Chapter 2: Riders from the North

There was nothing peaceful about Miro’s sleep that night; only recurring images of carrying pales of water in the darkness to fill up a progress bar that refused to move. He was finally awoken by the door to his room opening and Bondook barking, “Firewood, now”, without so much as a cursory “good morning”.

“What time is it?” Miro asked groggily, finding not so much as a hint of light outside his window.

“I already told you. Time for firewood.”

“Right,” Miro grumbled and crawled out of bed to find some cold water to splash on his face to chase away the remnants of his shoddy sleep. He kept a vigilant eye out for any scurrying movement in his wake, in the hopes of scoring more experience points, but finding none, he headed for the yard.

Miro splintered wood to the tune of the pre-dawn birds, the crowing of the morning rooster, and the cows fording the river on their way to pasture. As he felt the time draw near to when he could very dramatically demonstrate just how sick this task made him, Miro noticed a line of dust moving south down the country road. Riders, he thought, which wasn’t entirely unusual, though what was strange is they seemed to be headed specifically in their direction. Indeed, not long after, a man and a woman, both clad in light leather armour and riding atop the healthiest horses Miro had ever laid eyes upon, arrived at the doorstep of their humble shack.

What was most unusual about them, and something Miro had never seen before, is that both their health bars that displayed the generic marker “Rider” were red.

The horses huffed impatiently from being ridden hard while their riders fixed two silent hard gazes at the front door of Miro and Bondook’s house. Miro approached cautiously and when he noticed the swords strapped to the sides of the newcomers, one of the few he’d actually ever seen in person, he glanced down at the hatchet he was carrying and figured he would avoid any tragic misunderstanding and dropped it. The hatchet sank, blade first, a couple of inches into the soft ground.

Finally, the door to their shack squeaked open and Bondook stepped squinting into the sun, seemingly unphased by the scene that lay before him.

“Bondook Gantal?” The female rider, her face long, framed by thin black hair that reached down to her shoulders, called down and the newly discovered last name formed out of the aether below Bondook’s health bar.

“Gods, finally,” Bondook wheezed, wiping his hands on his work apron. “You come from the King?” And when the riders didn’t answer him right away he continued, “No matter, you’re here and I know what you came for.”

The woman and the man turned their heads in Miro’s direction at the same time and he felt very much like a cow being appraised at the meat market.

“Is that him?” The woman nodded her head towards Miro.

“Is that who?” Miro asked, slowing his pace as he approached.

“Miro Kaldoun?”

“I is him,” Miro answered glibly. Odd, he hadn’t known that he himself had a last name, perhaps neglected to be shared by Bondook lest Miro think he was deserving of a name that was more complex than one would give livestock, but when Miro heard it spoken, it sounded so natural he knew right away that it belonged to him.

Miro tried to decipher the look the riders had returned him – part skepticism, part relief, and part disappointment? Looking inside himself, Miro found equal measures of excitement and terror and wondered if any use could come of running.

“We’ll be taking the boy away,” the female rider declared to Bondook, who nodded his head.

“Aye, I figured you would,” Bondook answered in a quieter tone. The picture of how Miro understood the situation was now so complete that he considered mooing, but thought better of it.

“Come here, Miro,” Bondook commanded, though there was a new softness to his bark. Miro’s instincts took over and he walked up to stand by the side of his guardian.

“We’re taking you with us,” the woman informed him as if it was news he should have been expecting.

“Where to?” Miro asked

“That is none of your concern.”

“I feel like it’s at least a little bit of my concern.”

The woman made a disgruntled noise and put her hand on the hilt of her sword, her male partner following suit a moment later. He was younger, likely by a solid decade, and unshaven only in the sense that some light facial hair covered his face in patches.

“Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be, Miro.” Bondook gave him an admonishing slap on the back, but then the previous softness returned. “Here, let me bring out your things.”

“There’s no time for that.” The male rider’s tone made it sound like he was absolutely scandalized by the very idea.

“He doesn’t have much,” Bondook said with a slight shrug.

“Doesn’t matter. Our orders were to bring the boy, nothing about his things.”

Bondook let out the same gruff sigh as he’d make whenever he would give up arguing with Miro and send him to bed without dinner. Then he turned to Miro and placed one beefy hand on his shoulder. The physical contact confirmed to Miro a fear that had been steadily rising within him – that he was surely going to die soon somehow.

“Miro, I never was much of a talker. That was your talent and you had such a hard time shutting up, it gave me a headache every other day. I’m sorry, uh, I’m sorry things weren’t better for you. This is for the best.”

Miro couldn’t avoid staring into the eyes whose gaze he was so keen to avoid his entire life. No kids of his own, no living wife, no proper disposition to have friends; all Miro could think about was Bondook alone in that house.

“Thank you, Bondook. For everything. It was more than just ‘not much’.”

It felt like the right thing to say and it would be a long time before Miro understood why.

With that, Miro turned to face the riders.

“You know how to ride a horse?” the woman asked.

“I’ll get by.”

They didn’t own any horses, so Miro only had a passing familiarity with the animals. Still, he thought that when he clambered up behind the male rider he didn’t make too much of an ass of himself, though their looks of disappointment turning into mild disgust suggested otherwise.

As the horses took them away, Miro didn’t glance back at Bondook. Whether he went back inside the house or stayed out to watch them leave; both would have been too hard to stomach.