“I’m afraid I cannot help you with any provisions other than this,” Brandon murmured up at them as they all sat atop their new horses.

Izzie’s horse was a perfect white horse that seemed to react to her very touch with delight; Izzie had always had a connection with horses. She calmed them and they calmed her in return.

She patted Casey’s neck before sitting back in her saddle.

“This is most favourable,” Drystan murmured down to Brandon from his black horse; on foot it would take them too long to catch up with the guard but now they were on the same footing.

“I wish you well on your journey however I must- oh, there he is,” Brandon smiled, opening up his arms when a friar walked into the courtyard.

“Good day, brother,” Jarred nodded down at the man, tipping his black hat that nestled on his head and hid his face from view.

The brother, a small weak thing with a bald spot at the back of his head and wearing a plain brown cloak nodded back at Jarred, rather awkwardly.

“Brother Thomas will be accompanying you,” Brandon informed them; Izzie let out a sigh of frustration. Brandon wants them to stop the guard and then he burdens them with a non-fighting religious man that would most likely be killed on his first night out.

Brandon ordered another horse to be brought out and he helped the friar into the saddle; he wobbled a few times and Izzie shook her head in annoyance.

Casey, her horse, stepped back and forth in annoyance as well; feeding off her own emotions.

“Are you sure you would not feel more comfortable in the monastery?” Izzie asked Brother Thomas, “Your precious book will not help you out there,” she nodded to the way he clutched the bible to his chest.

“I trust that my Lord will guide me through,” he smiled at Izzie, “I would only hope that your find the same confidence in the Lord that I have,”

“I have confidence in my blade and my skill,” Izzie told him, “Soon, you will find that there is no place for the almighty out in the wild,” Izzie clicked her tongue and moved her horse on, heading out of the castle through the back streets. Following Brandon’s instructions.

It wasn’t long before she heard the hooves of the other horses follow her and they were on their way to the next village Brandon suspected the guard were heading to; Gowan Hill.

After they left the capital they pushed the horses hard to get a good lead on the guards before they set up camp a few hours later as the last remnants of the light started to vanish from the sky.

Drystan finished stoking the fire into a large flame to keep them all warm when he looked up around and found Izzie setting up her own small camp a stone throws away from theirs.

“Isadora,” Drystan announced his arrival, knowing full well if he didn’t she’d be pressing another dagger to his throat; there was something about this woman that made him want to irritate her but he knew that she had something on her mind, “You’re welcome to join us,”

“No,” Isadora shook her head, her plait now fully fallen out and her hair simply ran down her back in long, lush waves as she started to gut and skin her own freshly caught rabbit.

Drystan decided not to push the matter and went back to their camp fire where he started to cook the rabbits that Jarred had skinned.

Once they had all eaten Iagan started up a conversation with the odd one out of them all; Brother Thomas.

“So, wee lad, why did you choose this adventure? If it was to meet young lassies then I’m afraid ye’re out of luck, laddie,” Iagan joked, laughing heartily, as he punched Thomas in the arm.

Drystan didn’t miss the way Thomas winced and rubbed his thin arm under his thick cloak, he looked slightly scared by Iagan as well.

“Leave the young boy alone, Iagan,” Dermot told Iagan.

“I was only joking,” Iagan sighed, “Come on, what are you here for then if it isn’t the lassies?”

“God’s work,” Thomas told them all, hunched over his bible.

Everyone went silent; no one here had deep feelings for this Lord everyone preached on about. They had all seen too much to believe that such a benevolent God existed.

“Ye won’t find that where we’re going.” Iagan told him, “My advice, turn back now,”

“No,” Thomas shook his head, his voice growing stronger, “You are all doing God’s work by saving these people from a King that thinks he is God,” Thomas told them, “and we shall all need to be blessed going that close with the pestilence,”

“A blessing only helps the dying, lad,” Drystan told him as he stoked the fire with a branch, “Of which there will be many, so I would turn your attention to them rather than try and cure us. Your lord doesn’t want murderers,”

Thomas looked between them all frightened before his eyes landed on the distant figure of Isadora curled up beside her own fire, under her fur blanket.

She seemed to be asleep but Drystan but it past her to sleep with a dagger and one eye and ear open.

“Surely, a woman would not be capable of such acts,” Thomas seemed to pray.

Iagan let out a loud laugh that seemed to rent the air, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, laddie, remember that. That should be in that book there,” he tapped the bible, “I thought that would be the first lesson God taught anyone,”

Everyone but Thomas laughed at that and Drystan got the feeling that Thomas was feeling rather lost in this world surrounded by murderers and thieves.

They headed off early the next morning, only stopping for a light lunch, when they eventually passed the village where she had killed Marrok and Drystan had found her.

It was entirely burnt to the ground; smoke still rising from the charred remains.

Izzie got off her horse as they progressed through the town; they needed to pass through it to follow the Guard’s tracks but everyone was aghast with everything they saw.

For Izzie though it was just like a trip down memory lane.

Everything in the town was silent; no crows crowed, no living person was around to wail at their loss and even the animals seemed to stay away from such a place where evil lay.

Izzie stopped as she found herself standing before an atrocity she had never seen before; even the barbarians that had killed her family and burnt her village had more honour and respect than these royal guards.

Bodies had been burnt and murdered before being piled atop each other in heaps without a proper burial; crows and ravens were picking at the corpses. Izzie caught sight of one that was tucking into a fleshy eyeball of a young girl.

But what outraged her more were the bodies that had been nailed to posts inserted into the ground. The bodies of woman and children, even newborns, had been stripped naked and impaled on the wooden posts. Scorch marks littered their skin and blood dripped from them to form puddles in the rubble at their feet.

Thomas came up beside her, his eyes wide and throat working that Izzie thought he would cry.

Izzie simply turned to him, “Where is your God now?”

“P-please h- h- help me,” A weak, trembling voice called and everyone stared up at the row of bodies trying to figure out who was speaking.

Surely, no one had survived this.

“Please,” a weak voice called again, so small that everyone doubted they’d heard it.

“There!” Thomas shouted as he ran a little ways down the row of posts until he stopped in front of a young woman whose head lulled forward, blood dripping from her lips and her body so burnt and tortured she would never survive despite the best medical care.

“We must help her!” Thomas shouted, reaching up and tugging at the rope that bound her ankles to the post.

“Thomas,” Dermot called, his voice filled with melancholy.

“No!” Thomas shouted, “The lord saved her and now we must help him save her!” Thomas shouted, “Help me!”

Dermot walked forward and pulled Thomas away from the post, “There is nothing we can do,”

“Yes, there is,” Drystan muttered making them all look at him.

“Drystan,” Dermot looked at him, “We cannot save her. She is already dead and we have to keep moving,”

“I know,” Drystan growled at Dermot before he turned to Izzie, “I need your bow and arrow,” he held out his hand.

“No,” Izzie shook her head, no one touched her weapons.

“Isadora,” Drystan snapped, “We cannot save her but we can at least-”

“-No, I mean I’ll do it,” Izzie told him as she removed the bow from her shoulder and opened her quiver, feeling her fingers remove a sleek arrow.

“You don’t have to,” Drystan murmured, gripping her wrist.

“Why?” Izzie looked up at him, “Because I am a woman?” Drystan didn’t know what to say to that so she whipped her hand away and stalked past Thomas and to the side of the woman.

She was still pleading for them to help her and although such a sound was not uncommon to Izzie it always cut deep; especially when she was about to kill her.