Aria Nightwing's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Barren came at them fast. Aria ducked the first swing of his bloodied dagger and felt the wind of it on her cheek. Ben grabbed the only thing he could reach, the broken half of a wagon wheel, and swung it two-handed into the man's shoulder. Barren staggered but did not fall. From the trees behind him stepped two more figures in weathered yellow gear, hooded, rifles slung across their backs. Hunters. They had been waiting. Aria's sword was still on the wagon seat, ten paces away. She raised her bare hands and her wings snapped wide for balance. The first hunter swung a rifle butt at her head. She caught it on her forearm and the bone sang. Ben took a cut across the ribs from the second hunter's knife and went down to one knee, still swinging the wheel. Aria kicked dirt into the first hunter's eyes and tried to reach the wagon. Barren cut her off. His dagger drew a line down her shoulder. Blood ran warm into her tank top. She heard hooves then, heavy and close, and the tigerstriped horse from their traces tore loose and slammed into the second hunter chest-first, knocking him flat. It was not enough. Barren shoved Aria back against a wooden post at the lot's center, the word cornered carved down its face in rough yellow letters. He pinned her there with a forearm across her throat and raised the dagger. Ben was on the ground. The horse was screaming at the hunter under its hooves. Aria looked past Barren's shoulder and saw, at the edge of the lot, the first villagers coming down the rise. A dozen, then thirty, then more. They had heard the noise from the festival in the next field. They stopped at the edge and stared. Barren saw them too. His arm loosened just enough. Aria drove her knee up into him and twisted free. "It's him," she shouted at the crowd. Her voice cracked. "Barren Holt. He killed my parents. He killed others. Ben has his ledger." Ben pulled a folded leather book from his bag and held it up with a bloody hand. A woman in the front row of the crowd went still. An older man behind her said a name under his breath, the name of someone he had lost. The crowd moved forward as one body. They were not a mob yet. They were people deciding. The second hunter ran. The first one threw down his rifle. Barren turned with the dagger and the crowd closed on him. Hands took his wrists. Hands took the dagger and passed it back through the press, and someone snapped the blade against the post and someone else broke the hilt apart for everyone to see the dried blood worked into the grip. Aria pushed in beside Ben. Together they got their hands on Barren's coat and held him against the post while the villagers bound his arms with festival rope. He did not speak. He looked at Aria once. She looked back and did not look away. They carried him off toward the village to be held for the magistrate. Ben sat down hard in the dirt with his hand pressed to his ribs. Aria knelt beside him. Someone brought water. Someone else brought a strip of clean cloth and pressed it into her palm without a word, the way food had been left