Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 30 of 31

They came down the ridge road at midday. The village looked the same. Smoke from the bakery. Two women hauling water. A dog nosing at a doorway. Sterling kept the good blade under his coat. Linny walked beside him with her arm tucked close where the witch had closed the wound. "Slow," she said. "Like we've been nowhere." They were forty paces from the square when Hild stepped out from the shadow of the mill. Two men behind him. His coat was clean. His spectacles caught the light. "Sterling Forge," Hild said. "Miss Marsh." Sterling stopped. His hand did not go to the blade. He made it stay. "Governor." "The curfew stands. It stood when you left. You crossed the ridge against a standing order." Hild's voice was easy, almost kind. "That's an arrest. Both of you. Today." Linny laughed. It came out light and quick, like the laugh she used on customers who did not buy. "The ridge," she said. "We went up to the woodcutter's cabin. Camping. Two nights. Sterling made a fire that smoked half the trees out." Hild's mouth thinned. "Camping." "Camping." She held up her arm. The witch's stitching showed white through the tear in her sleeve. "Fell out of a tree. Sterling wrapped it. He's better with a hammer." "You were seen leaving before dawn. With packs." "For two nights," Sterling said. "Ash in the jars for the fire." Hild looked at him a long moment. He knew. Sterling saw him know. But knowing was not proof, and Hild's men were watching Hild's face for the next word. The baker came out of her shop then, wiping flour on her apron. A short woman with red hands. Her son was the boy Lena had pulled from under a beam during the square attack. She had not spoken to Sterling since. She looked at Linny's sleeve, then at Hild. "They stopped at my door yesterday morning," she said. "For bread. On their way back down." Hild turned to her. "Yesterday morning." "Two loaves. She paid in coin. He carried them." The baker did not blink. "I'd know. I was up before the oven." One of Hild's men shifted his weight. The other looked at the ground. A lie from a woman whose son was alive because of Lena Marsh was not a lie anyone in the square would call. Hild's smile came back thin. "Then I've been misinformed." He stepped closer to Sterling. Close enough that Sterling smelled the oil in his hair. "Be more careful where you camp, smith. The woods take people." "I know they do." Hild walked past them toward the square. His men followed. The baker went back inside without a word. The door shut. Linny let out her breath. "Home," she said. "For now." They walked. The blade under his coat. The debt on his back. The door in the hill still waiting behind them, and Hild's eyes on the street ahead.