Chapter 27

The first three days of searching south of Riverrun yielded nothing but false leads.

A trail followed for two hours turned out to be a merchant's caravan taking a shortcut through the woods. A cook fire ring that had promised much proved to have been used by charcoal burners the previous summer. Broken branch patterns that Marq Piper had sworn were signs of horsemen were, on closer inspection, only evidence that a bear or some other large animal had been foraging through the area some weeks past. An old trapper's path from years ago got mistaken for something more recent, and cost them half a morning.

Each false lead was a small disappointment, and Galad kept his patience. Real tracking required patience above all else, he knew. The bandits had been at this for months by now. They would have grown skilled at hiding their movements.

But Edmure Tully grew visibly more troubled with each fruitless day.

By the evening of the third day, sitting around a fire while cold rain drizzled through the leaves overhead, Galad decided it was time.

"My lord," he said quietly, catching Edmure's attention over the flames. "I would ask you to consider adding to our numbers."

Edmure looked up, weary. "More riders? We have thirty already, ser."

"Not riders, my lord. Not knights. Local men. Hunters and trappers and foresters who live in these lands and know the woods better than any of us can hope to. Your trackers from Riverrun are good, but they are limited by their numbers. Bring in the men who spend every day in these woods. They will find in a day what we might miss in a week."

Young Lord Lymond Goodbrook, sitting nearby with his cloak pulled tight against the damp, made a small sound of disagreement. "Ser, we are knights of the Riverlands. Poachers and woodsmen to do our work? It seems beneath the dignity of the task."

Galad turned his head slowly toward the younger man. "Why not both, Lord Goodbrook?” He allowed himself a small smile. “A knight's blade to do a knight's work, and a woodsman's eyes to find where that blade must strike. The two are not at odds. I certainly wouldn’t think so, would you?"

Sitting beside him, Garlan covered his chortle with a cough. Lymond went red. He seemed about to answer, and then his eyes caught on Nightfall at Galad's hip, and he seemed to remember the moniker of the man he was speaking to. His eyes widened briefly. 

"Forgive me, ser,” he said, somewhat hastily. “I spoke without thinking. Of course you are right."

"There is nothing to forgive, my lord."

Edmure had been watching the exchange thoughtfully. Now he nodded and turned to Ser Robin, one of the older knights who commanded the Riverrun household men.

"Ser Robin. See to it,” he said. “Send out five men to ride to every village within a day's ride of us south and east. Any man who trapped or hunted the woods for his living, offer him five copper stars a day and food for his family while he serves. I want as many as we can get within three days."

Ser Robin rode out at first light the next morning.

xxx

The local men came in singly and in pairs over the following two days, mostly older men with weathered faces and rough hands and thick accents. Some had the cautious bearing of poachers who had spent their lives avoiding lordly foresters. Others were younger, men who had learned the trade from fathers now dead. They wore simple leather and homespun, carried short bows and long knives, and moved through the underbrush without seeming to disturb a single leaf.

Galad rode with them often during those first days, and found himself learning as much as he taught. The Two Rivers folk of his previous life would have envied some of what these Riverlands hunters knew. With them, he learned the particular way to read the disturbance of moss on a fallen log, the signs that meant a deer had passed versus a horse, the manner in which certain birds fell silent when men had been through recently and the pattern of their calling once the danger had passed.

But he also made sure the young lords kept their discipline.

"When we spread out to search these woods," he had said before they set out, meeting each of their eyes in turn, "we should divide into smaller parties. Three or four men each. And when any party finds sign of the bandits—and we will find sign, have faith on that—no man in that party is to try to be a hero. No charging into unknown ground alone. No pursuing on your own initiative. We come together first, and we act together."

Edmure had nodded at the advice, but Marq Piper had frowned. "But if we delay, ser, they may escape us. If we come across them by chance, surely we must strike."

Galad had shaken his head. "Mark their trail and send a rider back to gather the rest of us. Bandits who are being hunted stay ready to fight. A single knight and his squire riding into a bandit camp full of desperate men will die there. And their deaths will accomplish nothing except giving warning to those bandits that a proper hunt is underway. Does that make sense?"

They had grumbled, but they had agreed. Even Marq Piper had eventually nodded.

The days passed. The searches spread wider. The frustration of the men mounted.

Then, on the sixth morning, the break came.

Meck, an old hunter who had lived in these woods since before Edmure was born, came riding back to their camp on a borrowed pony, kicking it into a run when he saw the tents through the trees.

"Found somethin’, m’lord," Meck said as he swung down, breathing hard. He addressed Edmure directly, but the words carried to all standing nearby. "Fellas travelling must be some two days past. Small party. Six or eight men, methinks. Moving fast, but I found where they'd stopped for a piss."

"Where?" Edmure asked.

"Maybe three hours ride from here, on foot. Two on horseback if we go careful."

Galad spoke up. "Show us."

Within the half hour, a party of a dozen was mounted and moving. Meck led them at a walking pace along a series of deer paths that Galad would never have identified as trails at all. Went to show that, despite his years living in the woods, he still had much to learn in the craft.

The morning grew warm as the sun climbed higher. Green light filtered through the summer canopy overhead. Somewhere far off, a wood dove was calling.

Meck stopped them beside a small stream and pointed downward.

Galad dismounted and crouched beside him. The signs were subtle. A place where several men had knelt to drink from the water with their horses. Boot and horseshoe prints in the mud along the bank, half-effaced but still distinguishable. The marks of hobnails in one print—an armored boot. Others were rougher, common leather soles worn thin. 

"They moved on this way," Meck said, gesturing with his chin. "Careful about it. Brushed away most of their signs. But you can still see it, if you know how to look."

They tracked in near silence for the better part of two hours. The signs led them deeper into the woods, angling more southward. Meck moved on foot, his sharp eyes reading each patch of earth and each disturbed leaf. Galad  rode close behind him, alert. Behind them came the rest of the party, Edmure Tully at their head.

Then Ben, riding beside Galad, straightened suddenly in his saddle.

"Smoke," he said. "Faint, but there. Southerly."

Galad tested the air himself. Ben was right. A thread of woodsmoke rode the breeze from the south, carried faintly enough that it might easily have been missed by any man not paying close attention.

He held up a hand. The party stopped at once.

Behind him, Edmure rode up and pulled his horse alongside. "You smell it too?"

"Aye."

"Ser Galad.” Edmure pitched his voice lower. “Do we send scouts ahead first?"

The young lord sounded hesitant, and Galad could understand why. There might be six to eight men ahead. Six to eight bandits, according to Meck's reading of the tracks, some of them possibly better armed than the average. Sending two or three scouts to walk into that would be sending them to their deaths.

"No, my lord. We should ride together,” he said. “Slowly. Quietly. Ready weapons. They might scatter if they see us in numbers, but we’ll be able to run down anyone fleeing."

Edmure nodded. Word was passed back through the party. Blades were loosened in scabbards. Bowstrings were checked. Glancing at Garlan beside him, he got a nod back from his squire. No hesitation on this one. He smiled.

They moved forward together then, spread just wide enough that they might blend in with the foliage and the trees. 

The smoke grew steadier as they went. The trees thinned. As Galad came around a stand of birches, the source of the smoke suddenly lay before them.

The farmhouse had been burning until quite recently.

The roof was gone entirely, collapsed inward and still smoking in places. The doors of the barn hung on broken hinges. Two sheep lay dead in the yard, along with what remained of a milk cow. The bodies of the family had been left where they had fallen. Two men, perhaps a father and a grown son. An old woman. Another woman of middle years. And a young child of six or seven whose body Galad could not look at for more than a moment.

Ben was cursing quietly under his breath.

"Not old," Meck said. His voice had gone hoarse. "Hours. Not more."

Galad dismounted and passed his reins to Garlan, instructing the boy to stay behind with just a look. The others followed his lead. They walked into the yard slowly, weapons in hand, watching for any sign of the raiders still lingering, but it was clear the bandits had moved on some time ago. The family's draft horses were gone. So were whatever supplies the barn had held. The smaller outbuildings had been ransacked and abandoned.

Then Ben stopped and pointed. "There."

At the edge of the yard, near the base of a large woodpile, something had shifted. The others paused. Walking up slowly, Galad raised one hand to signal peace.

"Come out," he called. "We are not the men who did this. Come out."

Silence for a long moment. Then a whimper.

A young man crawled out from behind the woodpile. He was perhaps sixteen, thin and dark-haired, his face streaked with soot and tears. His hands shook uncontrollably. He wore the plain clothes of a farm laborer. When Galad approached, the boy shrank back and pressed his hands together.

"Father, forgiv’ me,” he whispered under his breath. “Forgiv’ me. Please, Father. Forgiv’ me. Forgiv’ me, Father."

Galad crouched down before him. "What is your name, lad?"

The boy did not seem to hear the question at first. He kept whispering. Galad reached out slowly and rested a hand on his shoulder. The boy startled.

"Look at me.” Galad held him firm. “What is your name?"

"Willem, ser,” he whimpered. “Name’s Willem."

"Willem. Are you hurt?"

Willem shook his head. His eyes were reddened and full of something worse than fear.

"Tell me what happened here."

The boy swallowed hard. His shaking slowed a little. He took a breath, and then another, and then he began to speak.

"They came out’ the woods just after dawn. I was in the loft of the barn. Sleeping still. I woke when Toma's dogs started up." His voice was quiet, almost flat, as if he were recounting something that had happened to someone else. "There were maybe eight of them, I dunno. Rough-looking men, most o’ them. They killed the dogs first, then Toma when he came out to see what the noise was. Then his son Kell. Then his wife Merra, and the old grandmother, and little Piet—" His breath caught. He forced himself onward. "I heard it all. All of it. I… I did not come down."

Galad said nothing.

The boy kept going, almost as if he couldn’t stop now. "I stayed in the loft. I was afraid. I heard Merra beggin’ them. I heard Piet crying. And I heard—" His voice broke. "I heard Edyth."

"Edyth?"

"She was—she was mine. She lived with the family. Toma took her in when her own da died. She was mine, ser. We were to be married when the harvest was done. And they took her. They dragged her from the house and I could hear her calling my name and I did not come down, ser. I did not come down!"

The words came out as a wail, and then Willem was weeping, his whole body shaking with it. His hands went to his face and his shoulders heaved. He curled forward until his forehead touched the dirt.

"Forgiv’ me. Forgiv’ me. Warrior, forgiv’ me. Father, forgiv’ me. I heard her and I did nothing. I heard her and I did nothing. I did nothing. I did nothing."

The rest of Edmure's party had come up by now. They had dismounted and were taking in the scene with expressions ranging from horror to disgust.

Ser Karyl Vance—who had spoken often on the road of his devotion to the Seven—walked over and looked down at the shaking boy. His mouth was tight with disapproval.

"The Seven do not shine their light on craven men," Ser Karyl said coldly.

One of the other young lords muttered something ugly. Marq Piper had the decency to look uncomfortable, but he did not disagree.

Edmure came up alongside them. His face bore no scorn. Only a deep and painful pity as he looked at the boy and then at the bodies scattered around the yard. He did not speak.

Galad ignored the others. Standing up first, he leaned down and offered Willem his hand. 

"No man can walk so long in the shadow that he cannot come again to the light," he said quietly.

The boy stared at his outstretched hand for a long moment. He did not seem to understand at first. Then his eyes lifted to Galad's face.

"Take my hand, Willem. Rise. Then tell us everything you can remember. Everything you saw and heard. What they wore. What they said. Which way they rode. Help us save Edyth. Help us bring these men to justice. Make what you did not do here into something you can do now."

Willem's face crumpled again, but differently this time. His hand came up slowly and took Galad's. He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

Behind Galad, Ser Karyl made a small disapproving sound. Galad did not turn to acknowledge it.

"Come," he said, guiding Willem gently by the arm toward one of the horses. "Sit. Drink some water. When you are ready, tell us what you saw."

xxx

That night they made camp in a clearing perhaps two miles from the burned farm. Willem rode double with Ben for the short journey, and by the time they stopped for the evening, the boy had begun to speak more freely. Through the long hours before sleep, Galad and Edmure sat with him beside the fire and drew out what he remembered.

He told them of the raiders. There had been eight, maybe nine. Most had been rough men in mismatched leather and cheap iron, of the kind common to hedge knights and worse. But two had been better armed. One wore what Willem thought might have been proper mail beneath his surcoat, and the other carried a longsword that looked well-made and expensive. He did not know armor well enough to say whether they were Ironborn or Westermen or anything else. He could only say that they had not stayed long once they had done their work. They had ridden out southward, taking the family's horses and Edyth with them.

By the time Willem had said what he could, the moon was high and most of the camp had bedded down. Garlan had taken the boy to a spot near the fire and given him one of the extra bedrolls. Even now, Galad could see that Willem did not sleep. He lay staring up at the stars with eyes that had seen too much.

Edmure poured himself a cup of watered wine and offered one to Galad.

They sat in silence for a while. Somewhere behind them, a log cracked in the fire.

"Ser," Edmure said at last, his voice pitched low.

"My lord."

"I have been thinking. On what you said before. About the woods, and the roads, and how we should have been searching differently from the start."

Galad said nothing, letting him continue.

"When my father first entrusted me with this task—" Edmure stopped. Started again. "When my father first told me that his illness meant I would have to lead the hunt for the bandits, do you know what I thought?"

"Tell me."

"I thought of my father. And of my uncle. Both fought at the War of the Ninepenny Kings before I was ever born. I grew up on their stories. My father was said to have fought in half a dozen battles, and Uncle Brynden became a knight of renown across the realm. All the glory of it." Edmure gave a bitter little laugh. "And I thought, here it is at last. My chance. My chance to prove myself. To make a name that would stand beside theirs."

Still silent, Galad watched the young lord's face in the firelight.

"I feel foolish now, ser." Edmure's voice grew rougher. "Like a child playing at knight while his land burns and his people die. That family was mine to protect. Meg and Sara, the old woman's granddaughters, they were mine to protect. And I was so caught up in dreams of glory that I did not think of them. Did not think of them at all until it was too late."

He looked down at the ground, as if ashamed. Galad did not think he had any reason for it. 

"There is no sin in dreaming of glory, my lord," he told him. Edmure looked up, uncertain. “Dream of glory in the quiet hours if you will. But when the sun rises, it is duty that must fill your day. Duty to your family. Duty to your people. Duty to your king. Above all, the duty to do the right thing, whatever the cost to your pride or your dreams. That is what makes a lord worth the following."

Opposite him, Edmure was silent for a long moment. Then his mouth twisted, and something petulant crept into his voice.

"Easy for you to say, ser,” he almost spat. “Drowning in glory as you are. Every song and story now speaks of the Woodsman Knight and his sword and his trial. All I've got is—" He caught himself. His face went dark red in the firelight. "Gods. Ser, forgive me. That was—that was uncalled for. I am tired and I am ashamed and I—"

"Peace, my lord." Galad raised a hand. He took a sip of his wine, more to give the young lord a moment to recompose himself than anything. Then he continued, "I did not go to the Iron Islands seeking glory, Lord Edmure. I went because the Ironborn had raided my village and killed my neighbors, or worse. I went because it was my duty as a new knight and as a man to answer that wrong. Glory followed, it is true. But it was duty I held in my heart through the war. Not the songs I thought might be sung of me afterward."

"Duty," Edmure repeated softly.

"Yes,” he said. “Just as it is my duty now to help end this bandit threat. That is why I ride south with you. Not because it will add to any songs. But because these people deserve better than to be forgotten as their homes burn and their families die."

Edmure nodded slowly. He turned the wine cup in his hands.

"Duty," he said again. "Aye. Duty."

They drank the rest in silence.

Edmure went to his bedroll not long after. Galad sat alone by the fire for another hour, watching the coals settle and thinking about the duties of his past. He did not sleep until well past midnight. 

xxx

They broke camp before dawn. Following Willem's directions, they rode south for the better part of the morning. Meck and the other hunters moved ahead on foot, reading the trail with practiced eyes. The signs grew more frequent now. The raiders had traveled in daylight, apparently believing themselves clear of pursuit, and had left more traces of their passing than they realized.

Just past midday, the trail led them to an abandoned camp.

The site sat in a hollow beside a small stream, well-hidden from any road that might have passed nearby. A ring of stones marked where a fire had been. Several patches of flattened grass showed where men had slept. Empty wineskins and a broken bit of harness had been left behind, along with the picked bones of what had probably been someone's chicken.

Galad walked the site slowly, reading it. The bandits had spent one night here. Perhaps two. They had eaten well, the bones scattered around the fire ring told him that. They had drunk, though not to excess. They had left in some hurry, but not in panic.

Then, near the edge of the clearing at the base of a young oak, he stopped. Someone had been tied to the trunk of the tree. A ring around the bark had been worn as if by rope burns. Or someone struggling with their bonds. And upon closer inspection, a few strands of long dark hair caught on the rough bark. Not many. But enough to see.

Willem made a small sound in his throat when Galad pointed it out. He walked over and stared at the tree. Then he wiped angrily at the tears that had begun to fall, and turned to face the others.

"I want to fight," Willem said. His voice cracked but held. "Please. I want to be with you when you find them."

Edmure looked at Galad. He gave the slightest nod.

The young lord of Riverrun drew a spare short sword from his own saddle pack and passed it to Willem hilt-first.

"You will stay behind us in the fighting, lad," Edmure said. "But if any of them come at you, kill them well. For your Edyth."

"For my Edyth," Willem whispered. “Thank you, m’lord.”

Edmure walked to a nearby fallen log and pulled out a map from a leather case at his belt. He spread it flat across the log's surface and gestured Galad and the other lords over.

"Ser," Edmure said as they gathered. "What is your read?"

Galad studied the map for a moment. He traced their route, and the direction the bandits had moved.

"Eight men,” he said. “Small enough that this cannot be their whole force. Eight men do not raid across two hundred miles of countryside. There must be more, and this must be one of several parties operating out of a central base."

"Which means somewhere ahead of us, if we track them well, we may find that base," Lord Lymond Goodbrook said eagerly.

"Or we may not,” Galad countered. “This party may return to the base directly. Or they may raid several more places first, and then return by a roundabout path. We cannot know for certain."

Ser Patrek Mallister cleared his throat. "Lord Edmure. If I may. It seems to me we have a choice here. We can pursue this party now and try to catch them, but by doing so, we warn the others that a hunt is close. Any bandits they return to will scatter. If we let this party go and try instead to backtrack them or follow them at greater distance, we might find the main base without alerting them."

"Aye," Marq nodded. "That's sense. Fall back. Watch. Track them home."

Galad shook his head. "They have the farm girl with them. And likely other captives too, given what we know of their pattern. If we do not act now, that girl may die tonight. Or be taken further from our reach. Or worse."

Goodbrook frowned. "One girl, ser. What is one girl’s life against taking down a whole base of raiders."

Galad did not hesitate. "Everything.” He stared down the riverlord. “As is every life these bandits have taken. Beyond that, this is a small party. If we take them, we will have prisoners to question. We will learn where their base is, and what forces they have there. That will be worth more than trying to follow them from a distance and possibly losing the trail entirely."

Edmure had been listening carefully. Now he spoke up. 

"Ser Galad speaks true.” Rising, he picked up the map and folded it back into its case. His eyes looked around fiercely at every man in the clearing. “These are our people they have taken. Rivermen and women. We’ll ride and take this party if we can. And we’ll rescue whoever they have with them. Then we move on to the main base with what we learn."

He got cheers from all his lordlings and his sworn men. Lord Goodbrook nodded too, though the doubt did not leave his face entirely.

Within minutes, they mounted up and rode south, following the trail with grim purpose.

xxx

They rode through the afternoon and into the evening. Then, when the local hunters said the trail was fresh enough that the bandits could not be more than a few hours ahead, they continued on into the night.

Torches were forbidden. Meck and the other trackers led them by moonlight, but the going was too slow and too dangerous mounted. They dismounted and led their horses on foot, guiding the animals along paths only the hunters could truly see. Roots caught at their boots. Low branches slapped at faces in the darkness. A stumble could mean a broken leg for a horse, and no torches meant no way to spot the ground ahead.

Galad walked at the front beside Meck, his mare's reins in his hand. His warhorse followed behind on its own lead. He could hear Garlan a few paces back, breathing quietly through his teeth. The boy had grown weary even hours back, but he doggedly kept walking close to him. 

An hour before dawn they stopped in a small clearing to eat and drink. The trackers said the bandits could not be more than a mile or two ahead now, though possibly less. Ben passed around bread and hard cheese from their saddlebags. Garlan came to check his weapons, and though Galad had already done so, he let his squire do his duty. Willem sat between two of the older knights with his borrowed sword across his knees and his eyes fixed on the darkness to the south.

The sky began to grey.

Galad was chewing a mouthful of cheese when the screams reached them. Faint, at first. Distant. Carried on the still morning air. A woman's voice, cut short. Then a man shouting. 

Spitting out the last of the food, he turned to the mounts. Ben and Meck were already there. Behind them, Garlan and the young lords were scrambling to catch their reins and get into their saddles.

More voices came, some raised in violence and some in terror.

Galad ran toward his warhorse. He swung up onto the bay destrier's back, the great animal that had carried him through the woods around Dunstonbury for years, and drew Nightfall as he settled into the saddle.

"With me!" he called. "Ride!"

He kicked the horse forward through the trees. The party surged after him. They crashed through the last stretch of woods, no longer bothering with stealth. Branches whipped past. The horses snorted and blew. Then the trees thinned, and a clearing opened before them.

A small hamlet lay in a shallow valley below. Six or seven houses along a rutted track, with a well in the middle and a small stone sept at the eastern end. Two of the houses were already burning. Bodies lay in the yards. Bandits moved through the settlement with drawn weapons, dragging men and women out of their homes.

At the near end of the hamlet, two of the raiders were pulling a woman toward the tree line. She was fighting them, clawing at their arms, her cries rising sharp and terrified through the morning air.

Turning in his saddle, he quickly found Garlan in the party. “Stay with Willem,” he barked. Then he was off, and he didn’t slow down until he reached them.

He barely had to swing Nightfall as he rode past, simply extending the sword as it took the first raider across the throat. The bandit dropped like a puppet with cut strings, his blood black in the grey light. Wheeling the destrier around before the second could react, Galad brought Nightfall down in a back slice and split the man's skull from crown to teeth.

The woman collapsed to the ground, sobbing.

Galad reined in and looked down at her. "Run to the trees and hide. This will be over soon."

Still crying, the woman gave him a single, shaky look before she nodded and scrambled up to flee.

Down the length of the hamlet, chaos had erupted as Edmure's men fell upon the raiders. Ben was engaged with a big man in leather and mail, sword against sword, their blades clashing as they circled. Marq Piper had ridden down another bandit and was already dismounting to finish him. Ser Patrek Mallister was fighting two at once and holding his own. Garlan stood with Willem behind one of the houses. The older boy had the borrowed sword in hand, his eyes darting.

Galad's gaze moved past the immediate fighting.

At the far end of the hamlet, near the sept, a man stood watching.

He wore a tattered surcoat of blue and grey that had once carried a sigil. A house's colors, faded and slashed at some point in the past so that no crest could be identified. A dented steel helm covered his face. Chainmail beneath the surcoat. A longsword drawn and ready in his hand. He held himself like a soldier, not a bandit. His weight was balanced. His blade at guard. 

The leader of this party. It could be no one else.

Galad urged the destrier forward, but he was too far away, and before he could close half the ground, Lord Lymond Goodbrook was already reaching the sept.

"For Riverrun!" Lymond shouted.

The leader did not flinch. He waited until Lymond was almost upon him. Then he sidestepped the horse's charge, caught Lymond's sword arm at the wrist with one hand, and pulled the young man from his saddle in a single powerful motion. Lymond crashed to the ground. The leader's own blade came down before Lymond could regain his feet.

The point punched through Lymond Goodbrook's throat and out the other side.

"No!" Edmure screamed.

The young heir to Riverrun charged across the hamlet on foot, his sword raised, his face contorted with rage. He reached the leader in a rush, swinging wildly.

The man parried the first cut with contemptuous ease. He turned Edmure's second swing aside with a small twist of his blade, then stepped inside the young lord's guard and struck him hard across the face with the pommel of his sword. Edmure staggered, his nose broken and streaming blood. The leader raised his sword for a killing thrust.

Then Galad thundered past on his destrier, bringing Nightfall down in a diagonal cut meant to take his swordarm. 

The leader had the instincts of a survivor. He threw himself backward as the Valyrian steel came for him, tumbling into a roll that carried him clear of the sword’s arc. When he came up, he was three paces away and already resetting his guard, his eyes wild but his blade steady.

That would not do.

Pulling on the reins, his mount wheeled around and Galad swiftly swung down from the saddle. He walked toward the man with Nightfall low at his side. Fighting on foot was better for what needed to be done

Snarling, the leader did not wait and simply came at him. Their blades met in a ringing exchange. Once. Twice. A third time. The man was good, better than any bandit had a right to be, with proper footwork and a solid guard and the fluid movements of a man that had been formally trained. But Galad had ended better men than this by the dozens. 

He turned aside a downward chop and lunged forward quick as a cat. Nightfall struck at the leader’s side, punching through mail and flesh as if they were linen. The man gasped and staggered, and Galad let him have the space, following at his own pace. When the leader tried to reset his stance, Galad struck again with a precise thrust that punched through the mail at the shoulder. The sword-arm went limp. A third strike, low and clean, took the man behind the knee.

The leader dropped, choking in pain. 

His helm rolled loose in the dust as he fell onto his side, bleeding from the wound at his side and the shoulder and the leg. He was perhaps thirty years old, hard-faced and tanned, with a badly-healed scar running the length of one cheek.

He tried to raise his sword.

Galad kicked it from his hand.

The leader glared up at him, his breath coming in wet rasps.

"Who commands you?" Galad asked. "Where is your base?"

The man laughed. Or tried to. It came out as a wheeze.

"You’ll get nothin’ from me,” he spat. “Nothin’. The lord will kill you, you hear? The lord will find you, and he will kill you, and he will weep over your shallow grave. I die knowing it."

Galad crouched down beside him, though he stayed clear of the reaching hand.

"Who says you're to die here?"

The leader's eyes narrowed. Some of the hate slipped, replaced by something colder. Fear.

"What?"

Galad rose without answering him. He turned to Edmure, who had climbed to his knees behind him, one hand pressed to his broken nose, blood streaming through his fingers.

"I've only taken his arms and his legs, my lord,” he said, wiping Nightfall on the man’s cloak. “He can still talk." 

Edmure looked at him with wide eyes above the blood. He swallowed. His throat worked once, then again. Then he nodded slowly.

Below them, the leader began to curse.

xxx

Meg

The wind on the hilltop bit through her rags. Meg pressed her body tight against her sister's and tried to remember what warm felt like. Her da's kitchen. The straw pallet she and Sara shared. Ma's arms around them both when a bad storm rolled in off the river. All of it far away now, and none of it real anymore, just pictures in her head that hurt to look at too long.

The lean-to they huddled beneath was open at the front. Its worn canvas roof caught the wind and cracked and snapped above them like a whip. From where she lay, Meg could see the whole of the hilltop spread before her—the campfires burning bright orange in the dark, the men gathered around them drinking and shouting, and beyond them the pale white shapes she did not like to look at. 

Stumps, Sara had called them the first day. Weirwoods that had been cut down long ago. Forty of them arranged around the crown of the hill in a circle like fence posts around a farmyard. Meg thought they looked like teeth. Like the hill was the mouth of some old buried thing, and the men had made their camp on its tongue, and one day soon the mouth would close and swallow them all.

Sara said the stumps were just wood. Just dead wood. But Sara said a lot of things to make her feel better, and Meg wasn't sure how many of them Sara believed herself.

By the biggest of the campfires, the bad men were passing a jug back and forth and telling loud stories. Meg counted them without meaning to. It was a game she had started playing during their first days here, and now she could not stop. Twenty-three men tonight. Sometimes there were fewer. Sometimes more. She had counted forty once, when three parties had come back on the same night. The hilltop felt like a whole village then, with the pale stumps standing sentinel around it and the fires burning bright as candles at a name-day feast.

The men laughed at something one of them said. One of the others cursed and threw an empty cup at him. Their voices grated at her ears, familiar and hateful now. She had learned some of their names in the days she'd been up here, whether she wanted to or not. Tom. Big Pate. Rusty. 

Sara's arm tightened around her shoulders.

Meg looked up. Across the hilltop, a flap of canvas had drawn back at the entrance of the biggest tent. A man stepped out. Tall. Broad through the shoulders. His fair hair caught the firelight as he stood there, looking around, taking in his little kingdom of drunk men and shivering captives.

The Weeping Lord.

Meg started shaking before he had taken his first step toward them.

"Shhh," Sara whispered against her ear. "Shhh, Meggie. Shhh. Be brave. Be my brave little sister."

But Meg could not stop. Every time she saw him, she saw her d’ again. Da lying in the yard with his throat cut open and his eyes still surprised. Da who was the strongest man in the whole world, who had once picked up the millstone all by himself when it had rolled off the cart, who had chased off a bear one summer with nothing but a torch and a shout. Da who had fallen with hardly a fight when the Weeping Lord had come out of the trees with his sword drawn. And Ma. Ma who had run to Da and been struck down before she could even scream. And little Roric, her cousin, who had tried to hide under the wagon and been dragged out by his hair.

The Weeping Lord walked toward them across the packed earth of the hilltop.

His face was handsome. Meg hated that most of all. He looked like the knights in the songs Ma used to sing—strong jaw, sad eyes, the kind of face a bard would call noble. He walked like a knight too. Like his back was too proud to bend, even for hard weather.

He stopped in front of their lean-to and knelt down. In his arms he held a folded quilt.

"Here, my darlings," he said softly. His voice was gentle. It was always gentle when he spoke to them. That made it worse somehow. "For the cold. I saw the wind picking up and thought of you both out here."

Sara did not answer. Her body had gone tight and still against Meg's. But after a long moment, she reached out a shaking hand for the quilt.

The Weeping Lord's hand shot out and caught her by the wrist.

Sara gasped. Meg shrieked and grabbed at her sister's shoulders, trying to pull her back into the lean-to, but the Weeping Lord's grip was stronger than any grip had a right to be. He drew Sara forward until she was half out of the shelter, her thin nightdress rucked up around her knees, her hair falling loose around her face.

"Let me look at you, sweetling," the Weeping Lord murmured.

He lifted his free hand and cupped Sara's cheek. His fingers moved gently over her skin. He turned her face this way and that in the firelight, studying her. Sara had gone rigid as stone. Meg saw her sister's lower lip trembling but Sara did not make a sound.

"So beautiful," the Weeping Lord said. His voice had gone even softer. Almost dreamy. "Like an angel, aren't you? An angel the gods sent me as restitution. My little angel."

Tears began to trickle down his cheeks then. He did not seem to notice them.

Meg wanted to bite him. Wanted to scream at him that he had killed her da and her ma and Roric and uncle Wen and the boys who worked the fields, and that he did not get to cry over Sara like he loved her. That he did not get to touch her face with those hands. That she and Sara were not his angels or his darlings or his sweetlings or anything of his at all.

But she could not move. Could not speak. Could only cling to Sara's back and cry into the rough weave of her dress.

The Weeping Lord's tear-streaked face turned toward her.

"And you," he whispered. "My little one. Come here. Come to me."

Meg scrambled backward on her elbows and knees, deeper into the shadows of the lean-to. Her back struck the canvas wall and she pressed herself flat against it, shaking her head, unable to make any sound come out.

The Weeping Lord shook his head slowly. Sadly. Almost like a father disappointed in a child.

"You have nothing to fear from me, sweetling. I would never hurt my youngest. Never. Now come to me. Come."

She shook her head again.

His voice cracked out like a cane. "Come!"

Meg jumped so hard she bit her own tongue. Tears filled her eyes fresh. She began to crawl forward, trembling, her hands and knees scraping against the packed dirt. She did not know what he would do to her when she reached him. She did not want to find out. But she could not stop her body from obeying him. He had that kind of voice.

Then, from the other side of the hilltop, a commotion broke out.

Shouts. A woman screaming. The clatter of hooves.

The Weeping Lord's head snapped up. His fingers tightened on Sara's wrist for a moment. Then he made a low sound of annoyance and let her go, shoving her roughly back into the lean-to. Sara collapsed against Meg and they both went down in a tangle. The quilt fell forgotten in the dirt.

"Later," the Weeping Lord said. He was already rising. "Later, my darlings. Sleep well."

He strode away toward the fires. His voice rose as he called out to his men. Meg heard him asking questions, giving orders, sounding like a proper lord now instead of the soft-voiced monster who had just been kneeling beside them.

Meg threw her arms around her sister and squeezed as hard as she could.

Sara was breathing fast. Her whole body was shaking. But she still lifted her hand to stroke Meg's hair.

"Shhh, Meggie. Shhh. I'm here. I'm here."

"I don't want him to touch you," Meg whispered fiercely into Sara's chest. "I don't want him to touch you ever again. I hate him. I hate him."

"I know, sweetling. I know."

Sara had cried yesterday when she thought Meg was asleep. She had cried the day before, too. Meg had heard her both times, muffling the sounds in her hands. But Sara never cried when Meg was awake. She always kept her face brave then, always kept her voice steady. Meg loved her sister more than she had words to say for it.

"Sara." Her voice trembled. "Sara, I don't want to end up like the other girls."

The other girls. The ones they brought in every other night. The ones whose screams sometimes drifted up from further down the hillside in the small hours of the night. The ones who did not last more than a day or two before there were no more of them left.

Sara stroked her hair.

"He likes us too much, Meggie. Both of us. He won't do that with us. And remember what the ghost said. Remember what she promised."

The ghost.

That first night on the hilltop, Sara had woken Meg with whispered words of a woman who had come to their lean-to with red eyes and white hair, and asked Sara to sing her a song. In exchange for the song, the ghost had told Sara their future. A future where they survived. A future where the woods would come to save them.

Meg did not believe in ghosts. She wanted to. She wanted to more than almost anything. But she had watched her da die at the Weeping Lord's hand, and her da had been the strongest man in the world, and if he could not save her, then no one could. Not ghosts. Not woods. Not knights from songs.

"The woods can't save us," she whispered. "They're just trees, Sara. Just trees."

"They can, Meggie. I saw her. I heard her. She was real."

"You dreamed her."

"I didn't."

The scream from the other side of the hilltop cut through their conversation. Meg's head jerked up. Sara's arms went around her tighter.

By the biggest fire, a knot of men had gathered around something small and struggling. A young woman. Older than Sara by a year or two, perhaps. Her clothes were torn and her hair hung loose about her face. One of the bandits, Meg thought his name was Osric, one of the ones who had been gone for over a week, held her by the arm and was showing her to the Weeping Lord.

The Weeping Lord stepped forward. He reached up and took the young woman's face in both his hands, turning her one way and then the other in the firelight. His touch looked almost gentle. Almost loving. The way he had touched Sara.

Then his face changed.

He said something. Meg was too far away to hear it. But she saw the sneer curl at his lips. She saw him step back and let the young woman go. She saw him wave one hand at his men as if giving them a gift.

The young woman had a moment to look confused. Then a moment to look afraid.

Then the men were on her.

Her scream echoed across the hilltop.

Sara's hand caught Meg's chin and turned her face away, firm but gentle. She pulled Meg tight against her chest so that Meg's ear was pressed against her sister's heartbeat, and her other hand came up to cover Meg's free ear.

Sara began to sing.

Her voice was thin and shaking. But she sang anyway. Sang loud enough that Meg could hear it above the terrible sounds from the other side of the hilltop. It was the old song. The song Ma used to sing when the storms came. The song about a mad girl who danced with ghosts in a fallen hall.

High in the halls of the kings who are gone Jenny would dance with her ghosts...

Meg closed her eyes. She pressed her face into her sister's chest. She listened to Sara's heartbeat and Sara's voice, and she tried not to hear anything else.

The ones she had lost and the ones she had found And the ones who had loved her the most...

Outside, the wind picked up. It rushed through the dead stumps at the crown of the hill and made a sound that was almost like breathing.