Gareth Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Gareth Thornwood had crossed the cursed wilderness once, and no ranger had ever crossed it twice and lived to brag. Now forty strangers looked to him to lead them through it. They stood at the edge of the dead forest, clutching sacks and children, and none of them trusted a word he said. He could see it in their faces. He was blond, bearded, and armed, and to them that made him just another man who might leave them. "They'll bolt the moment the road bites back," Gareth said. He kept his voice dry, but his hand rested on his knife. "Give me one bad night, and I'm leading empty wagons." Derien Cartwright laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. His best friend wore that ridiculous rainbow scarf, the same one he'd worn the day they met. Derien had smuggled goods through worse country than this, and he never stopped smiling. "Then don't give them a bad night. Give them a reason to stay." "Charm won't hold them, Derien." "No. But she might." Derien nodded toward the front of the caravan. A noblewoman climbed down from a fine carriage. Lady Evangeline Ashford wore a blue gown stitched with gold, plainly worth more than every cart behind her. Gareth had expected her to hide inside her cushions all the way to the border. Instead she walked straight to a mother whose child had gone silent with fever. Evangeline knelt in the dead leaves. She pressed her jeweled fingers to the boy's forehead, then pulled a small green bottle from her sleeve. "Three drops now. Three at dusk. He'll walk by morning." The mother stared. "Why would you help us?" "Because I am crossing too," Evangeline said. "And I trust the man who agreed to lead us." She looked at Gareth as she said it, and her green eyes did not blink. The crowd went quiet. If the fine lady with the gold would follow the ranger, maybe the ranger was worth following. Gareth felt the mood shift like wind changing. He seized it. "Listen," he called. He lifted his hand, and something small and bright landed on his wrist. A miniature dragon, scaled in pink and violet, no bigger than a jay. It preened its wings and fixed the crowd with a blue eye. "These little ones nest only where the ground is safe. Where they fly, we walk. Where they scatter, we stop. I crossed this land once by trusting them. I'll cross it again the same way." The dragon chirped and leapt into the gray sky. Children pointed. A few refugees smiled for the first time. "We follow the ranger," the fevered boy's mother said. Others took up the words. Gareth let out a slow breath. They would move as one now, not scatter. But as the caravan rolled forward, the tiny dragon circled back and landed hard on his shoulder, wings clamped tight. It stared at the trees ahead and would not fly. Something waited on the road, and it had already found them.