A sudden crunch of twigs nearby made him stop again. Maric listened carefully in the darkness for an agonizing moment, but heard nothing. The noise had been a footstep; he was sure of it. He waited longer, not daring to move a muscle . . . and heard it again. Quieter, this time. Someone was definitely trying to sneak up on him. Maybe they could see him, even if he couldn’t see them?
Maric cast about desperately. The far side of the hollow he was in opened up into a downward slope. It was difficult to tell the general terrain with so little moonlight coming through the canopy. There were also trees in that direction, roots and thick bushes that would prevent him from crawling out of sight. He either had to stay where he was . . . or climb out.
A squelch of wet leaves nearby forced Maric as low to the ground as he could go. Listening closely was difficult given the muted shouting in the distance and the sound of the wind blowing high in the trees, but he could ever so faintly detect the soft steps of someone passing nearby. He suspected they couldn’t see him at all. In fact, it was dark enough that his pursuer would likely end up doing exactly what Maric had done and fall right into the hollow.
Maric didn’t exactly relish the idea of his enemy falling on top of him, so he cautiously tried to get up onto his feet. Sharp pain lanced through his knees and arms. There were cuts on his face and hands from the branches, and he was sure there was a gash on his head . . . but it all felt distant, as if someone else were experiencing the pain. He tried to control his movements, making them slow and quiet. Smooth. And he continued to listen for more footsteps, anxiously biting his lower lip. It was difficult to hear anything over the desperate thumping of his heart. Surely it was obvious to whoever was out there. Perhaps they were closing in for the kill even now, laughing at his terror.
Breathing deliberately, sweating despite the chill, Maric slowly pulled himself upright enough to get both his feet underneath him. His right knee spasmed, shooting lightning-sharp agony up his leg. This injury he felt very clearly, unlike the others. In shock, he hissed through gritted teeth, nearly gasping out loud.
Immediately he clamped his mouth shut and closed his eyes in silent reprimand at his idiocy. Crouching there in the darkness, he listened carefully. The footsteps had stopped. Someone else, farther out among the trees, shouted in Maric’s direction. He couldn’t quite hear what the man had said, but there was definitely a question to it: calling out, asking if they had found anything. But there was no response. The source of the footsteps nearby had probably heard Maric and was not willing to give his own position away by answering.
With the utmost care, Maric crawled up the side of the depression. He squinted into the shadows, trying to pick out anything that might resemble a human form. He imagined his pursuer doing the same thing, playing a cat-and-mouse game in the dark. The first one of them to spot the other would win the prize. Belatedly, Maric realized that even if he did see this man, there might not be much he could do about it. He wasn’t armed. An empty sheath dangled at his waist, his belt knife lent to Hyram not two hours earlier to cut some rope. Hyram, one of his mother’s most trusted generals and a fine man he had known since childhood, most likely lying dead at his Queen’s side, their blood cooling in the midnight air. Maric cursed himself for a fool and tried to put the image out of his mind.
Just then, Maric noticed a glint in the shadows. Narrowing his eyes helped him just barely discern a sword, its polished blade reflecting the faint moonlight. In the mass of dark shadows and bushes, he still couldn’t see the form of the man holding the weapon, but it calmed him to finally know where his opponent was.
Gaze locked in that direction, Maric raised his hands to grasp the edge of the depression and quietly heaved himself up. The pain that shot through his arms was considerable, but he ignored it and never for one second took his eyes off that sword. As he got over the edge, the sword moved. A dark shape began lumbering toward him, raising the sword up high and growling with menace.
Without thinking, Maric launched himself forward and charged. The sword slashed down by his ear, narrowly missing his arm. He rammed headfirst into the man’s midsection, knocking the wind out of him. Unfortunately, the pursuer was wearing a heavy chain hauberk, and Maric’s head exploded with pain. He may as well have head-butted a tree trunk. The world spun around him wildly. He would have careened out of control had his momentum not carried the two of them backwards, knocking the man off his feet. They fell on hard uneven ground, with the swordsman taking the brunt of the impact. His weapon arm swung out to one side, causing the sword to fly out into the shadows.
Almost delirious and barely able to see, Maric pulled himself back up and grabbed the man’s head in both hands. He felt a strong whiskered jaw, and the man flailed wildly with his free hand, trying to push Maric off. He tried to shout, possibly call on his fellows for help, but all that came out was a muted bellow. Maric used the benefit of leverage to pull up the man’s head and then slam it down hard. The man grunted when his head hit an exposed root.
“You bastard!” Maric snarled. The man’s desperation intensified, the hand reaching for Maric’s face, slapping and clawing. Finding purchase, it pushed hard against Maric’s nose, one finger digging into his eye. Maric pulled his face away as he shoved down hard on the man’s head, grinding it back into a root. The man grunted and tried to buck Maric off, but the heavy hauberk worked against him. He writhed and pushed with that one hand against Maric’s face, but none of his efforts were enough to get him free.
Maric’s throbbing head was torture, and his neck was stretched to its limit, trying to pull away. When Maric let go of the man’s head to battle the pushing hand, the bearded man made an attempt to kick Maric off. Maric lost his balance for a moment and the enemy’s hand turned into a fist, thumping him solidly across the face. Light-headedness came over Maric, and he saw stars. He fought against swooning, reached down, and grabbed as much of the man’s long hair as he could, pulling him upward. This time the man bellowed loudly, his head yanked up at an awkward and painful angle. Letting out his own cry of effort, Maric crashed the man’s head down on the tree root a third time. Even harder.
“You killed her!” Maric shouted. He picked up the man’s head by the hair yet again to slam it down. “You bastard, you killed her!” He smashed the head down again.
And again.
Tears welled up in his eyes, and he choked on his words: “She was your Queen, and you killed her!” He slammed the head again, still harder. This time the man stopped fighting back. A cloying, meaty smell assaulted Maric’s nostrils. His hands were covered with thick, fresh blood that wasn’t his own. Almost involuntarily, he fell off the body and scrambled back, his bloody hands slipping on the cold leaves, and pain shooting anew through his legs. He half expected the man to rise up and charge at him again. But he didn’t. The body lay there in the shadows, a vague shape resting awkward and still upon a clump of tree roots. Maric could barely make out the great oak behind him, thrusting up into the overhead canopy like a gravestone.
He felt physically ill, his stomach twisting in knots and his body shaking. Almost involuntarily, he brought a hand up to his mouth to keep his bile down, smearing fresh blood onto his face. There was gore on his hand, clumps of skin and hair. He convulsed, vomiting onto the muddy ground what little lunch he had eaten earlier in the day. Despair threatened to overwhelm him.
You’re the King, he reminded himself.
Maric’s mother, Queen Moira, was a tower of strength who could lead armies of battle-hardened men to victory. She was every inch her grandfather’s daughter; that’s what everyone said. She had inspired some of the most powerful noblemen in Ferelden to rise up in her name and fight to put her on the throne simply because they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she belonged there.
And now she’s gone, and you’re the King, he repeated to himself. It felt no more real now than it had before.
In the distance, the sounds of the pursuit were getting louder again. The traitors might have heard Maric’s struggle with the bearded man. He needed to leave. He needed to run, to keep going. Yet he could not will his legs to move. He sat in the dark forest, his bloody hands held out in front of him as if he had no idea where else to put them.
All Maric could think of was his mother’s voice the last time she had returned from battle. She was in full armor, covered in blood and sweat, and grinning madly. Maric had been dragged in front of her by his trainer for brawling with a commoner boy. Even worse, Arl Rendorn had been with his mother, and he asked if Maric had at least won the fight. Burning with shame, Maric admitted to being soundly beaten, causing the Arl to snort and ask what sort of king Maric could possibly make.
And then his mother had laughed merrily, a laugh that could dispel anything serious. She had taken Maric’s chin in her hand and looked in his eyes, and with a gentle smile told him not to listen to the Arl. You are the light of my life, and I believe in you.
Grief brought Maric close to laughing and crying at the same time. His mother had believed in him, and yet he had gotten lost in the woods in less than half an hour. Should he somehow elude his pursuers, make it out of the forest, and obtain another horse, he still needed to find a way to locate the army. He was so used to being led around, being told where to go and where to ride, that he hadn’t paid attention to any route they’d taken. He had followed as he was bidden. Now he couldn’t even guess his location.
And thus passes the last true King of Ferelden, he thought with bizarre amusement. He wanted to be a good king, but he didn’t know his arse from a hole in the ground.
Mad giggling threatened to overtake his tears, but Maric shut down both reactions. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking of the past, or grieving. He had just killed a man with his bare hands, and there were other enemies nearby. He needed to run. He took a deep, ragged breath and closed his eyes. Deep down inside of him there was steel. He embraced it, tasted its bitter edge and let it shut out the whirlwind inside of him. He needed to be calm, even if only for a moment.
When he opened his eyes again, he was ready.
Maric cast about calmly for any sign of the sword that had flown out of the other man’s hand. Everything around him was somehow moving very slowly, none of it seeming quite real. There were too many bushes, too many odd dips and clumps of trees where the sword could be hiding. He couldn’t find it. Then he heard another man’s voice, this one calling out from somewhere close. There was no more time.
Standing gingerly, Maric listened for where the voices were coming from. As soon as he ascertained their source, he headed in the opposite direction. It was an awkward hobble at first. His legs were bruised and cramped and he might have broken some bones, but he ignored the pain. With effort, he grabbed on to low-hanging branches and pulled himself farther into the darkness.
They would pay for what they had done. If he did only one thing as King, he would make them pay.
“Something’s happening,” Loghain muttered, frowning.
He stood at the edge of the forest, absently wiping mud off his leathers. The effort was pointless, as his clothing was as worn and as filthy as one might expect from a poacher. The Orlesians, of course, had less kind names for him and the others like him: criminals, thieves, and bandits, too, though only when desperation forced their hand.
Not that Loghain much cared what the Orlesians called him, since it was their fault his family had been forced off the farm. The Orlesians didn’t believe in anyone owning land but their fancy, painted-up nobility, so it came as no surprise that they didn’t look favorably on Ferelden’s freemen. An extra “tribute” tax was concocted by the Orlesian Emperor, and any freemen who couldn’t afford it had their lands confiscated. Loghain’s father had managed to scrape together enough to pay the tax the first year, so naturally it was decided the tax could stand to be even higher. The next year, his father refused to pay, and when the soldiers came, they determined that not only was the farmhold forfeit, but his father should also be arrested for tax evasion. Loghain’s family resisted, so now they lived out in the Ferelden wilds, banding together with other desperate souls to eke out a living however they could.
Loghain might not have cared what the Orlesians thought of him, but he did very much care to avoid being arrested. The local constable over in Lothering was a Fereldan man, and so far he had been tolerant of their band. So long as they didn’t prey on travelers and restricted their thefts to the petty sort, the constable made only token efforts to track them down. Loghain knew that the man was going to be forced to hunt them in earnest someday, and hopefully he would be decent enough to let them know about it in advance. They would move on, as they had already done many times. There were enough forests and hills in Ferelden to hide an entire army, after all; even the Rebel Queen knew that. But what if the constable didn’t warn them? That thought worried Loghain now and had him staring into the forest. Men didn’t always get to do as they’d prefer.
A cold wind blew across the field, making him shiver. It was late, and the moon shone down from a cloudless night sky. He wiped the black curls out of his eyes, resigned to the fact that his hair was no doubt as dirty as his hands, and pulled his hood up. The spring had been more of a lingering winter that had refused to let go. The cold nights he and his band had spent in their makeshift tents had been less than comfortable, to say the least, but the accommodations were preferable to some of the alternatives.
Dannon, a big brute of a man with an untrustworthy air, walked up behind him. Loghain suspected that Dannon had once been a thief, the dedicated sort who lived in the cities, picking pockets and robbing travelers, and that he was here with them now because he wasn’t a very good one. Not that Loghain was in much of a position to judge him. They did what they could, all of them, and Dannon pulled his weight. That didn’t mean Loghain had to feel comfortable around the man.
“What’s that you’re saying? You saw something?” Dannon scratched his beak of a nose while he adjusted the carcasses he was carrying. There were three rabbits slung over his shoulder, the prize of the evening’s work, poached from the fields of a lord known for his Orlesian sympathies. Hunting in the dark was never easy, especially when one took more care to avoid being spotted then to actually hunt, but they had been fortunate for once.
“I said that something’s happening,” Loghain repeated irritably. He turned and glared at Dannon, and the man backed away a step. He had that effect on people. Loghain had been told before that his blue eyes lent him an icy, intense air that could put people off. And that was fine by him. Loghain was still considered young by most in the camp, Dannon especially, and he preferred that the man didn’t get any notions about trying to give him orders. “Are you telling me you haven’t noticed?”
Dannon shrugged. “There’s some tracks. I think maybe there’s some soldiers about.”
“And you didn’t think that was of any interest?”
“Agh!” He rolled his eyes. “Karolyn down at the village already told us that there’d be soldiers, didn’t she? Said she saw Bann Ceorlic marching through the north field with some of his fellows just this morning.”
Loghain frowned at the name. “Ceorlic is a lickspittle. Desperate for favor with the Orlesian usurper, everyone knows that.”
“Yes, well, Karolyn said he was marching well out of sight, and didn’t even stop at the inn. Like he didn’t want to be seen.” He gestured at the rabbits Dannon carried. “Look, whatever he’s up to, it doesn’t have anything to do with us. Nobody saw us hunting. We’re good. We should go.” He smiled, a nervous, friendly smile meant to be reassuring. Dannon was afraid of him. Which was as Loghain preferred it.
He looked back into the forest, his hand grazing the sword belted at his side. Dannon’s eyes followed the motion, and he grimaced. Dannon was skilled enough with a knife, but hopeless with anything larger. “Aw, come on, now. Don’t go making trouble,” he groused.
“I’m not interested in making trouble,” Loghain insisted. “I’m interested in avoiding it.” He advanced toward the forest’s edge, crossing over a ridge that led him downhill a ways. “Nobody has to have seen us hunting to know that we’re here. You know as well as I that we may have overstayed our welcome.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Dannon said, but he followed quietly after that. It was Loghain’s father who would decide, after all, and even a man like Dannon knew that Loghain and his father were seldom of different minds when it came to such matters. As it should be, Loghain thought to himself. His father hadn’t raised a fool.
The pair of them descended into the dark forest, pausing only once to let their eyes adjust to the patches of moonlight that managed to snake through the canopy above. Dannon grew increasingly agitated by the treacherous ground, even though he had sense enough to stay quiet. For his part, Loghain was beginning to think Dannon might have the right of it.
He was just about to turn them both around when Dannon stopped short. “You hear that?” he whispered.
Good ears, Loghain thought. “Animal?”