‘Keep faith and hold fast, and we will free our land!’
Edric had said that, not three days past, as he stood on the battlements of the keep at Salt Fork and watched the enemy closing in. Side by side with his brothers and sisters, pride swelling his chest and angry defiance in his eye, it had felt like truth.
He knew better now.
The forest whipped and scratched him as he clambered up a muddy slope, breath burning his lungs and a cold fist of terror in his gut. Dirk laboured through the undergrowth in his wake, white with exhaustion. The older man was at the limit of his endurance; it was plain by his slumped shoulders and the vacant look in his eyes.
Edric hauled him the last few paces to the top, where Dirk bent over, pulling in air like a man near drowned. He scanned the forest fearfully while his companion recovered. The trees were loud with birdsong, dewed leaves stirring in the dawn light. There was no sign of their pursuers yet, but he could hear the Emperor’s hounds through the trees.
‘You go on,’ Dirk said, raggedly. He had the flat stare of a dead man. ‘I’m done.’
Edric had known Dirk for less than a season and liked him for none of it. He was a low sort, fond of drink, and spitting, and the kind of rough humour that made Edric uncomfortable. Edric was a frustrated young man with lordly blood, looking for a way to define himself; Dirk was an illiterate ironmonger with nothing left to lose. But Salt Fork had brought them together, united them in common cause. Even when everything lay in ruins, Edric wouldn’t let go of that. He pulled Dirk upright.
‘You’ll run,’ Edric said. ‘And when you can’t, I’ll carry you.’
Together, they stumbled on.
He’d always known Salt Fork would be the end of him, but he’d dreamed a different end than this. Fifty of them had seized that town, fifty who dared to stand against their oppressors. Their act of defiance was to be the spark that would ignite the fire of rebellion in their people. He never expected to survive, but at least his name would be remembered in glorious song.
The bards would sing a different tune now. They’d sing of how the townsfolk’s resistance crumbled as soon as the Krodan army came into sight, how the crowds threw open the gates and tried to arrest the men and women who’d led them astray, hoping to trade them for Krodan mercy. They’d sing of a shambolic escape through smugglers’ tunnels, with the ringleaders fleeing for their lives as the soldiers marched in.
They’d sing of failure, and they’d sing it in the tongue of their overlords.
He’d seen Renn swallowed by the mob he was trying to reason with. Ella had died defending him, killed by a stone to the head. He didn’t know if any of the others had survived; in the confusion, he’d lost everyone but Dirk. Perhaps there’d be a rendezvous days from now, some message left at a dead drop, but he wouldn’t be there to read it. The Emperor’s huntsmen had chased them through the night and drew closer with every hour. They wouldn’t see another sunset, and both of them knew it.
