A Warrior's Burden: Book One of Saga of the Known Lands

by Jacob Peppers

  Perhaps even managing to, for a time. But the veil would slip—it always did—and what it hid was ugly and cruel and without virtue.

  “It’s time to go,” Cutter said, starting forward.

  The others followed, saying nothing, their expressions etched with agony at the knowledge of the villager’s fates. Cutter understood, but he understood, too, that to stay would be to condemn all of them to torture and death. He did not mind that for himself so much, for he knew that he had earned such a fate long ago, had bought and paid for it a thousand times over. But he would not, could not let the boy suffer for his sins. And so they would run, leaving a bloody trail of the innocent behind them. It wasn’t as if they, as if he, had not done it before.

  They moved quickly and quietly, Cutter’s eyes roaming the corners of the burned-out shells that had once been the homes of the villagers before he had brought their first doom upon them. But there were no soldiers lurking around corners waiting in ambush as he expected, proving that Feledias and his men had not yet surrounded the village.

  “What will they do to them, Maeve?” a voice asked, breaking the silence, and Cutter turned back to see Matt staring at the woman. Tears were running down his face, tears which meant that he knew, deep down, the answer to the question he asked. Instead of answering, Maeve only turned to look at Cutter, meeting his gaze.

  They were all looking at him, regret and self-loathing clear on their features, one that served to accentuate his own. “Best keep moving,” he said, his voice harsh.

  And on they walked. The boy did not ask the question again, likely fearing that this time, if he did, he would receive an answer. They were in sight of the village edge when the silence was broken by distant screams. Cutter turned back and saw light bloom in the darkness, the orange, ruddy glow of a flame. Feledias beginning his work then, meaning to finish what the Fey had begun and destroy the village completely.

  “Prince,” Priest began, his own face twisted with grief as if he felt the pain and fear of the one who had screamed, and even as he spoke more screams echoed in the darkness. Not screams of pain, not yet, but of fear and sudden understanding as those villagers of Ferrimore who remained after the Fey attack began to realize that those men they had supposed to be their saviors would be, instead, their executioners.

  Cutter stared back at the older man, shaking his head. “We can’t, Priest,” he managed through gritted teeth. “You know that. There are too many.”

  The man glanced at the boy, standing there with tears still streaming down his face, then back at Cutter. “You are wrong, Prince. You can’t, and I understand your reasons. Truly, I do. But I can.”

  The older man moved to Maeve, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Goodbye, Maeve.”

  There were tears shimmering in her eyes as well, but she pulled him close. “Are…are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” he said, offering her a smile as he stepped back. “Good luck, Maeve. It has been a pleasure knowing you.”

  The woman opened her mouth as if she would say something, but she seemed unable to find the words, and the man smiled, nodding his head to her before moving to Chall. The heavy-set mage shook his head desperately as the man walked to him. “No,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper, “Priest, it isn’t…I mean, you can’t…”

  “It is okay, Challadius,” Priest said, pulling him into a tight embrace. The mage hesitated for a moment, then hugged him back. “It’s okay. All men have their journey, and they can do naught but travel it as best they may. May the gods be with you.”

  “Oh gods, Priest,” Chall said. “I…I’m sorry. Sorry for all the things I said—”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” the man said, smiling. “But if there is, then you were forgiven the moment you said them. Live well, Challadius. You are a better man than you know.”

  “Live well,” Chall repeated as if the words were in some other language, some language he did not understand. “How?”

  Priest smiled at that but said nothing, stepping away. He glanced at Matt, the boy’s face covered in tears. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Matt. I wish only that I could have known you better, but, it seems, it is not the goddess’s will.”

  Matt’s mouth worked, as if he were trying to speak, but in the end it seemed the words would not come and a moment later Priest stepped past him, meeting Cutter’s gaze.

  “You will die,” Cutter said.

  “Yes,” Priest said, smiling once more. “But all men die, Prince. It is what gives our lives worth.”

  Cutter grunted, nodding. “Good luck, old friend.”

  The man winked. “And to you.”

  They watched him start away at a jog then, his bow slung across his back, and Cutter felt some great emotion writhing within him, threatening to be unleashed. But he choked it down, that emotion, that feeling, for he could not afford it, not now. Later, perhaps, he would grieve but not now. There was the boy to think about. There was, there could be, nothing else.

  He was still watching the man’s form vanish into the darkness heading back in the direction they’d come when Maeve stepped up to stand beside him. “How long, Prince?” she asked.

  He glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.

  “How long,” she repeated in a whisper, “before our poor tortured souls are turned black, before they become twisted, pathetic things inside of us?” She glanced at Matt, the boy watching the old scout go, an expression of such wretched agony on his face that Cutter could not look at it for long. “He would forgive you much, I think, but he will not forgive you this. Not ever.”

  Again, the emotions threatened to well up inside him, and again Cutter forced them down, swallowing them back. “Maybe not,” he growled, his voice harsh with emotion. “But he will live. And how long, you ask me, Maeve?” he said. “I do not know, and I do not care. The boy will live. That is all that matters. If I must make my soul black, if I must twist and torture it, if I must give it up entire, I will do so, if it means the boy lives. I will do anything to make sure he lives. And if that makes my soul black then so be it.”

  “I know,” she said sadly, a lone tear gliding its way down her face. “I know, Prince, for you do it even now.”

  He let out an angry growl, turning to the others. “Come on, we—”

  He cut off, his eyes going wide, feeling a powerful, sharp stab of fear as he looked at the boy. Matt was not standing and weeping now, or at least, not as he had been. He still stood, and his face was still covered with tears, but now he held something in his hand, a knife, and the blade of it was poised at his own throat.

  “What are you doing?” Cutter said, taking a step forward before the boy brought the knife closer, less than an inch away from his neck. Cutter froze.

  “I-I won’t do this,” the boy said. “I-I can’t. T-these people….it isn’t…it isn’t right. They’re going to die because of us and I won’t…” He was shaking his head desperately, so desperately that Cutter feared the blade would do its work without him meaning it.

  “Stop fucking around,” he growled. “There’s no time for this, boy. They’ll be here any minute and—”

  “No,” the boy said, and Cutter was surprised by the strength in his words. “No. I have followed you, Cutter, have trusted you. I trusted you when you said we had to leave Brighton, trusted you when you said it was the only way. Well, now I need you to trust me. I will go back and help them, and if you try to stop me, I will kill myself. I swear to you that I will.”

  Cutter’s hands clenched and unclenched into fists at his sides, and he glanced at Maeve and Chall, both of them looking as shocked as he felt. But was there something else in their gazes, something lurking behind that surprise. Was it relief? Was it joy?”

  “Damnit, boy,” he said, trying again, “don’t be a fool. You don’t even know how to fight, for the gods’ sake. You’ll be butchered and for what? What good will it do?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he said. “And you’re right—I don’t
know how to fight, but neither do the villagers. They’re farmers and workmen not soldiers. And if I die…well, better to be dead than to become…this. To become you.”

  That hurt him, hurt him more than he thought anything could, and Cutter found himself recoiling back a step at the youth’s words. He looked again to Maeve and Chall, but it was clear that there would be no help from that quarter, for they only watched him with baited breath, waiting for what he would say, what he would do.

  He was fast, yes, and he was strong, but he knew that he was not fast enough to cover the intervening feet between him and the boy before he did what he threatened, and his strength would not serve to reknit skin broken by a knife’s edge. He hesitated, wanting to call the boy on his bluff. The problem, though, was that he knew he was not bluffing, that he meant every word of it. Trust me, the boy had said. And he did.

  His chest heaved with anger, but at who, he could not have guessed. At the boy? At the woman and the mage who remained silent? Or, perhaps, at himself. He did not know, and it did not matter. All that mattered was that the boy was in danger, and that, no matter how he might wish not to, he believed him.

  Still, he had one last tack to try, one last, desperate effort. “You will die, then, but not alone. You will kill Maeve and Chall as well with your foolishness. You will kill me. Do you hate us all so much, boy, that you would sentence us to death because the world is not the way you wish it was?”

  “Yes,” the boy said, the tears flowing freely once more. “You’re r-right, Cutter. The world isn’t how I wish it was, but it’ll never change if we ignore it. Someone has to stand up, has to do something. It isn’t going to fix itself.”

  “And you think you’re that someone?” Cutter demanded. “You who have never wielded a blade in anger, you who, less than three years gone, sat playing with tin soldiers in the dirt with your friends?”

  “No,” the boy said, his face growing hard, determined. “I don’t think I’m that person. Maybe I am just a dumb kid, maybe I am useless. But I’m going to go back, and I’m going to help them. And if I can’t,” he went on, overriding Cutter as he began to retort, “then I’ll die with them. If that’s all I can do for them, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “You’re a fool then,” Cutter barked.

  “Maybe,” the boy agreed, nodding his head. Then he met his eyes. “Thank you, Cutter. For saving me. I’m leaving now. Don’t try to stop me. I still have the knife, and if you do, I swear I’ll use it.”

  And with that, the boy backed away slowly, watching him, as if he thought he might lunge forward at any moment and try to wrest the blade from his hands. Which, of course, he would have, if he’d seen the opportunity to do so.

  But such an opportunity did not present itself, and he was forced to watch until the lad put a good distance between them then turned and hurried away.

  Cutter had seen many terrible things in his life, had been the cause of many terrible things, yet he had never seen anything which rocked him so heavily as watching the boy run back into the town, headed to the certain death that awaited him there.

  He was so overcome by that feeling, by the terror he felt, that he did not notice Maeve’s approach, did not notice anything, really, except for the boy’s departing form. “He’s brave,” she said softly.

  “Yes,” he said. “Like his mother.”

  And remembering her, he was reminded, too, of the promise he’d made. Fifteen years had passed since that promise, but it felt as if it had only been yesterday. He glanced between Maeve and Chall. “I’m going back. Thank you both for your help, now and in the past. But you should run. If my brother finds you here, he will not be kind, and I am tired of people suffering for my sake.”

  Maeve snorted. “As if we’d just up and leave. Gods, but sometimes I think you’re the biggest fool I’ve ever met.”

  Cutter briefly considered the course of his life and grunted. “Probably you’re right.”

  “Anyway,” she went on, “fool or not, we won’t leave you, not like this. Will we, Chall?” She turned to the mage, who frowned.

  “Well, there is this whore I’ve heard of who I’d really like to…” He trailed off at Maeve’s frown, sighing. “But why seek pleasure when pain is in such abundance?” he asked. “I’m with you, Prince.”

  Cutter looked between the two of them, surprised and more than a little touched. He wondered briefly what he had done to deserve such companions, such friends, but he did not wonder long. Nothing, that was the answer, for one thing he’d learned over the years was that men very rarely got what they deserved. Still, he realized then that he loved them, in that moment, realized that he always had.

  In the past, that love had been too overshadowed by hate, by anger and arrogance, for him to notice it, to feel it, but he noticed it now, felt it now. “You’re sure?”

  “Oh, let’s go already,” Chall said. “We stand here talking about it much longer, I’m liable to shit myself, and I’d rather not be buried that way, not if I can help it.”

  “Plus,” Maeve said, smirking, “it’d be a shame to ruin such fine trousers.”

  The mage glanced down at the purple trousers he still wore, frowning. “Sometimes, Maeve, I think you might be the world’s biggest bitch.”

  She grunted in what might have been amusement. “Seems someone else’ll have to take up the mantle soon enough.”

  Cutter found himself grinning despite himself, and he realized he could not remember the last time he’d smiled. Funny, maybe, that it would be here, before their inevitable deaths, that he found a reason to do so but probably for the best. After all, there wouldn’t be any more time for it, that much was certain. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Maeve said.

  “No,” Chall said.

  And then they were running.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  There are none more confident that they know best than the young.

  And there are none more wrong.

  —Common saying in the Known Lands

  It did not take them long to catch up with Matt. The youth spun at their approach, thinking, perhaps, that they were some of Feledias’s soldiers. When he saw that it was them instead, he fumbled at the blade now sheathed at his side, bringing it to his throat once more. “I-I t-told you not to follow me, that I would kill myself if you tried to stop me. I meant it.”

  “I know you did, lad,” Cutter said, holding up his hands. “We haven’t come to stop you.”

  “No?” Matt asked, clearly surprised and just as clearly relieved. “Th-then why…”

  “We’ve come to help,” Cutter said.

  The youth’s eyes went wide at that. “Y-you mean it? You’ve come to help?”

  “Sure,” Chall said with a shrug. “I mean, who’d pass up an opportunity to get tortured to death?”

  “And y-you won’t…you promise you won’t try to stop me?” Matt asked, staring at Cutter.

  Cutter was just about to open his mouth to speak, to tell the boy that he would not try to stop him and that while he had lied to him often in the past, this, at least, was nothing short of the truth. But just then there was a shout from nearby, and he spun to see two of Feledias’s soldiers moving out of an alleyway, swords drawn.

  No doubt, these, like other pairs, had been sent about the village to round up any townsfolk, to also find Cutter and the rest in case they had attempted to flee—which, of course, they had. But what they did more than anything was prove that there was no reason for him to answer the boy. The time for fleeing, for stopping him, had passed.

  There would be no running, not now. Feledias had caught up with him. His past had caught up with him, and there was nothing left to do but face it. Cutter stepped in front of Matt, protecting him from those men, from his own past as best as he could. He reached for the axe at his back, but before he could close the distance between him and the soldiers, Priest moved, drawing the bow from his back and stringing an arrow to it in one smooth motion. Before Cutter or th
e soldiers could react, the missile was whistling across the intervening space, and the next thing Cutter—and the unfortunate soldier—knew, it had buried itself in his throat.

  The other soldier watched his comrade fall, his mouth opening as if he would say something, but he never got the chance, for Maeve shifted and suddenly there was a knife in her hand. She pivoted with a grace the years had done nothing to diminish, and then the knife wasn’t in her hand any longer but hurling across the distance to plunge into the remaining soldier’s chest.

  And just like that, it was over.

  Cutter blinked at the two corpses. It had been some time since he had seen just how skilled the two of them were, fifteen years in fact, but it seemed that the intervening time had done nothing to dampen their talents. Maeve stepped forward to the guardsman who’d fallen on his face, unceremoniously rolling him over and retrieving her knife. She would feel that death later, of course—assuming there was a later—for Cutter knew she always did, had heard her crying herself to sleep many times over the years. But he knew, also, that she would not allow herself to feel it now, not when there was work to do.

  Maeve rose, glancing back at Cutter then at Chall who, by the expression of shock on his face, was just as surprised by the speed of what had just occurred as Cutter was himself. “What?” she asked.