Kion had made the decision to eat the horse first. Growing up in the slums of Saggab, he had learned to appreciate a full stomach from an early age. Back then, meat had been an unknown luxury for an orphan.
He tore off another bite, feeling the meat’s juices run down his chin.
There wouldn’t be enough time to cut all the meat from the carcass. It was just too big. But what he took should at least see him over the mountains.
After separating from Bel’Sara and Omiri at the gates of Piru he had ridden north towards the foot of the mountains. He found the village Leomenas had described as being the last settlement on the route to the Half Moon Valley after only a day. It was there he had located a guide.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Kion asked, without looking up. “You will need your strength.”
Silence was the only reply. He did not hold it against the boy. It wasn’t as if he’d volunteered to guide Kion through the mountains.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a problem. There was little chance to earn coins outside the cities. But the warriors on the path had frightened the villagers. In the end, Kion threatened a villager who had volunteered his second son. As expected, the boy was bitter about it.
He had maybe thirteen summers. A good age. Not a man yet, but strong enough to be put to work.
Kion had sensed his resistance and assumed he would try to run during the first night. He had been wrong. To his surprise, the boy had tried to bash his head in with a stone when he was relieving himself instead.
He looked up from his meal.
His guide sat on the ground leaning against a tree. His drying eyes sparkled with resentment. That didn’t take long to come back, Kion thought, impressed with the boy’s resilience.
He picked up a slab of meat from the fire and threw it in the boy’s lab. “Eat!”
The boy hesitated, staring at the meat. Was he thinking about throwing it back? He might just be that stupid.
“Never refuse a meal,” Kion said in a conciliatory tone. “You never know when there will be another one. And you might need all your strength to get it.”
The boy’s face showed his struggle. Finally, he picked up the meat with his unbroken arm and started eating. The eagerness with which he wolfed it down betrayed him – he had clearly been famished. As he chewed, Kion noticed the boy would flinch from time to time. The pain was clearly greater than he was letting on.
Kion nodded. “Once I am done here, I will splint your arm. That will ensure that it heals right.”
His offer caught the boy by surprise. Studying Kion with suspicion, he even forgot to chew momentarily.
Kion paid it no attention. He needed the boy, and an unattended wound would hinder their progress.
He placed another slab of horse meat on the stone in front of him. Using his copper knife, he cut in the middle almost all the way through. Then he turned the blade to the right and cut along the length. Again, not all the way through. He performed the same cut on the left half before opening the meat up. The outer parts were still too thick, so he cut each side twice more, leaving him with a long, thin strip.
He hung the strip over a branch next to the ones he had prepared before. The branch was placed high over the fire. The smoke would dry the meat overnight which would keep it from spoiling.
“Why did you kill your horse?” the boy asked, his mouth full it came out as a mumble.
Kion did not mind. Serving his lord, he had learned about manners, but he had never seen the point. When you have food, eat fast before somebody takes it from you. He was a royal guard now. A named warrior. But he had never left that part of his youth behind.
“We cannot take it with us,” he said. “You saw the warriors. We might have to leave the path again. Climb the rocks.” During the first day on the mountain trail, they had run into about a hundred Assanaten warriors. They had turned a corner and there they were, marching ahead of them.
By sheer luck, they had not been seen. Following the troop over the first mountain, they rushed down into a small valley. There, Kion had decided to leave the trail for the night.
Kion had no idea why Assanadon would send his men into the Half Moon Valley. He hoped to find out once he reached his destination.
“You could have left it here,” the boy said. “And you have other provisions. I saw them.” For a moment he forgot his broken arm and tried to point at Kion’s bag. The color drained from his face as the pain hit him and he bit down on his lip to stop the scream.
For most peasants, a horse represented a highly valuable possession. One they could never afford.
Kion picked up the simple coverage he had constructed from twigs and fastened it over the meat. It would catch smoke and heat, speeding up the drying process. It would also disperse the smoke, decreasing the likelihood of being spotted.
“I might not come back this way. We cannot bring it, so we might as well eat it. And I only brought enough supplies for one. You want to eat too, right?” Kion had meant to get more supplies when he hired a guide but had forgotten all about it in the scramble to get out of the village before the boy’s father called for help.
Kion studied the small pile of wood he had collected for the fire. No straight pieces. After some searching, he broke off a tree branch. He drew his knife and walked over to the boy. He watched fear flood into the little guy’s eyes as he wondered what Kion was going to do to him.
He made a move as if to run away.
“Stop it,” Kion said. Dropping the branch next to the boy, he used his free hand to hold him in place. With quick movements, he cut three strips from the boy’s tunic. Using two, he built a makeshift splint with a piece of the branch. From the longest piece, he bound a sling. “It’s a clean break. If you don’t do anything stupid with it, it might heal just fine.” He gave the boy a hard look.
The boy swallowed and kept quiet.
“Do you want some more meat?”
A nod.
“Good.” He beckoned the boy to sit closer to the fire. The sun had already sunk behind the mountains and the sky was now an inky purple color. Darkness was close.
The boy seemed to struggle a bit to get up. Halfway to the fire he stopped abruptly, looking towards the mountains.
“What’s that?” he asked. This time he remembered to point with the unbroken arm.
Kion turned. And his face hardened.
In the dark, a long line of light dots snaked down the mountain. Torches.
He could not see the men carrying them, but he didn’t need to. Now we have enemies in front and behind us, he thought.
Kion considered their fire. He had dug a little pit close to a tree. It should be impossible to see from the trail but just to be safe he broke off a couple of branches to add some covering.
The warriors would make their camp in the little valley, he was sure. The trail was broad enough for three men to march next to each other. Broad enough for the little wagon Leomenas had talked about. But it was also steep with a gapping abyss on one side at many points. To reach the Half Moon Valley you had to cross two mountain passes which were high enough to be blocked by snow for a good part of the year.
It explained why there was only very little trade on this route. According to Leomenas, the valley had very little to offer besides the cedar wood. And you couldn’t transport tree trunks over the mountains.
Looking up, Kion saw that the line of lights had not broken off yet. How many men marched there? If every fourth or fifth carried a torch, there might be over two-hundred men coming down the mountain.
When they had left the trail for the night, Kion had led them deep into the woods. He had wanted to make sure that they would not be spotted. But with such a large number of men, their camp would expand left and right from the trail.
“Is there another path out of this valley?” he asked. “Besides the main trail.”
The boy did not respond right away. He just stared amazed up at the snake of lights descending into the valley.
Kion cuffed him.
“Hey!” The boy rubbed his head. “What?”
“Is there another way out of here, besides the main path?” Kion asked, irritated.
The boy thought for a moment. “In that direction”, he pointed into the darkness, ”is a place where you can climb the mountain. Goats come down there to water. You can get all the way up to the next top.”
“Can you get down to the trail again from there?”
The boy nodded.
Kion remembered the mountainside from their descent earlier in the day. The boy might have a hard time with his shorter legs and one arm in a sling. But it was doable. The problem was that they would have no cover as soon as they were above the trees. That meant they had to scale it before dawn and without even a torch to guide them.
The end of the snake was still not in sight. Here and there, he could see the first torches through the trees in the direction of the trail. The small valley would become crowded soon.
“Eat. And while you do so, cover the fire with dirt,” Kion said, giving the boy a slight push. He started to pack his equipment.
“You want to climb up there in the dark?” the boy asked incredulously.
“No choice. There are too many men. Their camp will stretch far into the woods. We cannot afford to be spotted.”
He felt the meat on his improvised smoker. There was still a lot of moisture in most of the strips. He removed the driest ones and wrapped them into a piece of cloth. It would have to be enough.
He rolled most of his belongings and supplies into his blanket, binding it across his back.
“Are you ready?” he asked, turning around. The boy was not there. The spot next to the firepit was empty.
Looking around, he was just fast enough to see the boy slip behind a tree thirty paces away.
“Hey!”
Kion cursed himself. His shout had warned the boy.
He grabbed his spear and started the pursuit. But when he reached the spot where he’d lost sight of his guide there was nothing. No noise, no movement in the darkness. The boy had disappeared into the night. Inashtar damn the little shit, Kion thought.
Without light, it was impossible for Kion to make out any tracks on the ground. He tried to concentrate. To listen. There was rustling in the underbrush. The breaking of a twig? For two heartbeats, he thought he had identified the direction. Then, he heard more noises from another.
He shook his head in anger. It was useless. He was no tracker. The rudimentary skills he had acquired on campaign weren’t sufficient to hunt the boy in the dark. And the valley was filling up fast with enemy warriors.
A realization hit him. The boy was going to betray him to the Assanaten! Kion’s anger flared up anew. I could go straight for the enemy camp, hide, and catch him when he passes by, he thought. It cost him an effort of will to turn away from the chase. It was a stupid idea, and he had a task to fulfill.
He hurried back to the campsite. There was still some meat left from their dinner. He grabbed it while kicking earth into the pit to smother the fire. The Assanaten would search for his camp first and then fan out from here. The longer it took them to find his tracks, the better his chances.
He took the improvised covering he had built to smoke the meat stripes and threw it behind a tree.
Kion considered his options. Other than the main trail, the only way out of the valley was the climb the boy had suggested. And he would surely share that with the warriors. He could try to hide further away from the trail and maybe hope to find another way out. But if he ran into a dead end, it would be over.
With a grim face, Kion turned towards the northern wall.
Making his way through the nightly forest he passed the carcass of his horse. He had killed it far enough away from the camp so flies and the smell would not have bothered them.
The body reminded him of the meat in his hand. He licked the lukewarm juice from his wrist and started to eat. It was good. He had been right to eat the horse first.
Kion had made the decision to eat the horse first. Growing up in the slums of Saggab, he had learned to appreciate a full stomach from an early age. Back then, meat had been an unknown luxury for an orphan.
He tore off another bite, feeling the meat’s juices run down his chin.
There wouldn’t be enough time to cut all the meat from the carcass. It was just too big. But what he took should at least see him over the mountains.
After separating from Bel’Sara and Omiri at the gates of Piru he had ridden north towards the foot of the mountains. He found the village Leomenas had described as being the last settlement on the route to the Half Moon Valley after only a day. It was there he had located a guide.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Kion asked, without looking up. “You will need your strength.”
Silence was the only reply. He did not hold it against the boy. It wasn’t as if he’d volunteered to guide Kion through the mountains.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a problem. There was little chance to earn coins outside the cities. But the warriors on the path had frightened the villagers. In the end, Kion threatened a villager who had volunteered his second son. As expected, the boy was bitter about it.
He had maybe thirteen summers. A good age. Not a man yet, but strong enough to be put to work.
Kion had sensed his resistance and assumed he would try to run during the first night. He had been wrong. To his surprise, the boy had tried to bash his head in with a stone when he was relieving himself instead.
He looked up from his meal.
His guide sat on the ground leaning against a tree. His drying eyes sparkled with resentment. That didn’t take long to come back, Kion thought, impressed with the boy’s resilience.
He picked up a slab of meat from the fire and threw it in the boy’s lab. “Eat!”
The boy hesitated, staring at the meat. Was he thinking about throwing it back? He might just be that stupid.
“Never refuse a meal,” Kion said in a conciliatory tone. “You never know when there will be another one. And you might need all your strength to get it.”
The boy’s face showed his struggle. Finally, he picked up the meat with his unbroken arm and started eating. The eagerness with which he wolfed it down betrayed him – he had clearly been famished. As he chewed, Kion noticed the boy would flinch from time to time. The pain was clearly greater than he was letting on.
Kion nodded. “Once I am done here, I will splint your arm. That will ensure that it heals right.”
His offer caught the boy by surprise. Studying Kion with suspicion, he even forgot to chew momentarily.
Kion paid it no attention. He needed the boy, and an unattended wound would hinder their progress.
He placed another slab of horse meat on the stone in front of him. Using his copper knife, he cut in the middle almost all the way through. Then he turned the blade to the right and cut along the length. Again, not all the way through. He performed the same cut on the left half before opening the meat up. The outer parts were still too thick, so he cut each side twice more, leaving him with a long, thin strip.
He hung the strip over a branch next to the ones he had prepared before. The branch was placed high over the fire. The smoke would dry the meat overnight which would keep it from spoiling.
“Why did you kill your horse?” the boy asked, his mouth full it came out as a mumble.
Kion did not mind. Serving his lord, he had learned about manners, but he had never seen the point. When you have food, eat fast before somebody takes it from you. He was a royal guard now. A named warrior. But he had never left that part of his youth behind.
“We cannot take it with us,” he said. “You saw the warriors. We might have to leave the path again. Climb the rocks.” During the first day on the mountain trail, they had run into about a hundred Assanaten warriors. They had turned a corner and there they were, marching ahead of them.
By sheer luck, they had not been seen. Following the troop over the first mountain, they rushed down into a small valley. There, Kion had decided to leave the trail for the night.
Kion had no idea why Assanadon would send his men into the Half Moon Valley. He hoped to find out once he reached his destination.
“You could have left it here,” the boy said. “And you have other provisions. I saw them.” For a moment he forgot his broken arm and tried to point at Kion’s bag. The color drained from his face as the pain hit him and he bit down on his lip to stop the scream.
For most peasants, a horse represented a highly valuable possession. One they could never afford.
Kion picked up the simple coverage he had constructed from twigs and fastened it over the meat. It would catch smoke and heat, speeding up the drying process. It would also disperse the smoke, decreasing the likelihood of being spotted.
“I might not come back this way. We cannot bring it, so we might as well eat it. And I only brought enough supplies for one. You want to eat too, right?” Kion had meant to get more supplies when he hired a guide but had forgotten all about it in the scramble to get out of the village before the boy’s father called for help.
Kion studied the small pile of wood he had collected for the fire. No straight pieces. After some searching, he broke off a tree branch. He drew his knife and walked over to the boy. He watched fear flood into the little guy’s eyes as he wondered what Kion was going to do to him.
He made a move as if to run away.
“Stop it,” Kion said. Dropping the branch next to the boy, he used his free hand to hold him in place. With quick movements, he cut three strips from the boy’s tunic. Using two, he built a makeshift splint with a piece of the branch. From the longest piece, he bound a sling. “It’s a clean break. If you don’t do anything stupid with it, it might heal just fine.” He gave the boy a hard look.
The boy swallowed and kept quiet.
“Do you want some more meat?”
A nod.
“Good.” He beckoned the boy to sit closer to the fire. The sun had already sunk behind the mountains and the sky was now an inky purple color. Darkness was close.
The boy seemed to struggle a bit to get up. Halfway to the fire he stopped abruptly, looking towards the mountains.
“What’s that?” he asked. This time he remembered to point with the unbroken arm.
Kion turned. And his face hardened.
In the dark, a long line of light dots snaked down the mountain. Torches.
He could not see the men carrying them, but he didn’t need to. Now we have enemies in front and behind us, he thought.
Kion considered their fire. He had dug a little pit close to a tree. It should be impossible to see from the trail but just to be safe he broke off a couple of branches to add some covering.
The warriors would make their camp in the little valley, he was sure. The trail was broad enough for three men to march next to each other. Broad enough for the little wagon Leomenas had talked about. But it was also steep with a gapping abyss on one side at many points. To reach the Half Moon Valley you had to cross two mountain passes which were high enough to be blocked by snow for a good part of the year.
It explained why there was only very little trade on this route. According to Leomenas, the valley had very little to offer besides the cedar wood. And you couldn’t transport tree trunks over the mountains.
Looking up, Kion saw that the line of lights had not broken off yet. How many men marched there? If every fourth or fifth carried a torch, there might be over two-hundred men coming down the mountain.
When they had left the trail for the night, Kion had led them deep into the woods. He had wanted to make sure that they would not be spotted. But with such a large number of men, their camp would expand left and right from the trail.
“Is there another path out of this valley?” he asked. “Besides the main trail.”
The boy did not respond right away. He just stared amazed up at the snake of lights descending into the valley.
Kion cuffed him.
“Hey!” The boy rubbed his head. “What?”
“Is there another way out of here, besides the main path?” Kion asked, irritated.
The boy thought for a moment. “In that direction”, he pointed into the darkness, ”is a place where you can climb the mountain. Goats come down there to water. You can get all the way up to the next top.”
“Can you get down to the trail again from there?”
The boy nodded.
Kion remembered the mountainside from their descent earlier in the day. The boy might have a hard time with his shorter legs and one arm in a sling. But it was doable. The problem was that they would have no cover as soon as they were above the trees. That meant they had to scale it before dawn and without even a torch to guide them.
The end of the snake was still not in sight. Here and there, he could see the first torches through the trees in the direction of the trail. The small valley would become crowded soon.
“Eat. And while you do so, cover the fire with dirt,” Kion said, giving the boy a slight push. He started to pack his equipment.
“You want to climb up there in the dark?” the boy asked incredulously.
“No choice. There are too many men. Their camp will stretch far into the woods. We cannot afford to be spotted.”
He felt the meat on his improvised smoker. There was still a lot of moisture in most of the strips. He removed the driest ones and wrapped them into a piece of cloth. It would have to be enough.
He rolled most of his belongings and supplies into his blanket, binding it across his back.
“Are you ready?” he asked, turning around. The boy was not there. The spot next to the firepit was empty.
Looking around, he was just fast enough to see the boy slip behind a tree thirty paces away.
“Hey!”
Kion cursed himself. His shout had warned the boy.
He grabbed his spear and started the pursuit. But when he reached the spot where he’d lost sight of his guide there was nothing. No noise, no movement in the darkness. The boy had disappeared into the night. Inashtar damn the little shit, Kion thought.
Without light, it was impossible for Kion to make out any tracks on the ground. He tried to concentrate. To listen. There was rustling in the underbrush. The breaking of a twig? For two heartbeats, he thought he had identified the direction. Then, he heard more noises from another.
He shook his head in anger. It was useless. He was no tracker. The rudimentary skills he had acquired on campaign weren’t sufficient to hunt the boy in the dark. And the valley was filling up fast with enemy warriors.
A realization hit him. The boy was going to betray him to the Assanaten! Kion’s anger flared up anew. I could go straight for the enemy camp, hide, and catch him when he passes by, he thought. It cost him an effort of will to turn away from the chase. It was a stupid idea, and he had a task to fulfill.
He hurried back to the campsite. There was still some meat left from their dinner. He grabbed it while kicking earth into the pit to smother the fire. The Assanaten would search for his camp first and then fan out from here. The longer it took them to find his tracks, the better his chances.
He took the improvised covering he had built to smoke the meat stripes and threw it behind a tree.
Kion considered his options. Other than the main trail, the only way out of the valley was the climb the boy had suggested. And he would surely share that with the warriors. He could try to hide further away from the trail and maybe hope to find another way out. But if he ran into a dead end, it would be over.
With a grim face, Kion turned towards the northern wall.
Making his way through the nightly forest he passed the carcass of his horse. He had killed it far enough away from the camp so flies and the smell would not have bothered them.
The body reminded him of the meat in his hand. He licked the lukewarm juice from his wrist and started to eat. It was good. He had been right to eat the horse first.
