Of Gods and Warriors ✓

Chapter 20

Hooves thundering against stone-studded earth, Linder, Farren and Gray rode out for the woods, led by Helmer.

Rendarr took one look at them, then tossed his pitchfork somewhere unimportant-- abandoned his stable duty, and ran to tag along. Clearly, he did not fear Second Lieutenant Audryn's wrath, or death. Those were similar, anyway.

He hastily led a certain infamous chestnut mare out of the stable by the girth straps and swung himself over the saddle.

"What--" he began to ask the reason for this outing.

"Suspicious wheel tracks," said Gray briefly, "quickly now!"

Naught but the quiet rustling of leaves filled the silence that stretched taut among them as they rode up to the dirt road, wary eyes on the surrounding woods. For the last couple of days, soldiers on Klo's command had scoured the surrounding hills and the woods in search of Alastair.

Farren had thought that would be a rather easy task.

Now coming out here herself, she was overwhelmed despite how well she knew these parts. The woods were vast, stretching all the way to the mountain to the north. Gods, one could hide a whole mercenary company here, let alone one shitty assassin who can't do the one job he's been assigned.

"So, Helm. Where are these tracks you speak of?" Farren asked Helmer.

"Halfway to the village, Corporal," he said. "So, I'm on my way up to the camp, when I see them, right-- then I follow. Say, for some hundred paces. But then I think-- hey, maybe I should report that instead of going off on my own."

"Good thinking," said Farren approvingly. She would've simply followed the tracks alone and waltzed into trouble, like the fool she was.

"And good observation as well," Linder added.

Helmer gave them a shy nod. The bright smile that graced the young recruit's face filled her with pride.

He seized the reins of his mount then, turning from the dirt road to a less trodden trail leading into the woods. "This way, across the waterfall. This is a short-cut."

After days of freezing winds and bleary skies-- the supposed return of the winter, the sun today was a bliss; falling in dusty beams through the leaves and casting specks of gold upon the grass.

Farren looked up at the Unnamed Lord in admiration, as she did everytime they happened to pass by the waterfall.

At the statue's feet lay stalks of wheat and grains, apples and berries and an assortment of wild flowers-- tribute from the folks of Kinallen, left there at dawn. The terrified villagers had turned to the stone image of this nameless warrior who they had come to regard as a god, praying for protection. News of the two winters-- widely regarded as an ill omen-- had already spread.

To which the Unnamed Lord remained ever oblivious, his stoney eyes unseeing.

Or perhaps not.

The dagger at her belt hummed.

The faintest vibration, like a soft gust of wind on a leaf, like little waves made by a pebble tossed into water-- yet Farren felt it nonetheless as her hand came to rest on the handle. Then it stopped.

Her eyes snapped up at the weathered statue again, at the rough lines upon its surface that glimmered in the sun. Runes.

Had those runes always been there?

"Hurry up, now," Rendarr said from ahead.

For a moment, Farren considered telling him what she'd just experienced, but dismissed it. What was she to say? The statue makes my dagger feel funny?