The trees were too dense, as though the forest was devouring itself. Damp air clung to each leaf, each branch, thick with the smell of decay and standing water. Strips of low-lying fog padded across the ground, flowing around twisted roots and half-buried rocks. Every step splashed or squelched. Nothing wasn't wet. Nothing hadn't been wet for miles.
Crows wheeled overhead, their screeches thin and irritable.
Boots pounded and slipped. Armor clattered. Tired, wet, half-alive-on-their-feet marching men caught up in the chaos of croaking frogs and distant rustling material.
And somewhere midst that dusty, scurrying throng of bodies, I walked.
I couldn't count how many of us there were. Two hundred? Maybe two hundred and more. It looked like it. Enough to fill the road from shoulder to shoulder, enough to curve around the bend of the hills and out of sight in the woods.
We marched in complete disorder. No drums. No shouting officers. Just bunches of tired men, boys, some of us with beards, some of us too thin to support our boots. We trailed behind Count Luka Baumgartner, who had ridden ahead on a white horse with his guard—half a dozen of them, shiny like tin soldiers in full burnished plate, lances held upright as if they mattered. Maybe they did.
Me, I leaned closer to the edge of the line, beside the muck and the branches. It was quieter there.
By my side strode a giant. A man who could have been a tree himself, broad enough to cast a shadow even in the fog. He didn't say much. Hadn't spoken on the first day. Just grunted. His beard was thick, with twigs, and his hair crossed over his eyes. Brown, the color of wood left out in the rain.
I don't know his name. He never said.
"You always this quiet?" I said, sweating halfway to my knees in wet clothes, wiping the sweat from my forehead.
He said nothing.
I asked him again. "You from the west?"
"South," he answered, as deep-voiced as crushed gravel.
"Never been there," I complained.
He nodded once, as if that was alright.
We walked on.
The mud tugged at our feet. My legs hurt already. It'd been days like that—slow, wet, and foul. The others weren't saying much, either. No one was conserving their breath. Or maybe they just did not feel like thinking too hard about what lay in store.
"They say Weinberghof can't be much farther away," I said at last. "Half a day, maybe."
He grunted.
"Is supposed to be near Silberbergheim. That's a real outpost. Has walls made of stone and a tower, I heard."
"Never been," he said.
"Are you getting there?"
He moved his head slightly. "Depends."
I almost asked what, but another voice interrupted.
"Depends on if we all live tomorrow, is what he means."
A boy walked up behind us, falling into step just to my left. He was three or four years older than I, but not more than seventeen. His hair was light brown and clean, combed back with some effort. His arms were thin but not gaunt—he was the kind of man probably used to lifting sacks of grain.
"You two sound like crows," he told me with a grin. "Squawking about places you've never been."
"Ever been there?" I asked him.
"To Weinberg-hof? No. Silberbergheim, once. Years ago. Didn't care for it. Too many men who think they're gods 'cause they own a second pair of boots."
I snorted, and the giant standing next to me almost smiled. Almost.
"You thinking of fighting?" I asked.
The older boy shrugged. "Always expect a fight. That way, you won't be surprised when your gut explodes out."
"Is that going to happen to me?"
"No," he replied. "To me."
He grinned again, but his hand was tight on the handle of the axe tied at his waist.
We walked a little farther, the three of us in unison. The giant never said a word. The older boy quipped about the nobles, their shining armor, how Count Luka had probably never had his hands dirty once during his life. I smiled, a little. Not because it was funny, per se, but because it was nice to hear like anything other than a marching boot.
Then, it did.
A whistling, snapping sound cut through the air—thin and swift, like a cracked whip.
I didn't recognize it at first. I thought perhaps it was a bird.
But the giant beside me jerked. His whole body stiffened, then fell. A gagging, liquid cough exploded from his throat, low and awful. His eyes bulged.
A wet, hidden arrow was buried deep in his chest.
He fell once, and then down—not like a man, but like a stricken animal. No sound, no cry. Only thud in the mud.
I was stuck. My feet rooted themselves. I couldn't breathe. The world went away, voices calling, metal clanging.
"Ambush!" someone cried behind—one of the men in the back, maybe. I didn't know who.
Another arrow shot through the air and grazed the side of my head. I stumbled backward, over my own feet, with blood in my mouth although I didn't know if I was hit or bitten my own tongue.
The giant did not move. He was simply—there. Still.
My arms extended. I had grabbed the shield that had been bound across his back—hewn iron-rimmed wood, heavier than I expected. I drew it before me, ragged breathing in my throat.
And I drew my belt.
My fingers groped for the small knife I'd always carried with me—never to fight, but to slice meat, rope, whatever. I drew it out, the handle too small for my hand, the blade too thin. But it was better than nothing.