Path of Tears (Saga of The Wolf Book 2)

by Kris A Hiatt

  Treace looked west toward the mountains. He couldn’t see them through the darkness, but he imagined he’d see some familiar peaks if he could. Sometime tomorrow he thought they would be only a day’s ride west of the College. He wondered how it was faring under Brental’s rule.

  “Only four today,” Kiril offered.

  “Thirteen,” Treace replied after a moment. It took him a second to realize she was speaking of how many times he had thought of the forge. He wasn’t surprised by her guess. He could still detect her sadness, but it was no longer overwhelming like it was before. She had caught all of them on the first day, six of ten the day after, but only four from today. It meant their connection was weakening, and fast. Not that he was upset with that at all. In fact, it was a relief. He was tired of having to guard his thoughts against anything that might offend or insult her. It was tough sometimes, given his position directly behind her on the horse for hours at a time. He stopped wrapping his arm around her the day before. At the time he thought it was nice to have his arm around a beautiful woman. He instantly wished he didn’t have those thoughts when Kiril stiffened. She had to have understood the picture he painted in his head. He felt ashamed. She was grieving for her father. She shouldn’t have to worry about the inappropriate thoughts of some idiot behind her on a horse.

  “At this rate,” Kiril told him. “It’ll be gone tomorrow night or the day after at the latest.”

  “Good,” Moffred chimed in. “Then maybe we’ll actually have a normal conversation.”

  “Doubt it,” Treace replied.

  “Simply because you aren’t capable of normal conversation doesn’t mean she isn’t.”

  “There’s nothing normal about you, Moff,” Kiril said.

  “Especially with that nose,” Treace added.

  Moffred’s nose was no longer straight. If Kiril’s punch didn’t break it, Disdane’s surely did. Treace had tried his best to set it, but even then it was still slightly off center. He supposed it would have helped to have some sort of medical training. But he didn’t, and Treace knew magical healing wouldn’t work either. It wouldn’t mend the bone.

  “Normally I’d complain that two versus one isn’t fair,” Moffred informed them. “But since Treace only counts as a half, I’m okay with it.”

  Kiril stifled a laugh, which Treace was glad for. Not that she stifled it, but that she actually laughed at something. He thought he’d try to keep it going. “And even though I only count as a half, I’m still twice the man you are.”

  “Well, maybe you should lose weight then,” Moff replied.

  “You two are cruel,” Kiril said, smiling.

  Treace thought it was a good thing that she was smiling.

  “You’re right,” Moff agreed. “He is cruel. Telling lies like that.”

  “No, Moff,” Treace told him. “It’s cruel because it’s the truth.”

  “You being fat? I know that.”

  “You know what else is true, Moffred?” Kiril asked in a threatening tone. “If you ever call me fat, I’ll punch you in the face again.”

  A serious look crossed Moff’s face.

  Treace could see Kiril fight to keep from smirking. She gave up fighting and laughed. Her mirth was a good sign and the fact that she was using it to poke fun at Moff made it even better. Treace laughed and soon after, Moffred’s face broke and he laughed with him.

  “Won’t ever happen,” Moff assured her after the laughter subsided.

  “Your nose thanks you for it,” Kiril informed him.

  “Don’t I know it,” Moff replied.

  “You mean, don’t you nose it?” Treace asked, chuckling at the bad pun.

  “That was terrible,” Moffred replied. “Just terrible.”

  “I don’t know,” Kiril put in. “I chuckled.”

  “Don’t encourage him,” Moff scolded.

  Treace was going to reply and keep the laughter going, but something on the edge of the firelight caught his eye. He turned to face the direction he thought he saw movement and stared into the darkness. Silence filled the camp as both Kiril and Moffred stopped talking.

  “What is it?” Kiril asked.

  Treace didn’t see any movement. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s Slither,” Moff said in mock fear. “Here to take us away like Draya. Run!”

  “No use in running,” said a voice behind and to Treace’s left. “There’s men all around you.”

  Treace snapped his head around to see a man standing just inside the firelight, about twenty feet away. He was older than Treace by many years and his dark hair and beard made it impossible to make out his face from this distance with so little light.

  “Grag, you were supposed to wait,” came a female voice directly across from Treace.

  “One of them saw Kaz and they were talking about running,” Grag said in defense of his actions.

  “Treace,” Moff said hesitantly. “What do we do?”

  “We fight them off,” Kiril replied, boldly standing up.

  “No,” the woman that scolded Grag told them. “You don’t. You surrender.”

  Treace stood up and looked around the camp. He totaled four men he could see surrounding them. Of course there could be more that hadn’t made their presence known yet.

  “Just sit back down,” the same woman instructed. He didn’t see the female speaker, so that meant there were at least five of them. “Surrender nicely and don’t make us kill you.”

  Now would be a very good time to have at least one sword with him. Treace didn’t have anything other than his hands. His swords were left behind when he fought Disdane. Five enemies, at least four, if not all, armed, against three unarmed people. To top it off, Treace guessed he was the only one of those three who could actually fight. Though the quick punch Kiril threw at Moff’s nose when they first met might indicate otherwise, he couldn’t count on her. He needed to get her to safety. He had promised Kint that he would. He didn’t intend on breaking that promise.

  “Maybe we should,” Moff offered.

  Treace knew his friend was thinking they should surrender, and it did make a lot of sense. They were outnumbered and unarmed. They would probably be dead in seconds. That is, if those confronting them actually wanted them dead. But Treace guessed that they didn’t. “I don’t think so,” Treace replied, grabbing a decent sized stick from the fire. Embers fell from it to the ground and flames licked at the end of his new found weapon.

  “This is your last chance,” the woman warned. “Or we will kill you.”

  “If you wanted us dead, you wouldn’t have warned us,” Kiril told her. “You mean to take us back to Shamir and that’s just not going to happen.”

  Treace didn’t know if Kiril figured it out on her own or if she read his mind. Either way she was right. If they wanted them dead, they wouldn’t have bothered announcing their presence. They had the element of surprise. They would have just attacked and simply killed them.

  “Take them,” their leader commanded.

  In his mind, Treace pictured himself sprinting out and attacking the man that was on the opposite side of the fire from their leader. Then he thought of Kiril using that opening to run out into the darkness to hide. He didn’t know if she’d catch his mental message or not, but he hoped that she would. He swung his new weapon to and fro, trying to get a sense of its balance. It surely was not a sword.

  “What do I do?” Moff asked.

  “Pick up a stick and fight!” Kiril exclaimed. “Your slick tongue isn’t getting you out of this one.”

  Treace didn’t wait for the men to advance upon them. He dashed forward, running for his intended target. The man was at least twice Treace’s age and widened his stance as Treace approached, apparently bracing for the attack. The man held his position and composure, making Treace think the man was an experienced fighter. He’d find out for sure soon enough.

  He raised the stick high, bringing it down toward the man’s head. His opponent raised his sword arm to int
ercept the flaming stick. The wood connected hard with the metal and the impact sent painful vibrations down to Treace’s hands, but it also knocked loose dozens of embers, showering his opponent about the chest and face. The man closed his eyes and winced, turning his head to his right as he did so. Many of the embers clung stubbornly in his long hair. Treace didn’t think it would be long before those caught fire.

  He glanced at his stick and saw a deep gouge down the front. He would need to strike quickly and get this over. His makeshift weapon wouldn’t last long against steel. With the man distracted by the embers in his hair and about his face, Treace swung in for the man’s head, hoping to knock him out. He didn’t know if it was the stick cracking further, or the man’s skull, but Treace winced at the sound. Treace figured the attackers were trying to take them alive and didn’t intend on killing them. He didn’t plan on killing any of them either, that is, unless he absolutely had to.

  The man crumbled to the ground, unmoving.

  “Unther, no!” Treace heard one man cry out.

  Treace turned around, trying to spot Kiril. He was happy to find her right behind him. He assumed she did read his thoughts about her escaping. He didn’t have long to be happy, however, as one of the other men quickly approached.

  “Go,” he bade Kiril as he reached out to pull her behind him.

  “I’m not leaving you to fight five to one odds!” Kiril told him, resisting his pull.

  “If you can use magic like your father, now is the time,” he told her. “If not, then you need to go!” Treace was hoping that Kiril could use a barrier like her father, but if that wasn’t going to happen, he wanted her to run. He knew his knowledge of magic wasn’t going to help in this situation. Even if he could find The Calm quick enough, he could only place a barrier around himself for a short time. That would leave the others exposed.

  “I can’t do either.”

  Treace wasn’t terribly surprised she couldn’t place a barrier over two people like her father, but he didn’t have time to argue with her over running away. Over her shoulder he could see that the man advancing on her was near to striking range. He grabbed Kiril’s arm and pulled with all his might, flinging her behind him. The power of his pull yanked her behind where he was and put him directly into the path of the other man’s sword.

  Treace skidded to a stop as fast as he could, fighting against his own momentum. The sword came down in a hurry, only inches in front of his left shoulder. The blade collided hard with the ground and made it apparent to Treace that the man was not holding back his blows. Had it connected, that strike may very well have killed him. Even if it didn’t kill him, it would have torn his arm from his shoulder and put him out of the fight for sure.

  He stepped forward quickly, placing his left foot under the blade of his opponent’s sword, effectively using his own leg to try to prevent the man from bringing the weapon directly back up. It may slice his knee open if it did, but the angle wouldn’t allow a mortal strike. He didn’t have to worry about that, though. His opponent pulled the sword out to the side instead.

  He snapped off two quick punches to the man’s face and dove backward, turning and rolling away from his newest opponent and toward the man he had struck in the head.

  When he ended his roll, he saw the man was still down. At first he was happy to see it, but then the man’s hair lit up in flames. Treace knew it had to have been from the fallen embers of his weapon. Even with burning hair, the man still didn’t move. Treace knew that he was dead.

  The smell of burned hair was nauseating. However, the realization that he had just killed someone was much worse. He couldn’t think about it now, though, he had more pressing things to attend to. He hoped he’d live long enough to think about it later. He shook it from his thoughts and scrambled the few feet to get to the downed man. He wrestled the sword from his grasp, careful not to get too close to the fire himself.

  The sword he picked up was certainly better than a stick, but it was longer and heavier than what he was used to. It wasn’t completely foreign to him, but he hadn’t used a longsword since Exodin initially trained him how to use one a few years ago. Thinking of the weapon quieted his stomach and he quickly stood up to face his enemy. The man hadn’t yet advanced, which Treace was thankful for, but after a quick look, he noted Kiril hadn’t ran away either. He guessed his opponent was trying to decide if he should go after Treace or Kiril. Treace sprinted toward the man, not wanting to give him the choice of who to attack. “Run!” he commanded Kiril.

  Behind his opponent and across the fire, Treace could see Moffred wildly swinging a stick back and forth, trying to keep the man on him at bay. The stick was at least five foot in length and Moff was swinging with such reckless abandon he wondered if the other man would even bother to attack. With Unther down, one on both Treace and Moff, that left at least two others unaccounted for. One of them was Grag, the other he guessed was their leader.

  “Yer a quick little bastard,” his enemy said after spitting out a mixture of blood and saliva. “I’ll give ya that. But I’m still gonna kill ya for what ya did to Unther.”

  Treace swung hard from his right to left with his new sword, using both hands to power the blade. He needed to dispatch of this foe quickly so he could get to Moff. His friend would soon tire of swinging the stick and would be at the mercy of his opponent.

  Treace’s attack was quick, but his foe was able to bring his sword up and across in time to deflect the blow. But, one of the benefits of using a longer and heavier weapon was the amount of force you could put behind the blow. Even though the man was able to parry the attack, the power of Treace’s swing pushed the man’s sword back hard against his face, cutting deep into his left cheek and eyebrow.

  Treace stepped back and to his left, trying to put himself between Kiril and his enemy. At least between himself and where Kiril had hopefully ran off into the darkness. The man in front of him blinked several times, but Treace knew it wouldn’t do him any good. The cut over his eye was deep and was pouring blood. The man wouldn’t be able to see out of it very well, if at all. If the man kept on fighting, he intended on exploiting that weakness.

  “You bitch!” Treace heard over his left shoulder. It was said in as much pain as it was anger, but it was also muffled, much like Moff’s cry was muffled when Kiril punched him in the face. By the sound of the voice, Treace guessed Grag had found Kiril.

  He hoped Kiril punched him some more.

  “You’re done,” Treace told his opponent. “Give up while you still breathe.”

  “Piss off,” the man said before rushing in, sword up high.

  As the man neared, Treace stepped quickly to his right, using his opponent’s lack of sight on that side to his advantage. He pulled back his sword and thrusted forward with both hands, aiming for the spot on his enemy’s flank that would put his sword into his heart. He wanted to finish off his foe as quickly and as humanely as possible.

  The man lurched upward, turning toward Treace as he did so, most likely knowing the attack was on its way. Treace’s sword pierced fabric, skin, and flesh beneath it. He felt it sliding into the man’s body, scraping between ribs until it exited the man’s back. Treace knew he missed the heart and guessed from the angle of the inserted blade that he had struck the man through a lung.

  Treace heard the man’s sword clatter to the ground. It was quiet, muffled by the grass, but yet to Treace it sounded like a tree had fallen. The man fell backward, Treace’s sword sliding out of his body as he fell. When he hit the ground, air rushed out of him and blood gurgled from the wound. The man took a deep breath and Treace heard air and blood sucking in from the wound. The sound of it assaulted Treace’s mind.

  He stood there, frozen, unable to believe what he had done.

  ~~~

  At first, Kiril was upset that Treace simply grabbed her arm and flung her behind him. But after she turned around and saw how close that sword was to hitting him, she realized the truth. She very well might have b
een dead had he not done so.

  She watched as Treace punch his opponent twice in the face. The blows rocked the man’s head back and clearly had staggered him, but Treace wouldn’t have seen that last part. As soon as his punches had landed, Treace sprang away, coming up in a roll close to the man he had already downed using their firewood as a weapon.

  He fumbled around with something for a couple of seconds. She couldn’t tell what he was doing. His body blocked the light of the fire. After a few seconds more he turned and stood up with the dead man’s sword. At least she presumed he was dead. The man’s hair was on fire and yet he still didn’t move.

  Treace looked her way briefly and by his scowl she knew that he was disappointed to find her still in the same spot. He took off, sprinting toward his target.

  “Run!” Treace told her in his first few steps.

  She didn’t hesitate any longer and turned and ran.

  She only made it a few strides before the man named Grag stepped out from behind a tree. The man wore a stupid smile on his face, as if he predicted exactly where she would run and he was now about to catch her.

  Behind her she heard Treace’s opponent say something, but she was too focused on Grag to hear what it was the man said. She feinted left and Grag stepped to that side to block her. She feinted right and Grag matched her.

  That stupid smile widened on Grag’s face. She didn’t like that smile at all. It reminded her of the kind of smile certain men wore when they thought they could just take what they wanted. She didn’t think, she simply reacted with two quick punches. Hers didn’t rock Grag’s head back the way Treace’s punches did to his opponent, but pain flared in her hand and she knew Grag was hurt. She didn’t settle for just two punches, however, she was taught by her fighting instructor to make sure your assailant stopped focusing on the prize and instead focused on trying to recover. So she followed up those two punches with a swift kick to Grag’s groin.

  She thought if he wasn’t in pain before, he sure as hell was now.

  “You bitch!” Grag yelled, going to his knees clutching his groin in one hand and his nose in the other.