Orin's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The line at the warning post had thinned by the time Orin came down from the tower. Three bodies still sat in the mud where the guards had turned them away. One was breathing. Orin counted the breaths and found them slow. He wore his black cape and the two cleavers he had shaped himself, one on each hip, and a row of knives crossed his chest. He had not slept. An old man had once fed him when no one had to, and had died alone while Orin was three days out on Titus's work. Since then Orin kept a rule. No one starved inside Hightree while he drew breath. The guard at the post straightened when he saw Orin. He was young. He held a spear he did not need. "Orders," the guard said. "No beggars past the stones. Sickness, thieves. Lord Titus said the town first." Orin looked past him at the road. More were coming. A woman with two children. A man dragging a foot. The guard swallowed. "I only do what I was told." Orin did not answer. He walked past the guard, knelt by the woman breathing in the mud, and lifted her. She weighed nothing. He carried her through the post and up the path toward the stone tower without looking back. Titus met him at the tower door. Rook stood a pace behind, hood up, a blade in each hand out of habit. Titus looked at the woman in Orin's arms, then at the line forming on the road. "You moved them past my guard," Titus said. "I did," Orin said. "The post turns away the weak. The weak die by morning." Titus was quiet a moment. Rook watched the road. "How many?" Titus asked. "Thirty tonight. More tomorrow." Titus nodded once. "Bring them inside the wall. Feed them from my stores. The tower cellar is dry." He turned to Rook. "Tell the post. Anyone breathing gets through. Anyone who argues answers to Orin." Rook's mouth moved under the hood, close to a smile, and he went. By dark Orin had carried nine through the gate himself and walked others in on their own feet. He laid the woman on straw in the cellar and set bread by her hand. She did not wake. Outside, the road kept giving up bodies out of the trees. Word had traveled faster than he thought. He stood in the tower doorway and counted them coming. Sixty, maybe more, and the stores Titus had opened would not hold a week. Orin set his hand on the haft of a cleaver and began to think about who in Hightree still had grain, and who had been hiding it.