The door to the small inn burst open, wind and rain howling in from the night outside. The candles guttered. The fire roared.

A cluster of figures, all cloaked, dragged a body through the door. They were drenched. The figure they carried was unnaturally pale.

The dozen townspeople in the inn moved as one to the group and lifted the unconscious body from their hands. Two people, a man and a woman at two different tables, did not join the others. The innkeeper watched intently from behind the bar, mouth open, eyes wide.

They carried the body to a nearby table. They placed him on it like the table was an altar and he was a sacrifice, and starting pulling strips of clothing off him. His pale skin was rent in several places exposing red flesh and white bone. There was almost no blood.

“We found the carter,” Dade, one of the rescuers, said. They all took off their sodden cloaks, mist boiling off them in the warm room. They were all young. The oldest only seventeen. The youngest barely thirteen.

Those who had been waiting or resting in the inn were all adults.

The young rescuers had swords, bows, maces. Backpacks. They had left ready to fight something, but returned unscathed.

“We found him with his cart,” Dade’s brother Jeremy said.

“It was on fire!” Wenna, one of the two girls, the youngest, said.

“On fire?” one of the townspeople said. “In this rain?”

“Lamp oil,” Meliora, the older girl said. Wenna was wide-eyed and shaking. Meliora was quiet and grim.

A middle-aged woman in a plain brown dress put her ear to the carter’s chest, cheek touching one of the wounds and after a moment of silence, looked up and said, “He’s alive.”

All the townspeople in the inn breathed a sigh of relief and started talking amongst themselves as the priestess began to pray over the carter.

The rescuers all looked at Credan, their round friend. “I didn’t,” he said, lost for words. “I didn’t know what to…”

“It’s ok,” Dade, the eldest of them, said. He put his shoulder on Credan. “You did fine.”

“Will he be alright?” Jeremy asked.

The priestess nodded. She moved her hands over the carter as she spoke softly in words none of them could understand and the wounds began to close.

One of the guests, clad all in black, looked on dispassionate and disinterested from her table. The other warmed his hands by the fire, back to the townsfolk. A small patch of what looked like frost on his cloak melted away in the heat. It could not be frost, however, it being the first month of spring.

After a few more moments, they could all see the carter begin to breathe normally. Though his eyes remained closed, he ceased to look like a lifeless body.

Dade and Jeremy looked at each other. Jeremy nodded.

“We’re going back out,” Dade announced.

“What?!” A woman cried. “You can’t! Why?”

Her husband, the boys’ father, put his hands on her shoulders. She instinctively grasped them.

“Boys,” the father said. “Don’t upset your mother. You done fine, you found carter and he’ll live. Everyone’s proud of you. Leave this be ‘till morning. We’ll get the Lord of….”

“Can’t leave it ‘till morning, da,” Jeremy explained, picking up his cloak and making a futile attempt to wring it out.

Credan and Wenna looked back and forth from their parents to Dade and Jeremy. They were afraid to go, but more afraid to stay. Meliora just looked out the door into the darkness.

“Carter’s wife and son were dragged off, Jeremy reckons,” Dade said. “Might still be alive.”

“Trail big enough for a blind man to follow,” Jeremy said. Of the two boys, Dade was slightly taller, but much broader. Jeremy was lean and moved like a cat.

“Lord Mayne would just send to Durham Keep anyway,” Meliora observed. “Two days. Might be alive now,” she turned back to the group and pulled her cloak on and over her head, obscuring her features, “but they’ll be dead by then.”

One man, Meliora’s father, stared at his daughter and said nothing. His eyes welled with tears. He realized now he no longer knew his daughter, and blamed himself for her mother’s death.

“Credan,” a large woman announced. “Stop this foolishness and come here.” Creden’s whole body tightened at this sound. At those words in that tone of voice. He hated it, and the hatred shocked him rigid. He looked with fear at his mother.

Dade and Jeremy looked at him. Dade’s confident gaze calmed him down. Nothing was said.

“This is madness,” the brothers’ father said, stepping forward. “That woman and her boy, there’s nothing you can do for them.”

Dade looked at his father. Both seemed calm. “You don’t know that,” Dade said.

His father knew the boy was right. “There could be anything out there. It’s dangerous at night. Remember Beal.”

“Jeremy thinks its kethat,” Dade said. Jeremy nodded. “I think we can handle kethat.”

The word caused a susurration. The kethat were known scavengers, but rarely attacked the town. Nothing was stopping the five children from leaving. They seemed to be waiting for some approval from the adults. The adults were wondering how far they should go to protect their families.

A barrier had arisen between them without anyone saying anything, had already opened as soon as they burst in with the carter. At no point had either side made any attempt to cross the room and make contact with the others.

Father stared at son. No one spoke.

The man at the fire stood up, appearing old and bent with age. He laboriously stretched his joints out and turned to face the gathered townspeople.

Though only in his early forties, he was older than most of the parents. He wore a plate chestpiece over leather armor. He had a plain sword at his side, and stood beside a heavy pack with many pockets. His face was grey and gaunt, his hair short, black. His eyes, blue and wide. The only part of him that seemed open and expressive.

He looked at the young rescuers.

“You’re going to stay here,” his voice rough.

They looked back and forth at each other, some looked to their parents. The parents looked confused as well.

“Listen,” one of them said, stepping forward. “We don’t…”

“You’re going to stay here, with your parents,” the man said. “With your families. And you don’t leave the inn until morning.”

“This is our problem. We can take care of this,” Dade said, Jeremy standing so close behind him he was pressing his shoulder into his brother’s back, something he subconsciously did to support his older brother.

Heden looked at the 5 boys and girls. “I know,” he said darkly. “I know you can do it. You can find them, rescue the wife and son. Kill a lot of keth. Kill and keep killing.

“I know you can do it,” he reiterated. “It’s easy, and you’re ready. That’s why I’m going to do it. So you don’t have to.”

None of the rescuers understood, but each felt the palpable sensation that they stood at the edge of a gaping chasm, prepared to leap off into a darkness that would change them forever. Some were eager for it, some afraid. And this man was trying to stop them.

“It could be a whole tribe,” one of the men said. “There could be a hundred of them.”

Heden looked at the man, expressionless. “Not when I’m done.”

“You don’t know where the carter’s…”

“I know where it is,” he said. “I saw it coming in.” This made no sense to them, but they couldn’t know he saw it from a thousand feet high, had hated himself for not stopping and investigating the blazing fire in the rain, freezing at that high altitude.

“I’ll be back a little after dawn,” he said to the room in general, shifting the pack onto his back.

The room had changed. Heden had placed everyone in the room against him, reuniting them in a way. None of them seemed equipped to muster any opposition. Their experiences in life had not prepared them for someone like Heden coming in and doing something terrible so they didn’t have to.

“You need a tracker,” the woman in black said casually. The way she said it, it wasn’t clear if it was a question or a statement.

Heden looked at her. “You know how to use that thing?” he asked, nodding at the woodsman’s sword. That she could use the unstrung bow leaning against the back of her chair went without saying.

“Severed with Count Baede in the Fifth Irregulars,” she said, matching Heden’s reserve.

The name shocked Heden for a moment and his eyes unfocused as he remembered something. He took a deep breath and brought himself back to the present.

“Good enough for me,” he said. “Come on.”

The woodsman stood and gathered her gear. She followed Heden to the door. Everyone in the inn watched silently.

Reaching the door, he stopped and turned to face the men and women, sons and daughters.

“Any of you follow me, get any ideas, I will personally thrash the skin off you,” he made a point to look each of them in the eye. “Try me if you don’t believe me.”

He opened the door into the black spitting rain, and left. The woodsman closed the door behind her.

Wenna’s mother and father rushed forth and wrapped themselves gratefully around their daughter. The spell was broken, and Wenna grabbed them back and began to cry with relief.

On to Chapter Fifteen!

Chapter 14