Draka crouched behind a felled tree with a shift of his recurve bow. He had a barbed arrow already notched and ready for the deer he had been tracking since before sunrise. The fingers on his left hand were still sore, his knuckles had bled through the gauze, and his wrist ached. He had tightened his boot over his sprained ankle. It hurt, too. He had fought on through worse. If only God allowed him to heal his own wounds like he could others. If only God didn’t decide he needed to feel what he had done. He must account for his actions.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t take out his frustrations elsewhere, though. He needed meat. He needed the hunt to both sooth his anger and keep him from having to confess to beating hospitality into every man in a village. No, he needed to calm himself. He had enough to be forgiven for at this point.

  He stalked his way over the felled tree. He scanned the forest with both his eyes and his ears. He could smell the musk of the passing deer fresh as if he were standing beside it. There were dung balls a few paces in front of him. It stopped here not long ago. He narrowed his eyes and perked his ears. Some birds were chirping, the clack of squirrels, and a rustle.

  His eyes shot toward the rustle. A feathered brown fur tail wiggled from behind a large tree. He curled two fingers like hooks around the bowstring. It was probably eighty feet away, possibly less with the forest obstructing his depth perception, but close enough that he could get a clear shot. Only, not from here.

  This is going to hurt, Draka winced as he bent his knees. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and clenched his jaw to stop himself from breaking his vow. Like a lion, he pounced diagonally and let his arrow fly in midair. The arrow slashed across the deer’s throat and stuck in a tree beyond it.

  It felt like a lightning strike shooting from his ankle through his spine when he landed and rolled. He let another arrow fly before the deer was able to leap into a sprint with blood pouring from the gash across its throat. This time, he struck true. The deer dropped to the ground with a thud and rustle of jerking legs.

  He didn’t feel better. Draka fell over from his fighter’s crouch. It hurts more now. Excruciatingly. He gripped his ankle, baring his teeth. It didn’t feel like lightning anymore. It felt like a vice was crushing his bones. He squeezed his eyes shut. Tears spilled down his cheek. He pressed on it with both hands, hoping, praying, that the pain would ease. It tightened and throbbed instead.

  All he had wanted was some respite. All he had wanted was to get a quick hunt to cool his temper. All he wanted was to do what God willed him to. God wanted him to have this land, so he would follow His will and make this his home. But all he wanted to do was go home. Back to the simple life he had before. Why did he have to come here? Why would God send him to this place to be exiled and alone? To be a farmer? Is this a punishment for something he had done and forgotten? Why won’t the pain stop? Why does he have to be such a fool with everything? Na?ve, like a child, always. And crying like one because his rocking and squeezing of his ankle did nothing to ease the agony.

  The profanity he would spit if he didn’t have his vow. There were words in his head, each coupled with a ‘Lord, forgive me,’ followed by another. He just had to wait. Gnash his teeth and bear his cross. Endure the pain. The penance for his hate, his wrath.

  He made his mind wander away from the pain. Hopefully, that will make it fade enough for him to get up and gut the deer. He thought about the mess left in the house. How he had slept in the corner, with his sword on his lap and his eyes drifting as he watched the breeze toss the blanket covering the doorway.

  He remembered how the moonlight was grayer than the blues of the eastern desert moon. He had left everything where it lay. If they came for him in the night, they would stumble over the broken pieces of everything he had in that house to get to him. But he was confident that he could take the jolts of pain as he maneuvered over the dislodged planks of wood and splinters and debris of what few plates and bowls he had while cutting them down limb by hateful limb. He pushed aside the image of displaying a head or two on pikes at the edge of his land on the road. That was his former people’s way, not the Godly one of his people now. Jesus would not do it thusly. Turn the other cheek. There wasn’t enough regret for how much he wanted to cut at least one of their ears off.

  Dark eyes looked up to him in awed surprise from inside the hut. Her naked body flowed with blood dripping from lips she tipped her chin to kiss him with. He felt the handle of the knife driven between her naked breasts that were smeared with blood. She pressed herself against him, wrapped her arms around him even as he gripped the blade thrust into her heart. Her lips touched his, he twisted the knife with a jerk.

  ‘I love you,’ Her last words echoed in his mind.

  Draka jerked upright, still in the woods. The pain had eased, but not the hurt. He let go of his ankle and straightened that leg to lift himself without it. The memory always crept up when he least expected it. At one time, he would have remained on the ground and wept. For years, he would see it in his dreams night after night and cry, curled into a ball like a child. But that was long ago.

  Not long enough, it seems.

  He braced on a tree once on his feet and unstringed his bow with slips of his right thumb. If his other wrist and fingers began to ache as much as his ankle he would go back to the ground and weep for certain.

  After sliding his bow into its holder and the properly wrapped string into its pouch, he drew his dagger and limped toward the dead deer. It didn’t take long to slice it open and pull out the guts he didn’t need. Some parts he piled back in and used a hook to latch the sliced belly closed. He buried the excess and lifted the deer onto his shoulders. It was going to be a long trek to the house, but he would make it before midday. Then he would figure out what to do about the mess inside.

  The trees helped him along the way. One after the other stood as a brace for him to lean on every few painful steps that sent bolts of pain shooting through his side and into his spine. A few times, he found himself needing to stay there until he could catch his breath after holding it through the pain.

  It was one such time that a small, shallow hole in the ground caught his attention. His heart pounded and his throat went dry. It was unmistakable. Having one hand taken to keep the deer over his shoulder made him feel naked. Vulnerable. Weak.

  His eyes darted through the forest, his heart racing faster and faster. He needed both hands for his bow.

  His unstringed bow.

  He silently cursed himself for being stupid once again. Complacent.

  He listened to the air.

  All he could smell was the deer and its blood and filth.

  He needed his spear. The only thing other than arrows he had with him was his knife and it was too small.

  The forest had become bigger, denser to him. At the same time, it felt crowded, as if it were ensnaring him and trapping him in a web he couldn’t escape from.

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  Birds were still chirping. That was a good sign. He looked back to the shallow hole. And the tracks leading to and from it. Boar. A big one. It had found truffles and moved on. Nothing he had but the spear left in his house would even phase one that size. His knife, his bow, all else would be useless.

  It would kill him and barely have a scratch no matter what he tried. And gut Vigora nearly as easily, though she would make it pay for every injury it inflicted.

  He quickened his limping pace. He would never forget his spear again. Just like he would never forget his sword and at least his breast plates and gauntlets when he eventually goes back to the village. He will never call this place home. He wasn’t safe no matter where he went here.

  Proof of that was standing outside his house, shouting at the covered doorway when he emerged from the forest. The redhead that had looked curious rather than ready to attack in the village. Not the brawler, at least. Draka forced himself to walk normally. He clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on the deer’s leg to stave off the pain.

  “You!” Balor turned and jabbed a finger.

  Draka rolled his eyes at him, overexaggerating his disdain to such rudeness so the man understood, and carried the deer to the shack across on this side of the road, opposite his house. He shrugged his shoulders to bounce the deer off and over his head to the ground inside. He faced Balor with a tilt of his head, awaiting whatever else he might want to say.

  “So, a poacher as well as a thief, I see,” Balor put both hands on his hips.

  A what?! Draka drew a breath. He had two seconds to explain his accusation. One…

  “You know it be illegal to hunt in Lord Taggerty’s forest? Or did they not tell you when you came from whatever shithole you be from?”

  Oh, Draka let out his breath. That’s fine then. He brushed at the air and stepped past the man toward the house. The thief bit should be his next statement, Draka knew. Hopefully before he gets to the door and can grab his sword.

  A quick sideways glance and Vigora met his eyes from a hiding spot beside the house. He narrowed his eyes at her. She slowly sunk backwards with her nose dipped.

  He looked to the sky, pleading for the Lord’s mercy.

  “Obviously, they never taught you to tie up your horse!”

  There it is. Draka thinned his lips and looked to Balor with a long blink and cold gaze.

  Balor moved one muscular leg forward and wagged a finger with a face full of seething anger. “Your beast trampled our garden and stole our fruit! And a potato! And my wife nearly killed herself because of it! I demand compensation or I will take this up with the administrator and let Lord Taggerty’s justice be served. Bet you’d do well in the stocks for a week or two. You hear me, boy?”

  Draka narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like being called ‘boy.’ Especially from someone who looked younger than him by at least a handful of years. He took a threatening step forward, adrenaline cushioning the pain in his ankle. He watched the man’s fear fill his face for a split second as he took a step back. This made Draka breathe easier. He was not looking for a fight.

  “You need to tie that thing up, you hear me?”

  Draka heard her slink forward from her hiding spot again and shot her another glare. Then he turned back to Balor with a nod and a wave of his hand to show all that was his home. The shack was barely bigger than an outhouse and the house didn’t have a door. It barely had a roof, now that he looked at it from outside. There were no other structures. No stables, no tether pole.

  Balor growled, “Say something, offlander! What, you don’t speak where you’re from either? I said, I want compensation. Now, what you gonna do about that?”

  Draka shrugged and vigorously shook his head at him, trying to convey that he was waiting for the man to tell him what he wanted.

  “You understand what I’m saying, boy? You mute or something? Can’t speak?”

  Sure, Draka looked to the sky for patience again, if being called mute makes this end, then that’s what I’ll go with. But, Lord, if he calls me ‘boy’ again, I will need your strength not to make him mute until his judgment.

  He felt in his heart that would be wrong. He frowned at the command within him. With haughty steps, he went to the deer and tossed it to the man’s feet by one of the stiff legs. Balor jumped a little when it landed in front of him, then stared down at it in awe.

  Draka gave in to the limp as he walked past Balor with a pat on his shoulder. He didn’t wait to see if the man took it for compensation but went straight to Vigora and flicked her nose. She straightened at his ‘audacity.’

  Draka shook his head at her, glaring. He just lost the only meat he had because she couldn’t stay put. Now, the villagers have a reason to hate him whereas they didn’t before.

  “I s’pose this will do. Though, I may need more since this is illegally hunted.”

  Draka pointed for Vigora to stay and held a finger of warning at her nose. She lowered it with her ears tucked back. He limped back to the front of the house, where Balor was lifting the deer onto his own shoulders.

  “Just, consider this a warning. We don’t want you here. And you stay away from me daughter. And keep your horse out of my garden. And off my land. I’ve the right to kill it if it crosses my land again and I swear to you, I will.”

  Draka nodded. Reasonable. He’d feel the same if he were in the man’s place. Though the daughter thing made his ears perk. Why would he bring up a daughter?

  Balor stopped after a few steps, the deer draped over his shoulder, and turned to him with furrowed brows, “You really can’t speak, can you?”

  Draka shook his head at him with an exaggerated dismissive frown.

  “Well, that makes this easier, then. Leave. Go back to wherever you be from and take that thieving beast with you. If you stay, we’ll drive you out. You’re not the first. Consider this your only neighborly warning. They want your blood and this land be ripe for tilling.”

  Draka held up a finger for him to wait and limped to the door. With a reach, he gripped the handle of his longsword and brought it out with the steel singing from rubbing it against the doorframe. He crossed his arms and let the polished blade rest across one shoulder with a single raised brow.

  “I see,” Balor nodded. Then, to Draka’s surprise, he smiled, “I’d feel the same way for this land. Good dark soil. You were warned, though. I’ll tell them you no leave easy. Can’t say what will happen after that, but you were warned.”

  Draka shrugged and waved wiggly fingers at him as goodbye. Balor only nodded and continued down the road, whistling a tune.

  Once he was far enough away, Draka fell to the floor halfway into his doorway. The sword fell with a thud and chime beside him as he winced against the pain in his ankle. Tears poured down his face as he waited for it to subside. If only he could scream.

  He heard Vigora clop her way to him. Without hesitation, he grabbed a piece of wood from the debris and threw it at her with all his might.

  It didn’t go far enough. He wanted it to hit her between the eyes for all the trouble she caused, but it harmlessly landed in the dirt in front of her. She looked offended by him and trotted to her water barrel and began drinking as if nothing had happened. He let himself fall back again.

  What was he going to eat now?