The world became a blur of green and brown, a punishing gauntlet of slapping branches and treacherous ground. Camilla's lungs burned, each breath a ragged sob as she crashed through the undergrowth.
Her arms, locked in a vice-like grip around the swaddled infant, were the only part of her that felt steady.
Every other thought—fear, exhaustion, the image of Marcus falling—was shoved aside by a single, driving imperative: Get Torin out of here.
The shouting behind her intensified, growing closer. Rough, male voices, barking to one another as they fanned out through the trees. Desperate, she risked a glance over her shoulder, trying to gauge the distance of her pursuers.
It proved to be a fatal mistake.
Her foot caught on a thick, gnarled root hidden under a blanket of dead leaves. With a sharp cry, she was thrown forward, instantly staggering toward the ground.
Instinct took over. Even as she fell, she twisted her body violently, turning so that her back and shoulder would take the brunt of the impact, shielding the baby in her arms.
She hit the base of a large pine tree with a sickening thud, the force jarring her teeth and sending a blinding flash of pain through her skull as her head snapped back against the trunk.
Dizzy, vision swimming with black spots, her first conscious thought was for the child. She looked down, her heart in her throat.
Torin lay in her arms, perfectly still. He hadn't made a sound. His wide, baby-blue eyes were open, staring up at her with an eerie, unnerving calm.
Camilla felt a cold knot form in her stomach.
She had expected screams, the frantic, panicked wails of an injured infant. Even with her best efforts, he couldn't have been completely unaffected by the violent fall.
The impact had been brutal. And then it struck her, a thought that had been nudging at the edge of her mind for weeks: Torin had never cried. Not once since the moment he was born.
When he was hungry or needed to be changed, he would simply flail his little arms or make small, gurgling sounds to get her attention. He had never shed a single tear.
Gritting her teeth against the throbbing in her head, she decided this was not the time for such thoughts. Survival first. Mystery later. She groaned, pushing herself up with her free hand, using the rough bark of the tree for support. She had to keep moving.
The moment she tried to put weight on her right foot, a white-hot lance of pain shot up her leg, so sharp and sudden it stole her breath. She gasped, stumbling back against the tree.
She looked down at her ankle, already feeling it swell within her boot. She'd sprained it, badly. Running was no longer an option.
Frantically, Camilla's eyes darted around the forest floor, searching for a hollow log, a thicket, anything to conceal the child. But before she could find a shred of hope, she flinched at a voice, low and dripping with mockery.
"There you are, wench."
She turned, her heart freezing in her chest. It was the man with the bloody gash over his left eye, the wound a fresh, ugly furrow that dripped crimson down his cheek.
The same man whose words had sent Marcus into his final, violent rage. He held a notched axe resting casually on his shoulder, his one good eye fixed on her with predatory amusement.
Camilla was no warrior. Fear and despair gnawed at the edges of her mind, threatening to consume her. But even then, a final, desperate instinct took over.
She carefully set Torin down on a soft patch of moss at the base of the tree. Then, she drew a small eating knife from her belt, its blade no longer than her finger. She pointed it at the man, her hand trembling violently.
"Stay back!" she threatened, her voice a meek, reedy thing. "Or I'll... I'll cut you!" She waved the tiny blade in the air, a pathetic gesture that drew a deep, scornful chuckle from the bandit.
He took a calm, deliberate step forward. "Will you now?" he mused, his voice a low rumble. "Do you even know which point of the thing in your hands does the cutting?"
His condescending tone almost broke her. Her arm wavered, but she stood her ground. Thinking quickly, her free hand fished into the satchel at her hip and pulled out a heavy leather purse, the one she had gotten from the merchant in the last town.
She threw it at the man's feet, the coins inside jingling temptingly.
"This is what you want, right?" she pleaded. "Take it! Take it and leave us be!"
The bandit looked down at the purse, then back at Camilla, a slow, ugly grin spreading across his face. "Aye, coin solves most problems," he admitted, not bothering to pick it up. "But things have changed. Some of ours died at the hands of that rabid dog you brought along."
His grin vanished, replaced by a cold sneer. "Now, only blood will make things right."
He took another step closer, now only a few paces away. He paused, his one eye giving her a slow, appraising once-over, from her terrified face down to her injured ankle.
The leer returned. "But I'm willing to be reasonable. I think we can come to an arrangement..."
Camilla didn't reply. She didn't need to. Her face, pale and streaked with dirt and tears, twisted into a look of absolute, visceral disgust. She waved her little knife in a futile, threatening arc.
The man's grin only deepened, a predatory flash of yellowed teeth. He closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps, savoring her terror. As he came within arm's reach, Camilla saw her chance. With a desperate lunge, she tried to drive the knife into his gut.
He just laughed, a short, harsh bark, and swatted her wrist away with a calloused hand. The tiny knife flew from her grip, disappearing into the undergrowth. Before she could even register the loss, he drove a heavy boot into her stomach.
The air exploded from her lungs. She doubled over, gasping, and fell to the forest floor, the world spinning. He didn't give her a moment to recover. He threw his axe, blade-first, where it stuck deep into the earth beside them, and then he was on her, his weight pinning her down.
His hands, rough and filthy, went straight for the collar of her tunic. There was a loud, sickening rip of fabric.
The sound was enough to snap Camilla out of her pain-dazed stupor. A fresh, primal surge of adrenaline coursed through her. Her hands began to flail, her legs to kick, but the man was heavy and strong, easily overpowering her frantic struggles as he tried to rip away the rest of her clothes.
Her fingers scrabbled blindly in the dirt and leaf litter, and by sheer, desperate coincidence, they closed around a small, heavy rock. Without a second thought, she swung it with all her remaining strength, connecting with a dull thud against the side of his head.
He barely let out a pained groan. His body went limp, his dead weight collapsing fully on top of her. With a strangled cry of revulsion and effort, Camilla desperately shoved him off, scrambling out from under him.
She stood up, her body trembling violently, her clothes torn and hanging loose.
Her eyes instantly darted to the axe buried in the ground nearby. A hot, furious instinct screamed at her to pick it up and finish the job, to ensure he could never hurt anyone again.
But the sound of more footsteps and shouting, much closer now, crashing through the brush, made her reconsider. There was no time.
With a sob of pain and frustration, she turned and rushed toward Torin, her sprained ankle screaming in protest with every step. She scooped the eerily silent baby into her arms.
Every footfall sent jolts of white-hot agony shooting up her leg, but even then, clutching the child to her chest, she turned and fled deeper into the shadowy, unforgiving woods.
As she ran, each step a fresh jolt of agony from her ankle, Camilla couldn't help but glance down at the bundle in her arms. Her breath came in ragged, sobbing pants.
"It's… it's going to be all right," she muttered, the words tasting like ash. "I'll get you out of here… I promise."
Even she didn't know whether she was trying to reassure Torin or herself. But then, she felt it—a small, deliberate pressure on her finger. She looked down to see Torin's tiny hand had reached out from the swaddling clothes and was holding onto one of her bloodied fingers.
His wide, blue eyes were fixed on her face, not with the terror of an infant, but with a strange, piercing intensity. A bitter, albeit warm, smile touched her tear and blood-stricken face. A flicker of strength returned to her voice.
"There's no need to worry, I'll—"
That was all she could say before a sharp, familiar object cut through the air.
Her own small eating knife, thrown with brutal force, buried itself deep in her upper back, just below her shoulder blade. The impact was like a punch from a giant, driving the air from her lungs.
She choked on her words, a wet, gurgling sound escaping her lips as she stumbled forward. Her final, desperate act was to twist her body, shielding Torin's head with her hands as they crashed to the ground.
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of her labored, choking breaths. A warm, sticky wetness began to spread across her torn tunic, a dark crimson stain that seeped through the fabric and onto the swaddling clothes around Torin, warm against his skin.
Then, a shadow fell over them. The bandit, blood streaming from the fresh wound on his temple where the rock had struck him, loomed above. With a grunt of effort, he ripped Camilla's body away from Torin and tossed her aside like a broken doll.
She landed in a heap, her body limp, her wide, glassy eyes fixed on the baby with a look of pure, helpless terror and hatred. She tried to speak, to curse him, but only wet, gasping rasps emerged. The knife had pierced her lung.
The bandit turned his furious gaze to Torin. "You crazy whore," he spat, his voice thick with rage and pain. "You could have killed me!"
He took a menacing step toward the infant, his one good eye blazing. "All you had to do was lay there and take it… but now, now I'll make you pay."
A cruel, twisted smile spread across his face as he saw the way Camilla's dying gaze was locked on the child. "You seem to treasure this little thing…"
He stared down at Torin, his eyes full of malice. To him, the baby looked like any other infant—perhaps a bit larger and more solid than usual, but that was all. A mewling, helpless thing.
However, beneath that infantile exterior, Torin was boiling. The fall, the sight of Camilla's bloodied figure, the feel of her blood soaking his clothes, and now this monster's threat—it all coalesced into a pure, undiluted rage that burned away his confusion.
This wasn't the indignity of a spanking or the frustration of a helpless body. This was a righteous, volcanic fury.
And yet, for all his rage, Torin had no developed tongue to curse with, no teeth to grit or bite with, no strength to resist or fight with. The inferno of his fury was trapped within a vessel of soft bone and uncoordinated flesh. He could only lay on the ground, helplessly flailing his arms while making incoherent, gurgling sounds that failed to even begin to express the depth of his hatred and frustration. He was completely, utterly, and profoundly helpless.
Before Camilla's horrified, dying eyes, the bandit bent at the waist, a cruel smirk still playing on his lips as he reached a dirty, blood-stained hand toward Torin's face. His fingers inched closer, about to close around the infant's throat or perhaps just mockingly pinch his cheek.
But before he could make contact, a sharp thwip cut through the air.
An arrow, fletched with grey feathers, flew from the treeline with brutal precision. It pierced the side of the bandit's head, just above his good ear, and emerged from the other side in a spray of blood and bone. The man's malicious expression remained frozen on his face as he stood rigid for a moment, then crumpled to the ground like a sack of stones, landing mere inches from Torin.
From behind the fallen corpse, two figures approached. One was the carriage driver who had fled earlier, his face pale and trembling as he pointed a shaking finger. Beside him was a man who seemed less a man and more a force of nature.
He was a towering beast in dark, metallic plate armor, intricately decorated with the snarling faces of wolves. His long, brown hair, streaked with premature white, was combed back from a stern face, with a thick braid on each side. His eyebrows were like two furry caterpillars, and his beard was a magnificent, dense thicket.
In his hand, he held a massive bow.
The warrior stopped briefly, his steely gaze falling upon Torin. The infant, for his part, had gone still, his furious blue eyes locked on this new, formidable presence. The warrior then turned his attention to Camilla, kneeling beside her with a creak of armor. His voice was a low rumble, like stones grinding together.
"Are you alright, woman?"
Camilla tried to speak, her body shuddering. Again, only wet, pained gasps emerged, blood bubbling at her lips. Her eyes, wide with pain and desperation, remained fixed on Torin. She fought for a full minute, a terrible, gurgling struggle, summoning the very last dregs of her life's energy. Finally, with a great, final effort, she managed to force out a single, choked word.
"To...r...in..."
Her hand, trembling violently, lifted just enough to point toward the child before it fell back to the earth, limp and still. The light faded from her eyes.
The warrior's face, already grim, darkened further into a mask of solemn fury. He reached out with a gentle, gauntleted hand and closed her eyelids. Slowly, respectfully, he stood, his immense frame casting a long shadow over the scene of death.
He walked toward Torin and, with a surprising gentleness that belied his fearsome appearance, bent down and gathered the blood-soaked infant into his arms.
The warrior looked down at Torin's face, spattered with Camilla's blood. His stony, battle-hardened expression softened, breaking into one of profound, weary sympathy.
"So young," he rumbled, his voice a low whisper, "yet already baptized in blood."
With a surprising delicacy, he shifted the child in the crook of one massive, armored arm.
His other hand, clad in cold steel, moved to gently wipe the blood from Torin's cheek with the edge of his woolen sleeve. Perhaps it was the gods who willed you and me to meet here and now, little one. So be it."
His decision was final, his tone leaving no room for doubt. "You will come with me."
With that, he turned and began to walk away from the grim clearing.
A frantic energy seized Torin. He began to wiggle violently in the man's secure grip, his little arms straining, reaching back toward Camilla's still form.
Desperate, gurgling noises erupted from him—not cries, but protests, pleas, a final, helpless argument against this cruel separation. He couldn't leave her there. Not like that.
The warrior did not quicken his pace. He merely looked down at the struggling infant, his gaze firm but not unkind.
He shook his head slowly. "I am sorry, child," he said, his voice resonating with a grim finality. "She is with Arkay now. Her fight is over."
The words, their meaning clear even in their foreign tongue, struck Torin with the force of a physical blow. He froze. The frantic wiggling ceased. His outstretched arms fell limp.
The reality of it—the stillness of her body, the silence where her gasps had been, the utter finality of her sacrifice—crashed down upon him, shattering the dam of rage, confusion, and stubborn defiance that had held back the tide.
And then, for the first time since his bewildering birth, a raw, ragged sound tore from his tiny lungs. It was not a whimper, but a true, anguished cry.
A single, hot tear traced a clean path through the blood on his cheek, followed by another, and then another, until he was weeping, his body shuddering with the grief of a soul far older than the infant form that contained it.
...
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