Gareth Ashford's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Thornwood knelt in the mud, one hand pressed to his side. Blood seeped between his fingers. Gareth stood over him, sword ready, but the man could not fight anymore. The ruined tents smoked around them. Scattered crates and broken barricades filled the clearing. Gareth lowered his blade. He thought of the coin he needed, the curse on his village, the newborn who would turn to stone this winter if he came home empty-handed. Dead men paid less than live ones. "The guild wants you gone," Gareth said. "They'll pay more if I bring you in breathing." Thornwood looked up. His face was gray, but his eyes held steady. "Then take me. My men are dead or run. The woods are empty now." "Why'd you stay? You could've scattered." "Nowhere to scatter to." Thornwood coughed. "They had no home but this. Neither did I." Gareth said nothing. He knew that kind of want. His father had worked one patch of dirt until it buried him. He pulled rope from a fallen supply crate and bound Thornwood's wrists behind him. He tied them tight, then checked the knot twice. The bandit leader did not resist. Snikka crouched by a dead man, wiping her blade on his cloak. She watched Gareth work the rope. Her yellow eyes followed his hands, the careful way he tied, the way he left the knot loose enough that Thornwood could still breathe through the pain. "You could kill him," she said. "Faster. Cleaner." "Guild pays double for live." Gareth hauled Thornwood to his feet. "That's not why." Snikka stood. She came close and studied his face. "You don't want him dead. You keep finding reasons to be soft. First me. Now him." Gareth met her look. "Softness got you out of my chains." She showed her teeth, but the grin was smaller now, almost warm. "Yeah. It did." She stepped back and slid her blade home. For a moment she just looked at him, the farm boy who caught her by waiting, who freed her instead of selling her, who tied a beaten man's hands gentle enough to spare his wound. Something in her chest she did not name pulled tight. She looked away first. "The road's half a day," she said. "He'll slow us." "Then he slows us." Gareth gathered what coin and food the camp still held. He pressed a share into Snikka's hands without being asked. She took it, surprised, and said nothing. They left the camp at midday, Thornwood walking ahead, bound and silent. Gareth kept one hand near his sword and one eye on the trees. The bounty was his now, alive and walking. The guild would pay. The coin for his village was close enough to touch. But the two bandits who fled had seen his face. And the lord who wanted these woods cleared would want to know who cleared them. Gareth did not yet know that collecting this bounty meant walking straight into the lord's reach.