Darth John snow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

By dusk Darth John Snow had not gone inside. He stood at the foot of a weathered wooden tower that marked his vigil spot, eyes fixed on the north road. The girl came with bread he did not eat. She looked at the empty road, then at him, and sat down on a rock to wait. He climbed the stone-based watchtower past the stream and stayed at the wooden platform on top. From there he could see the bend where the road vanished into trees. No riders. No dust. Only wind in the pines. Waiting blind, he knew, was its own kind of failure. If they were hurt, every hour cost them. He came down and walked to the tall stack of dry wood on its stone base. He had built it for a signal he could send, not one he could receive. He stared at it a long moment. Then he turned to the girl. "I need to ride," he said. It was the most he had spoken in days. She shook her head. She pointed past him, north. A thin gray thread was rising over the far trees. Not his beacon. Theirs. A villager's fire, lit on a fence post somewhere behind the moss-topped stakes, carrying word the only way it could. The thread thickened. Then a second curl rose beside it. Two columns. Two riders. Alive. Darth John Snow lowered his hand from his sword. He did not smile where she could see. He climbed back up the wooden tower to watch the smoke until the first horse appeared at the bend, and he understood that he had not saved them. They had sent for themselves.