The caravan did not take long to notice what Jormand already had. Irregular and erratic hoofbeats coming from behind that heralded a mounted pursuit. Soon enough they would be able to hear the clinking of imperial soldiers’ armor and weapons as they approached. Their time was short.

Jormand could think of nothing to do at all. Isolated in the wagon, he had no way to defend himself. He could crawl back into the cubbyhole under the bed and hope that they would not look but he knew it was futile. A quick shout from the driver who sat just outside the wagon door confirmed that their pursuers were indeed imperial soldiers, likely the ones called by the town guards, with fresh horses that could outpace the caravan mules in a matter of minutes. The hoofbeats were already sounding nearer and nearer.

Outside of the wagon, Jormand could hear shouting among the caravan. They had noticed already, how could they not? The thundering roll of horses behind them was deafening, even with the sound of the wagon being driven past its ability on the rough dirt road.

Lana perched by the wagon door and talked with the driver urgently, asking for more speed than the mules were able to produce. Jormand knew it was hopeless. These pack animals would never outrun truebred warhorses. Their only hope now was to fight them off. They might be able to manage it if there weren’t too many enemies. Maybe. The caravaners were not trained soldiers and there were few weapons among them, even less armor, and none of it accessible as the wagons moved. It was all stored in a wagon dedicated to that purpose that followed at the back of the caravan. They would have to stop to access it and stopping would be a death sentence.

Jormand could feel the anxiety mounting and to distract himself set about solving what problems he could. They would need weapons. Anything was better than bare fists. Searching through cabinets and drawers turned up a few small knives for cooking, a heavy kettle, and a solid curtain rod only a little shorter than a quarterstaff. None of it was ideal, especially if the soldiers following them were armored, and they would be.

If only he and Lana had brought their spears into the wagon. Keeping the enemy at a distance was almost as good as armor. But the spears had been left with the rest of the caravan’s meager supply of weapons so as to not draw attention to the wagons where they were hiding.

Lana came back into the wagon, drawn by the sound of Jormand’s search. She carried a heavy iron hammer in one hand and a long, bronze knife in the other. Jormand smiled despite the circumstances. Of course she had her knife with her. It wasn’t much better than a kitchen knife but she was competent with it and confident when handling the blade. She would be a force to be reckoned with, he was sure.

The hammer was a welcome addition to their pitiful arsenal too. It had a heavy head with a small, round striking surface and a divided spike to balance it. It was a carpentry hammer, nothing more, the kind the caravaners would use to repair their wagons. The spike was used to pry out nails but today Jormand hoped it would serve a different purpose.

Lana handed him the hammer—he would need to put a great deal of force into the strikes for it to do any good—and kept her knife for herself. Jormand handed her a pair of smaller knives which she slipped into her pockets and kept the remaining kitchen knife from himself along with the curtain rod. He left the kettle. His new hammer would do a better job.

Newly armed and feeling the vigor of battle begin to build within him, Jormand paused a moment to listen for the sounds of those hunting them. They were closer still but he did not hear anything to indicate that they had begun their attack yet. That was good. There was still more to be done.

Firstly he went back to the drawers he had spilled onto the wagon floor and began to search through the contents again. It was mostly clothing, much of it too small for him, but here and there he found a shirt that would fit. He hastily began to layer them on atop his own and tossed a few of the smaller ones towards Lana.

She looked at him oddly, holding one of the shirts he had thrown her way.

“Padding.” He said, while struggling to fit another shirt on atop the three he already wore. “Next best thing to maille.”

She still seemed confused but began to layer on the extra clothing. That was good. He didn’t have time to explain it to her, if she would even understand. It was counterintuitive that simple cloth would make for good armor but it would do in a pinch. Back home, especially during the winter months when wearing metal only made the cold worse, armor of wool and fur was as common as maille. True, the metal links of maille would repel a spear much better, but a thick wool jacket would keep off the worse of the cuts. And it was all they had.

Once he was reasonably sure that he had put on all the shirts that might fit him, Jormand stood and tried to work his shoulders. He would need to loosen up before the fight if he were to have any chance against armored opponents and he needed to get a feel for how constricting his new attire was.

The results were not promising. He could not move his shoulders as much as he would have liked and the fabric bunched around his joints and pressed painfully on his still tender ribs. He would have to make do.

He must have looked ridiculous, covered in layers of finely dyed silk, linen, and wool and wielding a carpenter’s hammer as if it were a mace. He took a look at Lana who had managed to squeeze into a fifth shirt before stopping. The outermost one was dyed deep crimson. Maybe ridiculous wasn’t the right word. Her clothing was strange but she gripped her knife in a white knuckled hand and her eyes shone with violent intent. No, not ridiculous at all. Dangerous, and as mad as a sun-addled sailor. Jormand hoped he looked half as threatening as she did. Maybe the soldiers would think twice about attacking them.

There were still preparations to be made so Jormand tore his eyes away and set to work for the third time. The first thing to go were the windows. The shattered glass fell to the ground outside with a few strokes from his hammer. Next were all the shattered dishes on the floor. The loose splintered cabinet doors. Anything that was more dangerous to unarmored fighters than it was to the enemy. It all followed the glass out of the windows.

They were left with a surprisingly austere room, most of what had been there before having been shoved into cabinets or out the windows and the rushing sound of wind through the now open sides somehow made the hoofbeats sound less immediate.

Jormand had done his best to prepare them for the coming assault. Their chances were slim, but he had done what he could. He only hoped that Elyas, Gisela, and Ketrim had managed as well. Better, hopefully.

The only task left to him now was to wait. Lana had taken a seat on the bench against one wall where she absently stroked the spine of her knife. He made a start towards the bench but hesitated to take a seat beside her. Something about the darkness in her eyes made him hesitate. It smacked of a soldier about to lead a push in the vanguard for the first time. Knowing it was her last time. He knew the feeling well. It was not the sort to be alone with. So he took a deep breath and went to join her.

The bench was short and narrow with hardly enough space for two people, especially people the size of Jormand. Luckily Lana was significantly slighter of build than whoever lived in the wagon. The two of them fit, if just barely.

Jormand settled onto the bench with a weary sigh. The fighting was yet to begin and he was already far too tired.

“The first time I led a charge, I thought I was invincible.” He said into the cacophony of hooves, wind, and creaking wood. The words hardly felt real surrounded by all that.

Lana turned her head to look at him, her bleak expression fading to a curious one.

“Death was a far off thing, it happened to other people. Not me.” He continued on. “Then I took a hit. A bad one. A spear, clean through my thigh.” Jormand said, nodding slowly to himself, remembering the pain, though not truly feeling it again like he sometimes used to.

“And you want to know the strangest thing? It was that spear that saved my life. It pinned me right to the ground. The head dug so deep into the dirt that I couldn’t move at all. Everyone else kept pushing forward, they left me for dead.

“From back there I could see what was happening. I saw my men being beaten, slowly. It all came down to luck really. They had the better footing maybe. Maybe the better gear. I don’t know. But I saw as they cut down more than half of my squad. The rest surrendered after that.”

Jormand turned his head to meet Lana’s eyes. Oddly, she didn’t have that look that so many people did when Jormand told his stories. Most nobles couldn’t conceive of real fighting, not personally. She looked like she understood. There was pity there but it was the pity a soldier felt for a fallen comrade. It was a pity between equals.

“The funny thing is I was right.” He continued with a wry chuckle. “I was never in any danger, not really. Even if they’d left me there, it would have taken me days to bleed out. Instead they ransomed me back for half what I was worth.” He ended with a rough laugh.

Lana laughed back in reply like she understood. Something Jormand had learned while on campaign was that when things were the most dire, you just had to laugh about it. There wasn’t anything else to do. Maybe he and Lana were waiting for their deaths, maybe. But worrying would only make their final moments bitter.

Their laughter faded slowly into the din of hooves, wind, and wagon wheels, eventually leaving them silent again until Lana spoke up.

“Did you spend much time by the docks? Back in Maerin I mean.” She asked, her voice breaking through the white noise of the wind and the wagon sharply.

Jormand nodded. He had spent far too much time in the harbor district while living in the city. That was where many of the less reputable taverns and inns were. They catered to a clientele of off-duty sailors and out of work soldiers. The perfect to find a good fight or two on any given night. With any luck those fights had some money riding on them. He wasn’t proud of his brawling, it wasn’t the sort of behavior appropriate for a man of his station. Aside from Galier, nobody else knew of it. Well, the staff of the Captain’s Cat definitely had their suspicions and there were always rumors floating about in noble society, but no one could prove anything.

Lana smiled and let out a snort of laughter. “I thought I recognized you. You’ve got the look of a brawler. Even with your fancy clothes.” She pointed to his chest.

The outermost of the shirts he had managed to force on was made of darkly dyed wool. Heavily embroidered and thick enough for winter wear. It was expensive, he wagered, but it didn’t fit him well at all.

He laughed along with her, through the discomfort of someone so easily discovering his secret.

He was about to try to deny it, there wasn’t any way she had really recognized him, right? But at that moment he heard a thud and turned to find an arrowhead piercing the wagon wall below the window. He hadn’t heard over the wind of the shattered windows but now as he focused, he was sure the hoofbeats of their pursuers were only a matter of paces away.

He shot into motion, diving away from the wall. Lana had already lept to the middle of the wagon, the instant the impact sounded, putting as much distance between herself and the walls as possible. Jormand felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He wouldn’t have to waste energy and attention keeping Lana safe. Maybe the two of them would stand a chance.

There really wasn’t very much they could do. Not while the wagon was still moving. A peek over the windowsill showed that the imperial riders were already in the midst of the caravan. A number of wagons were missing already, their mule teams probably slaughtered only moments ago. The wagon Ketrim and Gisela were lodged in was still alongside Jormand’s own at least. Either they were getting lucky or the soldiers knew what to search for. The possibility set Jormand shivering even in his layered clothing.

Jormand was forced to lower his head quickly as a rider came abreast of the wagon and turned his head, helmeted in bronze painted with an intricate pattern of white and red that marked him as an officer, towards the window. He didn’t carry a bow or spear, only a cavalry sword, but if he recognized Jormand…

But they wouldn’t have descriptions of Lana, would they? Jormand waved her over and whispered to her. “Keep an eye out the window. I’ll try to reach the driver.”

She nodded and climbed onto the bench, kneeling so only her eyes reached over the windowsill but noticeably kept her body away from the wall where a stray arrow might skewer her.

Crouching low to avoid notice, Jormand made his way towards the front of the wagon. The door was closed but even with the wind blowing against it, it was easy enough to open. On the other side Jormand came face to face with the driver. He was hung back over his seat at an unnatural angle and a small stream of blood dripped from his mouth to his forehead, where it disappeared into his thick, curly hair. His eyes were wide open and staring. They hardly looked dead, as vibrant as they were. But Jormand couldn’t ignore the arrow that pierced the man’s neck.

The mule team was still moving as fast as ever. The driver had died without touching them. For all they knew he was still alive, waiting to whip any one of them that slowed their pace.

Jormand stumbled back, holding onto either side of the door frame to keep himself from tumbling over, barely keeping ahold of his hammer. The improvised quarterstaff fell as he fumbled for a handhold. Something was clawing at his stomach as he stared into the fading eyes of the purefolk driver.

The moving of the wagon and the rough road made the body jostle violently every which way, spraying flecks of blood from its mouth into the air. Jormand felt the drops against the skin of his face. Relaxed muscles let the limbs flop against the wooden seat like a puppet with severed strings. All the movement made it into an obscene object, like nothing a human should be. And Jormand could not look away.

He didn’t really notice as he retched onto the floor in front of him, wetting the front of the topmost shirt he wore. He noticed the smell though. It seemed right.

A particularly bad jolt sent Jormand careening back into the wagon, losing his grip on the door frame. He came to a rest against the chest of cabinets on one wall with a few new bruises on his back and shoulders. He stumbled unsteadily into a crouch, lurching again as the wagon continued to rock dangerously. Then it stopped.

Jormand was sent sprawling again, his jaw hitting painfully on the floor as he slid back towards the door, coming to a stop just inside. He could see the fletched ends of arrows through the doorway, protruding from the lumps of mule corpses still held up in their harnesses.

So it had begun.

He wiped his mouth free of blood, vomit, and spittle with the back of one hand and took a solid grip on his hammer. He was battered already and hardly armed but he would not be giving them his life so easily. A sound like a snarl burst through his split lips. His body was preparing for the contest as it always did. Blood was pumping, muscles were taught with potential action.

He smiled darkly, feeling a stream of something dripping from the corner of his mouth. This was what he was good for. A brawl in a strange setting with enough anger to fuel thirty men running through his body. Let them come. He would teach them not to cross him or his people.

The first soldier burst through the door just moments after the wagon stopped, spear lancing in before he even darkened the door with his shadow.

Jormand expected the strike and leapt forward and to the side, putting him beside the weapon where he grabbed the wooden haft with his empty hand. He heaved on the spear, pulling the confused soldier in. To the man’s credit, he managed to regain his footing but he never stood up fully. A strike from Jormand’s hammer to the back of his helmeted head left him a silent thing on the floor after the reverberations of the strike on bronze faded.

Jormand’s stomach lurched again as a trickle of blood appeared on the downed soldier’s neck but he muscled the feeling down. He had something else to do and he could not be distracted. It didn’t fully leave him.

The second soldier, who had seen her comrade dispatched so easily, did not make the same mistake. Armed with a bow and far enough away to draw the weapon, she did not bother entering the wagon. Unfortunately for her, she did not see Lana lurking in the back of the wagon, hidden in the alcove of the built-in bed. Before she could even get her bow to full draw, a knife flung across the wagon snapped her bowstring. She dropped the weapon as it snapped back at her like an angry viper and, while she fumbled at her waist for her sword, Jormand rushed forward and jammed his kitchen knife through her stylized faceplate and into the eye behind.

The body fell alongside the driver’s, legs flung up in the air and head dangling down by the pile of dead mules. Jormand had to look away quickly lest his stomach betray him again.

He was presented with a distraction soon enough.

The man with white and red patterns of rank on his bronze helmet was dismounting his massive warhorse not far away.

Jormand almost jumped off of the wagon to attack him but he held himself back at the edge. His only advantage lay in the wagon. His short hammer worked better in close spaces than the heavy cavalry sword, curved forward and with a heavy blade for chopping, that the officer wielded.

He retreated into the doorway but he had already been spotted. The decorated soldier stalked towards the wagon, sword at the ready. No shield at least. These were light cavalry troops. That was good. In the close space of the wagon, a shield would have been a death sentence for Jormand and Lana as well.

He rounded the doorway quickly with his shoulder forward. He knocked Jormand back to the ground but was forced to cut his overhead chop short when he spotted Lana and her thrown knife flashing towards him. It impacted in his thigh between the top of his greaves and the bottom of his tassets but the man still stood tall. It hadn't hit anything vital, but he would have to favor the leg.

Taking the opportunity Lana created, Jormand lunged forward, intending a strike to his other knee, but he was forced to reconsider as that sword came screaming towards him. He was able to block the first strike by ramming his arm into the decorated soldier’s hand. He still scored a cut along Jormand’s right arm. The blade had enough weight to cut deep, even through the layers of cloth.

He didn’t hesitate for the soldier to get another strike in. He pushed against the man with all his might, hoping he would expect him to retreat. His gamble paid off and the decorated soldier stumbled back, unable to support so much weight on a damaged led, and into the pair of bodies on the driver’s seat. He fell backward over them, landing on the tangled mass of slaughtered mules. His sword was lost somewhere in the snare of limbs.

Jormand couldn’t risk going after the man, even though he was unarmed. Around him other soldiers prowled among other stopped wagons, many of them with crimson-tipped weapons. And some… some where no soldiers he recognized. In darkly painted armor and carrying long, thin swords that shone like iron. Their apparel might have been different but Jormand would not mistake those swords. These were the same people who had killed his father, Martim. He and Lana had to leave. Immediately.

He turned around as Lana hissed to him from behind. She was already halfway through the window facing away from the road. Through it Jormand could see a forest of thin trees.

He nodded to her and as soon as she dropped down outside the wagon, Jormand followed her through the window.

The dirt road outside was dusty and dry but at least it muffled the sound of Jormand dropping a little, even as it threw up a cloud of fine dirt. Their wagon was blessedly near the side of the road. All that lay between them and the treeline was a few paces of rutted dirt. Unfortunately there was also an armored soldier standing there holding a long spear that was pointed directly at Lana’s chest.

Jormand froze, still half crouched by the side of the wagon. The soldier did not seem intent on killing but his spear was steady and he could ram it forward at any moment.

The best thing to do against an opponent armed with a spear was to close distance, but did Lana know that? She was standing still, her hands empty and by her sides. Was she surrendering? Where was her knife? Jormand felt another growl rising in his chest.

Suddenly Lana burst into motion. She dropped and darted under the spear, rushing towards the soldier with a knife sprouting from her sleeve as if from thin air.

The soldier did not waste time. He launched the spear at Jormand then drew his sword. The spear grazed Jormand’s leg, lodging itself in the wagon’s side. Jormand hoped the wound wasn’t too bad but he did not have the time to check. He ran towards where the soldier was managing to hold Lana back with his sword. Her knife coupled with her small frame just was not enough to get past his reach, even though he wasn’t too tall himself.

He was trained well too. Lana kept trying to circle around him but he wouldn’t let her put his back to Jormand. He cursed under his breath. The cut to his leg was hampering his mobility more than it should have. It was not good. If he and Lana could not end the fight soon, the soldier would have backup. They had to push their advantage while they still had one.

So he charged the man, hammer held high.

If the soldier was startled, he didn’t let it show. He turned the sword towards Jormand, landing a swing to his side. Luckily he didn’t have enough space to make a proper maneuver and the blade bit into the layered shirts but not through. The following cut as the sword was pulled away bit into his side a little but it was survivable. The strike Jormand landed on the soldier was far worse.

He aimed for the visor with the hooked end of the hammer, its wedge fitting through the t-shaped opening, if only just. The soldier depareately turned his head to the side and then up as he saw the strike closing, but he could not avoid the blow. The end of Jormand’s hammer entered the helmet and cut clean through the man’s chin and the chinstrap of the helmet below with an ease that surprised Jormand and his opponent alike.

As the helmet tumbled away and Jormand could see his handiwork bathed in all the astonishing detail daylight provided. The man’s jaw was split at the chin where his hammer had landed. Just between the two front teeth, leaving it forced apart and hanging. The mouth was open with a wordless scream and the eyes were wide as he fumbled to keep his sword raised. He was in shock. It was easy enough to smack the sword aside and Lana’s knife entered the soldier’s side. Moments later, Jormand smashed the man’s skull with a second strike of his hammer.

Immediately his stomach heaved. The soldier’s destroyed head was sprayed with vomit and bile as Jormand coughed from the burning of acid in his throat. He stumbled back, pulling his hammer out of the messy crater it had made. Chunks of bone and brain came back with it and mixed with the rest of the viscera with all the glory of a midden heap on the ground in a puddle.

Spots of darkness swam in Jormand’s eyes but suddenly there was something pulling him forward, towards the trees. Towards safety.

***

Jormand stumbled after her as Lana made a desperate attempt at fleeing to the only refuge she could see. The forest. Jormand was unstable on that wounded leg and none too coherent as he coughed up mouthfuls of blood, spit, and bile, but she pulled him on anyway. She just hoped that the blood was from his lips and not something worse.

They made it to the treeline and Jormand staggered in after her, continuing a few paces beyond her. Lana stopped to peer around a tree towards where the halted caravan was.

It was chaos. A long stretch of the road was littered with stopped wagons where they had been systematically stopped in succession with surgical bowstrikes to the mule teams. It did not look like any had managed to get away.

Among the wagons were scattered bodies and patches of bloody mud. There were too many bodies. Far too many. Lana couldn’t recognize them at a distance but… there were only so many people in the caravan. People she had known. Friends. They all lay dead in the dust.

At least a few of the bodies bore the ruddy sheen of polished bronze, perhaps a few more were painted. Someone else had been putting up a fight but Lana couldn’t risk diving into the madness again to find out who. Roving groups of soldiers, two or three to each, were searching the wagons. Some were clad in bronze, polished or painted, like soldiers Lana had seen before but others were dressed strangely. In dark clothing and carrying odd swords she had only seen once before, she looked out of place in the daylit roadway.

In total there were maybe fifteen of them remaining alive. Perhaps there had been as many as twenty five before, but the caravan’s resistance was quelled now. She and Jormand would slink away. There wouldn’t be any more survivors, Lana knew it in her gut.

Above them the sun was beginning to set behind the forest. It made an orange-pink painting above the trees but here among the undergrowth, in the shade of the old trees, it cast everything into a blue-green haze. The chill of night would be coming soon. Lana shivered. It was getting cold already.

She had to tug on Jormand’s arm three times before he stood up to follow her again. He didn’t say anything and judging by his vacant eyes, he wasn’t going to. Together they tramped deeper into the forest. Not too far. Close enough to the road that they would notice search parties being sent in after them but deep enough that they would not be seen. Lana let go of Jormand’s hand and he fell laterally onto the trunk of a tree, propping himself up with one hand. The other still clutched that hammer, now with the near-red of blood and brains covering the prying end. Lana felt even more cold remembering how well the improvised weapon and entered that soldier’s head. It was far too effective for an innocent tool.

After another glance back to the wagons, Lana was reasonably sure that there were no soldiers following them. She turned her attention to Jormand who was clearly wounded. More than once.

Blood stained his left pant leg as well as his left side and right arm. It was starting to drip down his arm to his wrist, staining his palm. The hammer fell to the ground with little sound as blood slicked its haft. Lana hesitated to approach. He needed attention and care but… She had seen how easily he had dispatched those men. The image she had been building of him as more than rampaging brute had been shattered by the same stroke that destroyed that soldier’s head.

Instincts built on years of experience urged her to stay away. Nothing good would come from a man such as he. But something smaller, something new, in the back of her mind told her to help. It was a weak voice but persistent.

She was eventually able to muster the courage to approach, quietly. She placed a hand on his shoulder and he didn’t react. She told herself that was a good sign. Jormand needed to weather his wounds. She did not know these lands, she did not know what to do in a forest at all. He was her only chance to make it… well to make it anywhere. To have a chance to live again. So she would tend to him.

The cut on his arm looked worse than the others. It was hard to get at, under all the clothes but she didn’t want to cut off all the layers. He would need them for the coming night.

She settled to cut off the topmost shirt. It was easily done with a few strokes of her knife. The stained sections were tossed aside and the rest cut into rough strips for bandages. It was easy enough to wrap them on his leg and torso—the latter over the top of his shirts—but the arm was covered by sleeves that had shifted as he fought. The wound was staining the fabric quickly but she just couldn’t get to it. Not without cutting off too much of the cloth or stripping him there in the forest. She settled to tie a bandage over the sleeve. At least the pressure would do some good.

Jormand didn’t struggle or complain as Lana saw to his wounds. He was recovering from the fight, the light leeching back into his eyes, but he had lost a good deal of blood. Lana could tell that he was dangerously weak. Perhaps that was the reason she felt safe to tend to his wounds.

Once she was done bandaging him, he stood up again, needing to rely on a tree for balance, and hobbled away a few paces. Lana didn’t try to follow, but she watched.

In the fading blue-green light of the forest sunset the blood on his clothes was hidden in shadow. It was all rendered an obscure, dark, colorless mass, but his hand caught a beam of light passing through the canopy. Blood still trickled down his arm, coming to rest in quivering droplets on his fingers. There they gathered, slowly growing. They waited until a particularly violent shake sent them spraying onto the plants below.

It was a quiet kind of pain that radiated from Jormand. The shakes of poorly contained sobs couldn’t be mistaken.

Lana felt like she should do something more to comfort him. His brother had just been killed and he looked so small and so alone amidst the towering trees, but she couldn’t bring herself to even approach him. In his bulky frame Lana saw a poorly hidden wretchedness that kept her away. Each time she looked at him, the memory of his vicious and gore-hungry hammer forced its way back into her mind. It made her want to be sick.

She knew that without him, she would not have escaped with her life but she did not think she could look him in the eyes now. She would only be reminded of his butchery again.

His deviant display of violence and grace had kept Lana entranced before. The skill, the determination, and the brutal efficiency of it was mesmerizing. At the time, holed up in the back of the wagon, sure that the next attacker would be the one to beat Jormand, Lana had admired the bravery of this man. Now she could see it for what it really was. Surrounded by the smell of bile, blood, and brains on the forest floor, Lana was confronted with the reality of what she had witnessed. What Jormand Derran worked was butchery. Pure, simple, and obscene.

So, unsteady in her own right and unwilling to approach Jormand, Lana took a seat at the base of a tree and turned away from the hulking man to watch the slaughtered caravan through the trees slowly be picked through by the armored vultures that had slaughtered it.

Night crept slowly through the forest, but it came. Light left the space beneath the trees long before the roadway was rendered dark but the soldiers still poking around the wagons brought out lanterns with the first hints of night. They let Lana keep track of how many there were much more easily so she was thankful. At least they would not be able to sneak up on her.

The number of lanterns lessened at first as Lana heard hoofbeats head off down the road in the direction of Torrol Market but then, what she judged to be an hour later, a swarm of new lights arrived. These ones smaller but more steady. They were accompanied by the sound of trotting feet. Human feet. The infantry had arrived.

From then on the number of lanterns swelled steadily. There could have been over a hundred, but Lana stopped counting. Those lights cast an artificial daylight on the wagons. There were so many that it looked like they had been set ablaze, only Lana could still see the shapes of the wagons outlined darkly.

The soldiers were looking for Jormand and his brother. That had to be it. They had known somehow that the brothers were hiding in the caravan. If they didn’t find bodies matching their descriptions… Lana realized the fault in her plan to wait out the night. She wouldn’t be able to dodge so many, even if they carried lights that marked them out in the night. When they decided to search the forest she would have no escape.