but he would not leave his brother here to die alone in the mines. Not if there was a chance the Stoneset woman could save him. Gossip said she was Yalven, but he didn’t believe such slop. They were just a bedtime story told to keep naughty children in line.
He left his pickax and trekked up the tunnel. There, new sounds met his ears: screams and wails, guttural noises he couldn’t place. He froze, pressing himself against the wall. Michael moaned at the sudden movement.
“Broth—Brother…”
“Hold on.” The boy couldn’t mask the fear in his voice. It was tight and precise, like it’d been squeezed from his throat. “I’ll fix this.”
His brother’s life leaked from his side, and by the time the boy figured out how to get to Stoneset, it’d be too late.
But the boy would try anyway.
As gently as he could, the boy lowered his brother to the ground. “I’ll come back, I swear.” He arranged Michael against the wall in the most comfortable position he could think of. “I just need to find something, or someone…I’ll be back with help, and you’ll be fine.”
As if he could make it so simply by saying it.
“No, no…” Michael sobbed. He reached, but his arms were too weak; they dropped without finding the boy. “Don’t go!”
The boy wiped away his brother’s tears and stood, the blood clinging to his skin and clothing as if it were his own. Hewilled courage into his limbs and strode forward, turning at the mine entrance, the sun blazing and hot on his pale face. “I love you, Michael.”
And then the boy was off. The morning had been crisp, but the late April day had turned into one of heat and the promise of summer beauty. How horrifying the contrast. The shouts had died down, and the ground no longer shook, but the destruction around the last bend in the tree-lined path made the serene spring day feel like a mockery.
Soldiers. Blue jackets. Triple diamond tattoos everywhere he looked.
Cerls.
The fear in his veins ran cold like the mountain snows, like his family’s tiny cottage when the fire went out in the dead of winter. The blacksmith’s arm lay at a grotesque angle, a Cerl above him wiping blood from a sword. He sprawled at the edge of the village in the middle of the road. Sickness rose up in the boy’s throat and choked any scream he might’ve let loose.
He flung himself back into the trees and hid behind the largest one. His breaths came in squeaks and wheezes. Why were they here? What had his people done to justify this? The previous attack had happened because the marauding bandits needed supplies, and Ravenhelm just happened to be closest.
Those men were not bandits. They were soldiers;Trips, as everyone called them, orthrice-blasted Tripsif his father got to ranting.
The boy needed a plan. Even if he hadn’t left his pickax behind, it wouldn’t have done him any good against a Cerl’s sword. He needed a horse and cart to get Michael to Stoneset fast as possible. It was nearly a full day’s walk with a clear sky and no soldiers at your back.
The boy forced himself to look around the tree again, bracing for the death and destruction. He scanned the villagefor the enemy, purposefully avoiding looking directly at the dead littering the roads and alleys he’d known his entire life.
But his eyes caught on one of the mine guards closest to the tree line. Red hair. Too many freckles. Only a handful of years older than the boy himself. His crossbow lay halfway underneath his body where he’d fallen. Blood stained the grass.
The boy could use the crossbow. It would be lighter than the pickax. He was just strong enough to use it properly.
The boy looked back toward the village. He spotted a few of his fellow miners among the dead, their bodies lining one of the alleyways closest to him that ran between the tavern and village hall.
Only a few soldiers remained. Two of them sat atop horses. Smoke and flames licked the rooftops of most cottages. The two with horses seemed to be looking for something.
If the boy could grab the crossbow and bolts and make his way to the edge of the last cottage, he could ambush them. He’d hit them with the bolts and steal their horses. He’d run down anyone else who tried to stop him.
Then he’d hitch them both to a wagon and carry his brother to safety. A rudimentary plan, but it was the only one he had, and the only one he’d get.
He didn’t have time to try for a better one.
Holding his breath, the boy crept to the dead mine guard and slid the crossbow and quiver from his limp grasp. The wood clung to his hands, sticky with congealing blood.
Swallowing the bile in his throat, the boy wrapped one hand around the crossbow and grabbed three bolts from the quiver.
“May you find your place among the stars,” the boy whispered as he left the guard’s body and snuck to the nearest cottage. His heart pounded in his ears so loudly he couldn’t hear or feel anything but the incessant beating.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He pressed against the cottage wall and willed his heart to calm enough to make his hands stop trembling. He could do this. Kill the two soldiers. Steal their horses. Get Michael to Stoneset.
