A/N
It's been a year or so that I last wrote in Beric's POV, I really enjoyed writing in his POV and couldn't miss the chance to do so again, hope you all enjoy it!
Chapter 785: Beric - Loyalty Of An Old Soldier
The red sun sat fat and low on the horizon, but Beric didn’t care how beautiful others found the light that painted the horizon, all he cared about was his task, which was why his eyes kept moving the entire time searching for any signs of an ambush.
Their situation was grim, he knew this, and worse, their enemies knew this.
The harsh but honest truth was that House Velaris was on a slow decline.
The only way Lady Laelyn could travel with some degree of safety was if they had decoy caravans scattered throughout the land, however, a plan like that took up a lot of resources, resources that the House couldn’t afford.
So, all the main caravan was left with was nothing any noble family would find impressive.
Three mounted guards, two on foot, one enclosed wagon with a canvas roof that would stop maybe one Rank 1 attack before being blown apart.
The guise of being a merchant caravan was the great plan the House had decided to go with, against Beric’s wishes, to protect the one who carried in her blood a resonance with the Blue Sun that made her the most valuable person in this entire stretch of countryside.
And it was now Beric's responsibility to deliver her to the Blue Sun Academy alive.
That was no small task as there was a long list of people who wanted her dead.
The first on that list were the families of the rival candidates for the position of Saint.
House Velaris would do anything to have their son chosen. A quiet accident on the road would be right up their alleyway. As for House Leminov, while they did have a better reputation than House Velaris, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t jump at the chance to get rid of a competitor, especially if they could do it in a way that kept their hands clea.
Then there were members of the conservative faction within the Order itself who had never forgiven her grandmother for studying forbidden lore, and who would much rather the Vareyn lineage ceased to exist than have another of its female descendants placed beside the Cerulean Spire.
Not to mention the freelance assassins, who worked for whomever paid them, and these were the types that kept Beric awake at night since they blended seamlessly into a crowd, they could appear as an ordinary traveler on an ordinary road and the next thing Beric knew, his lady had a dagger through her chest.
And that wasn’t even the entirety of the list, there were probably more hidden enemies that House Vaeryn had no idea of, so whatever happened, Beric couldn’t let his guard down, not after having failed the last Vareyn woman under his care.
It was well known that Lady Laelyn's grandmother had died under suspicious circumstances.
The official account had satisfied the court, but Beric had read the physician's notes and had spoken with the two servants who had found her, then he had spent a long time afterward understanding that he had failed to see what was coming for the woman who had taught him more about honest service than anyone else he had known.
This was why there was no way that he was going to fail her granddaughter.
That was a promise that he had made at a grave marker in the Vareyn family grounds while being pummelled by heavy rain, it was the most dramatic gesture he had ever allowed himself, but some promises needed to be made out loud even when there was no one to hear them.
His thoughts were interrupted as the road changed, it curved slightly north ahead, and the tree line on the left pressed closer to the verge than he liked. Beric was already adjusting his position on horseback and thinking about whether to send one of the foot guards ahead to check the undergrowth when he saw something.
A single figure, on foot, moving along the road in the same direction they were traveling.
His eyes narrowed in suspicion.
He didn’t know why, but something felt wrong.
As they drew closer, he got a better look at the figure, it was a boy that was too young for a seasoned operative, but not too young to be used as a distraction.
A frightened-looking teen on a road would make people relax just long enough to give the archers in that tree line the distraction they needed to send an arrow through a throat, and even though he couldn’t sense any archers, it didn’t mean they weren’t there.
Beric closed his fist to signal the caravan to slow while he nudged his own mount forward alone.
"You there," he said, stopping a safe distance from the stranger. "State your name and business on this road."
"My name is Tomas," the boy replied, his voice had a tremor in it and both his arms were raised to show that he meant no harm. "I'm from Porvale Village to the south. Ra-raiders attacked at dawn… I b-barely escaped."
"Porvale, you say?" Beric kept his eyes moving around the tree line still looking for any signs of an ambush. "That's more than half a day's travel by horse." He let his hand rest on the pommel to show the kid that he meant business. "You made good time for someone on foot."
"I…I've been running for my life since sunrise," the boy said. "Through the forest mostly, I didn't want to risk the roads until I had to."
As much as Beric hated to admit it, what the boy said made sense. Porvale was far, but fear was a remarkable thing for the legs, and as a soldier, he knew that more than most. He heard the wagon door open behind him and he did not need to look to know what was happening.
"My lady," he said, without turning. "Please return to the interior, I have not yet determined this is safe."
"I heard a boy mention raiders," Laelyn said, her footsteps already on the road surface. "I want to hear this for myself."
Beric let out a slow breath through his nose and did not argue, because years of service had taught him which battles were winnable, and this had never been one of them. So, he shifted his horse half a step instead, placing his body on a line between her and the boy, which was the only protection she was willing to accept.
"You've come a long way," she said to the boy. "These raids you mentioned, did you happen to see which band it was? Any markings you might have noticed?"
"The Seventh Band came through the south wall," the boy replied, his eyebrows scrunched as he tried to remember the details. "The main force came through the east gate. Some had the red tattoos, and when the red sun reached its peak, a few…a few started to change."
At that, Beric saw one of the walking guards draw a warding gesture.
Laelyn's hand went to the pendant at her throat. "Sun-touched," she said quietly, and there was a tremor in the word as she looked at Beric for a moment, then back at the boy. "Was there... was there a Skybound as well?"
"I didn't see a Skybound," the boy said. "What I saw was a wolf appear out of nothing and attack the raiders. I didn't stay to watch what happened after that. I…I ran."
He said the last part with his eyes going to the ground, guilt and shame clear on his face.
"Please don't think that way,” Lady Laelyn said. “No one could stand against such forces. You did what anyone would, what anyone should, do to survive."
The boy looked up at her. "Is the wolf a Skybound?"
As Lady Laelyn answered the boy, Beric’s eyes narrowed as he thought about what this meant.
A wolf appearing out of nowhere to fight off the raiders couldn’t be a simple spiritual beast.
That was a creation of a Lightweaver, and not a junior one, possibly Rank 3 or 4.
The problem was that he had no idea whose side the Lightweaver was on.
If it belonged to a rival house, there was a reasonable chance it had been sent south to find out where Laelyn Vareyn's caravan was and make it seem like she was involved in some accident. If it belonged to an ally, it changed everything. An allied Lightweaver of that capability on this road was an escort worth more than a hundred guards.
"My lady, we need to move," Beric decided. "Staying on an open road when there is a Lightweaver somewhere in the area and we do not know their allegiance is not something I am willing to do for longer than necessary."
The boy's brow creased. "But aren't Lightweavers priests? I thought they were…"
Beric was already turning his horse and moving back toward the head of the column. He had a great deal of patience for a great many things, but explaining the complexity of Order politics to a village boy while a potentially hostile Lightweaver was somewhere nearby was not going to happen.
Behind him, he heard Laelyn talking to the boy in a lower voice, and then the boy mentioning that he was too ashamed to return to his village, and then Laelyn's response, which he already knew what it would be before she said it.
"You're welcome to ride with us," she said.
Beric stopped his horse.
"My lady," he said, "I would like to formally register an objection."
"Registered," she said, and she was already gesturing toward the wagon.
Beric wanted to argue but seeing her resolve, he surrendered with a sigh.
"Your caravan, your rules, Lady Laelyn."
Then he looked at the boy.
"Sit by the crates," he said. "Don't touch anything that isn't yours."
He didn’t wait for the boy to get comfortable, he raised his hand and the wagon began to move.
As they continued on their way, Beric kept his eyes on the tree line and his hand where he could reach the pommel quickly, but his thoughts were on the boy in the wagon.
Beric had seen that look on the boy’s face when Lady Laelyn had defended him, it was a look he had seen before on various young men of various backgrounds, and it had never once been useful to anyone.
It did, however, push the probability that the boy was an assassin somewhat lower than it had been because a man sent to kill wouldn’t be able to fake that expression, no matter how talented their acting skills were.
Beric didn’t know if the village boy was simply a peasant with a crush on a noble woman he had no business looking at, or whether he was something more complicated than that, but that didn’t matter.
Regardless, he would keep a close eye on the boy.
Even though Lady Laelyn's generosity was one of the things Beric valued most about her, it was one of the things that kept him awake at night because the same instinct that made her stop for an exhausted boy on a road was the instinct that her enemies would take advantage of.
He was not going to fail another Vareyn woman.
He had made that promise over a grave years ago, and he would rather die than break it.