Screams penetrated Ennric’s dreams even before they rattled him into wakefulness. For a few baffling seconds he was back home in Moonfane Forge, in his bed next to his sleeping wife, hearing the screams of his youngest daughter waking from a nightmare. In a moment, he would open his eyes, drag himself out of his bed, and go comfort his daughter until she could get back to sleep. His eldest would complain that it had woken her, too. He would have to pacify the both of them, for one daughter was never content with her sister being given attention unless she also received some to make things even. Sometimes he almost suspected his two daughters conspired in this way between themselves in order to get their way. It was push-and-pull, having two such intelligent and independent children, so alike to their mother.

  He would see to them both, make certain they were both comforted and back to bed, so his wife could continue sleeping. Then, perhaps he, too, could catch a few more hours of rest before he must be awake with the rising sun and report for guard duty at the South ... no, the East Gate, he was on the East Gate today.

  In another moment, he recalled where he was. Not back home in his own bed, but wedged uncomfortably in a smelly bunk that would have been more at home on a ship than this seedy little inn’s room. It was little more than an old mattress in a box. Like a coffin. He couldn’t stretch his legs straight in it, nor roll over without banging his mending arm on the frame. Even the bed he’d had in the barracks back before he’d gotten married had been more comfortable than this.

  Not only was he not back home, his daughters were both women grown now, not children who screamed for their parents when nightmares woke them. The reality of the present returned with his waking consciousness, like bats returning to a barn’s loft with the dawn. He wasn’t sore and cranky because he’d been drilling hard with the other soldiers the day before, it was because he was an old man now and too many days on the road, forced to sleep in places like this—when they were lucky enough to find room at an inn at all.

  He heard the next scream for what it really was, not a child waking from a nightmare, but the scream of an adult woman in distress. It came from outside, somewhere nearby and below his second floor window. Across the dark and cramped room, Ennric heard one of the men from his traveling party stir in his own bed.

  “What in all the hells? ...” came a groggy voice.

  “Dunno,” answered Ennric automatically. He clawed at the windowsill and pulled himself up into a sitting position so he could peer through the smokey glass of the little window. It was still pitch black out. The village they had stopped in hardly had enough people living there to merit calling it a village. It was little more than a dirt crossroads with a few scattered hawker’s stalls and the inn, which also served as the lone tavern. There were no street lamps, as one might find in a larger town. All that Ennric could make out was some kind of commotion happening down in the road, around which most of the people remaining in his party from Moonfane Forge had set up camp for the night.

  “What is—?”

  “I said I don’t know, man,” Ennric grumbled. He squinted his eyes shut and groaned. He’d had too little sleep of late and a headache was beginning to throb behind his temples. He’d have to be the one to deal with whatever was going on out there. He always was. Even if this settlement had any guardsmen—and he strongly doubted it did—it was always more prudent to handle his people’s problems before any local truncheon-swingers got involved. The last thing he wanted was to have their mission further complicated by someone getting injured or thrown in a cell.

  By consensus, the remaining people of his party had agreed to give up attempting to muster aid for Moonfane Forge in any more of the small towns and villages they passed on the way to the King’s Capital City. Their resources by which to entice anyone had dwindled to almost nothing and they needed to preserve what they had left. The capital was their sole hope now, so they traveled quickly and spent as little time in the towns they came to as possible. The less opportunity for his ragtag group to cause trouble for any locals the better.

  Leveraging himself out of the narrow box of a bed, he couldn’t avoid banging his arm on its frame. He stood in his stocking feet sucking air through his teeth until the pain subsided, then groped around in the dark for his boots.

  “Stay here,” he ordered the man in the other bed, as he went through the tortuous process of tying his laces. “I’ll see what it’s about. D’ya know where Purcell was sleeping tonight?”

  No answer, then soft snores. Ennric made a sound of disgust in his throat. How many days had they all been together on the road, all connected by what they had gone through with the ravaging of their home town, and yet so few of them acted like they gave a damn anymore. It was as if the farther away they traveled from their mountain town in the north, the more they forgot they had ever had lives there at all, lives and livelihoods that might only be restored should their mission to the king succeed. They should have all become closer by now, united by a common cause. But more often than not, what Ennric saw was a gaggle of people who had perhaps not so much lost their way as had never known what their way had been in the first place.

  “That’s why they followed, old man, that’s why they followed,” he grumbled to himself, making his way stiffly down the stairs as hastily as he could without stumbling to the dingy tavern that served as the inn’s common room. “Profit, or escape, or needing someone to listen to, now that the heads of town are dead.” The words passed his lips in a more bitter tone than he’d intended, but that was the truth of it. It was because the leaders of Moonfane Forge were gone that he himself had been given this task in the first place. Well, if any of these people hoped to find an inspiring leader or astute diplomat in me, he mused to himself, then they’re shit out of luck. Aloud, he added, “Damn you, Vetch.”

  He found Purcell curled up in front of the hearth like a puppy. Whenever there were rooms available at an inn they came to, and funds could be spared to rent one or two, they all drew lots to decide who would get the beds for the night. The rest of them either slept where they could find an open bit of floor or made do camping beside their carts and wagons outside. Purcell had won a berth in the room this night, but had steadfastly insisted on giving the luxury over to Ennric, ‘on account of your arm and all, sir’, she had said. Looking at her now, he decided she may have gotten the better part of that deal. At least on the floor, she had the space to stretch her legs out by the fire.

  “Purcell,” he whispered, and stooped to shake her by the shoulder.

  She came awake instantly, blinking up at him in the dim light. “Hm?”

  Before he could say anything, there was more shouting from outside, followed by a string of curses that would’ve been considered excessive even in the soldiers’s barracks. Purcell simply nodded her understanding and reached for her boots. From having found her irritating at the start of their journey, Ennric was happy now to have Purcell along. She was someone he could count on in a pinch. She wasn’t as sharp as Vetch, but she was always ready for action without question. A good trait for a soldier.

  “‘S’going on out there?” she asked, as she followed him to the door. Ennric grunted. Purcell seemed to take his meaning not to ask. They’d find out soon enough.

  It was unseasonably frigid outside. Weren’t the kingdom’s southern holds supposed to be warmer by this time of year? They were well into King’s Hold, not far out now from the capital, and it had been cold and rainy for days. Ennric’s boots squelched in the track of mud that was the road, as he tramped toward the shoddy camp of tents his people had set up. With his one good eye still adjusting, he saw that most everyone was awake and standing around watching a strange scene unfold.

  “No! You can’t have that; it’s the last we own!”

  “Give it over! You don’t want any trouble. Listen to your husband, lady.”

  “Please, wife, let them have it. Let them have it!”

  It was hard to make out who was who in the pitch black. Sunrise was still hours off. It was the voices that Ennric recognized first: the bickering grain merchants. As he and Purcell came up to them, he found the elderly wife standing behind their cart, clinging gamely onto the corner of a yak hair blanket, while a man Ennric didn’t recognize worked to yank it from her clutches. He was practically dragging the old woman’s boots in the slippery mud by it. Nearby at hand, her husband stood out of the conflict, hands balled up against his chest.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Please, let them have the blanket,” he pleaded in desperation, lowering his voice, as if it could make his words sound more convincing. They were drowned out by yet another scream from his wife, and then she followed that up with a new string of obscenities, directed not at the man trying to take her blanket, but her husband.

  “Damn you, you pigheaded pile of shit. Spirits and demons all damn you and your, your ...” she grunted and yanked back on the blanket again. The man at the other end of it looked almost bored, as if he would simply wait for the old woman to exhaust herself. He was the first to notice Ennric and Purcell.

  Giving Ennric a dismissive look, he gestured with his chin. “This ain’t none o’ your business. Back to your tents.”

  “Like hells it isn’t,” Ennric growled. “You would steal a blanket from an old woman? Let it go.”

  He noticed then the additional movement behind the husband. Two more men and a woman lifting sacks of grain and other supplies out of the merchant’s cart and loading them into their own wagon. Ennric looked from them to the husband and then to the pathetic struggle between the wife and her tormentor. He pointed at the husband, the old man who had once tried to ingratiate himself with Ennric.

  “You. Explain all this. And you, let go of the fucking blanket!” he added to the man accosting the old woman. Her cursing had been replaced with desperate whimpers. She spoke through them.

  “He ... he wasn’t trading nothing! He was letting them ... steal from us! My worthless husband, the coward! The liar! All along, in every town, they came and ... let ... go!”

  Ennric turned his gaze back to the husband. The old man had the gall to smile at Ennric, hastily jumping in with, “It’s fine, I swear. Please let me handle this. They take the goods and then they sell ‘em, and give us a share. In every town we pass through. It’s all agreed upon; there’s no trouble here. None.” He turned his pleas back to his wife, again lowering his voice, speaking to her as if her were explaining something to a child. “Let them have it and we’ll get coin for it later. Please, wife ... they’ll hurt us if we—”

  “They’ve been shaking you down,” Purcell mumbled.

  “No. No,” the husband tried. “Helping us sell our goods. In the towns. F-for a share—”

  “Please ...” the old woman whined. Her hands were beginning to tremble. Ennric wondered at how she fought so fervently to retain a single blanket while the rest of the gang relieved her and her husband of everything else they had to their name. Perhaps it had sentimental value to her. Or, perhaps, it was the only thing she felt she could get away with keeping.

  “You all need to start loading those things right back into the cart where they belong this damned instant!”

  Purcell’s booming voice startled Ennric. Where had that come from, he wondered. That was how a Moonfane Forge town guard was supposed to sound. She approached the three unloading the grain cart, hand on her belt where her truncheon would have been if she had it. For a wonder, the three actually paused in their thieving and gave her their attention. Momentarily, at least. Her implication of a threat wasn’t enough to last. In another moment, they laughed and went back to moving bags and boxes. Undeterred, Purcell turned to all the gawkers who had gathered around, gesturing with her arms wide.

  “What is wrong with you all? You’re just going to let ‘em steal from your fellow townsfolk?”

  There was an assortment of mumbles. A few people turned away and shuffled back to their tents. One sneered, “What town? It’s every man for himself.”

  Ennric knew this was getting out of hand. Some of the locals had woken and were gathering to look on. One had brought out a lantern that illuminated the odd scene. By its light, Ennric recognized the woman and one of the men who were busy moving goods. He’d seen them many a time while out on patrol in the pastures around Moonfane Forge. They were brother and sister, and both had worked as herdspeople watching over Moonfane’s yaks. Ennric didn’t know their names, but they were all familiar with each other from the many days of travel in close proximity. He didn’t think there were any words he could say to them that could sufficiently express his disgust at their actions. These were people who had once been guards against thievery. Now they thieved from their own. And here were all the local townsfolk gathering to watch, people who would view this as an example of what kind of folk came from Moonfane Forge. An end needed to be brought to this. Right now.

  Once again, it was Purcell who was a step ahead. Not far away was Ennric’s own wagon. She went to it and retrieved his sword from behind the seat. Before Ennric could shout at her to stop, she’d drawn his blade and now advanced on the three thieves by the grain wagon. She held it two-handed above her head like a club. It would have been comical, the way she charged at them with the sword held high, if it wasn’t so horrifying.

  Taken by surprise by this, the siblings and their cohort dropped a heavy sack of grain and scrambled for their cart, loathe to test this mad woman charging them with a gleaming blade. The grain sack burst open, spilling its golden contents in the mud. One of the gang clambered into the driver’s seat and grabbed up the reins, while the siblings jumped in with all their stolen goods. The man still trying to wrench the blanket away from the old woman gave it one last cynical tug, finally succeeding in pulling it away from her. He fell on his backside in the mud. Before he could rise, Ennric stepped up and directed a solid kick into his ribs. The man let out a pained “ooof” as the breath was knocked out of him. Gasping, quick as he could, he struggled to his feet and ran, leaving the blanket behind and being pulled up into the cart by his fellows. His wheezing breaths joined in with their mocking laughter as the man in the driver’s seat snapped their horse into motion. The cart rattled off up the road into the night as Purcell ran after them. She took one useless swing at the cart with Ennric’s sword, missing wildly and slipping and falling in the mud herself, eliciting even louder laughter from the retreating cart as it disappeared into the night.

  Purcell pushed herself to her feet. She had mud all down one side of her clothing. There was no reclaiming her dignity after the ungainly fall. She settled for reclaiming Ennric’s sword from the mud. Then, not knowing what else to do, she stood there with her eyes cast down, catching her breath, her face flush from a mix of exertion and embarrassment.

  At Ennric’s feet, the grain merchant’s wife crawled on her knees over to the discarded blanket. She gathered it up and held it to her bosom, blubbering into it, heedless of the mud and filth clinging to it.

  Ennric looked up the road into the dark where the gang of thieves had fled. He knew for a fact those four would never be seen in their traveling party again. So, that was how some people reacted to losing everything. While some banded together, others turned into predatory scavengers who would knife their own neighbors in the back. For one spiteful moment, Ennric hoped someone would end up backstabbing them in the same way. They’d find out then just how worthwhile it had been to burn all their bridges for half a cart’s worth of modestly valuable goods.

  In the next moment, he decided he was too tired and fed up to care what happened to them. Unbidden, his wife and daughters came again into his thoughts. He hoped they were getting on well back home, that they weren’t having to suffer such petty savagery from their fellow townsfolk. How he wished the dream he’d woken from on this damnable night had not been a dream. How he wanted to be back in that place, in that time ...

  “Wife, let me help you up.”

  Ennric’s attention snapped back to the present. The grain merchant came groveling to his wife, arms outstretched in obsequiousness. But rather than accept his offer to help her to her feet, the old woman shoved him away. Clutching the precious blanket, she stood up on her own and spat at his feet.

  “No!” she shouted through tears. “No! No more. You did this. You did all of this!” She gestured at their wagon, most of their possessions gone from it now. She cared not at all about the crowd still gathered around, nor the rude jeers some made at this makeshift entertainment. “Our lives! That was all that were left of our lives in that wagon, and you, you just gave it to them. Of course, they weren’t gonna stop. Of course, they came for more and more once they knew they could bully you out of it. And you hid it from me. You made it out like I was crazy! Bastard! Coward!” Again, she spat at his feet.

  The old man clasped his hands together at his chest, trying to make himself small against his wife’s wrath. It had no affect on her; she continued to lay into the man. “Well, you ... you can have it! You’re on your own now! Better yet, go! Go off with them bullies and get the little bit o’ coin they were gonna give you for selling our goods!”

  “Wife, I—”

  “You’re one your own now!” she repeated, making it decisive.

  She shoved past him and nearly wandered off into the night holding her blanket like it was a shield, until a woman from their traveling part took pity on her and went to her. The woman took her by the shoulders and directed her through the door of the inn. The grain merchant could only look on, speechless, his chin trembling.

  When he looked over to Ennric for sympathy, he found none. Ennric shook his head, saying mercilessly, “You made that bed, merchant. You’re gonna have to sleep in it.” He turned his back on the man and crossed the road to the inn, calling, “Purcell!” She came like a hound to heel.

  “Sir?”

  “Rouse our group, get everyone ready to move. Everyone who still wants to stay a part of this group after all that,” he added.

  “First light, sir?”

  “No. Now,” Ennric clarified. “We’re leaving now. We make straight for the capital. No more stopping in towns. Make it clear that anyone who isn’t entirely on board with our mission to the king at this point should stay behind.”

  After only the slightest hesitation, Purcell bobbed her head in a nod. Before she rushed off to do as he ordered, she offered Ennric his sword and scabbard back. He shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “You keep it. Come tomorrow, I begin showin’ you how to use it.”