Kael Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Kael walked the trade road at first light, the bent compass heavy in his pocket. He kept to the shoulder where the brush could hide him. A mile in, he saw it — paper nailed to a roadside tree at eye level. His own face. The ink was dry now. Someone had passed this way in the night and hung him out for every traveler to read. Kael stopped in the road and stared. The collector had not waited. He had spread the word ahead. He pulled his hood lower and stepped off the road. A covered bench sat in the pines a stone's throw away, its pitched roof shading the boards. Two travelers rested there, chewing bread. They glanced at the tree, then at each other. One pointed. Kael crouched in the brush and watched them read his name aloud. Every traveler on this road would now carry his face in their head. He waited until they moved on, then crossed to the trunk. Below the poster, half-buried in the dirt, something caught the morning light. A dagger. His dagger. The one he had lost to a river crossing two winters back. The collector had it. The collector wanted him to know. Kael pulled it from the soil. The blue stone in the hilt was clean, as if just polished. A message, plain as the poster above it. Kael tore the paper down and folded it small. He could not outrun the word now — it was already ahead of him. But he could read the man who left this blade. The collector wanted him afraid. That was a track, too. Kael slid the dagger into his belt and stepped back into the pines. He would stop walking the road. From now on, he would hunt the hunter from the trees.