Ewan Greenwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

Dawn came, but Ewan did not ride. He stood in the yard outside the new cabin and watched his men swing swords like they were hoes. One farmer nearly split his own foot. Another dropped his blade and swore. Aisling crossed her arms beside Ewan. "Ride them out today," she said, "and they come back as ash." Ewan knew she was right. Rage had gotten them this far. Rage would not keep them alive. He needed a teacher. Word from a passing trader pointed him north, to an old man who had once fought for coin. Ewan found him splitting logs behind a low shed. Garrick Stonehewn was gray and broad, his forearms marked with faded ink. He did not look up. "Whatever you're selling, I've quit it," he said. "I swore off fighting. For good." "I'm not selling," Ewan said. "Magic burned my village. Twelve dead. I have eleven farmers who can't hold a sword straight." Garrick set down his axe. He studied Ewan a long moment. "Then they'll die," he said. "And you'll die leading them." He turned back to the wood. Ewan did not move. He told him about the fire, the ash, the bones he'd dug with his hands. Garrick's shoulders stiffened. At last the old man spat. "One season," he said. "I train them. I don't lift a blade myself. Those days are done." Garrick came back with Ewan and changed everything. He lined the farmers up and made them stand still for an hour before they touched a weapon. "A wall," he barked. "You live as a wall or you die as men." He drilled them with shields until their arms shook. He handed Ewan a green wooden shield, carved and weathered, and struck it hard. Ewan held. "Again," Garrick said. They trained for weeks. The farmers stopped flinching. They learned to move as one. But discipline dug up an old fight. One evening Sarge Empsttine, a hard-faced farmer from the East, found the cluster of books and scrolls Aisling had carried in. Their pages crawled with faded spell-script. Sarge had lost his daughter to magic, and he wanted every trace of it burned. He grabbed a torch. "We drill to kill witches," he growled, "and you keep their filth in our own house?" Aisling stepped in front of him. Her hatred ran as deep as his, but she caught his wrist. "To fight magic, we learn how it works," she said. "Burn these and we're blind." Ewan came between them. He believed magic was poison too. Yet he saw the truth in her words. He took the torch from Sarge and snuffed it. "We keep them," Ewan said. "We learn the enemy before we hunt it." Sarge stared, then walked off into the dark, saying nothing. The band was trained now. They could ride and not be slaughtered. But Ewan had chosen to study the very thing he swore to destroy, and half his men would never forgive it.