PD.2.13 (Patreon)

Ouz stayed in the tree until the watch changed.

He had spent enough time above the camp to learn its pulse. Men moved in loose patterns, never fully careless, never sharp enough to deserve the weapons near their hands. A few circled the fires. A few carried wood or sacks. One limped between the stone entrance and a stack of crates with a pot balanced against his hip. Another fed scraps to the horses. Most gathered in small knots, shoulders turned toward heat and talk. Faces glowed orange where the fire touched them. Beyond that glow, the world had narrowed for them. For Ouz, the dark stayed open.

He watched one pair of sentries leave their posts and another pair take their place. The change happened with muttered complaints, stiff legs, a spit into the snow, one torch lifted and lowered once. No alarm. No one counted heads. No one checked the tree line with care. The men walking off shift already looked half asleep. Ouz waited a little longer.

The camp sat in a rough half circle before the old structure. One sentry held the far left edge. The other stood on the right. Neither watched the other. Their lines of sight spread outward toward the woods and left a dead space behind them, a place where a man who understood angles could pass between one glance and the next.

When the new watch settled, Ouz climbed down. He moved from trunk to trunk, slow where he had to be slow, quick where shadow gave him room. The bow stayed low in his hand. His weight rolled through the outside edges of his feet before it settled. Snow gave a faint crunch beneath him. The left sentry shifted at the sound, stared into the dark brush, saw nothing, and looked back toward the camp.

Ouz dropped to one knee. The man’s head stood clear against the dim spill of firelight. Neck. Jaw. Ear. Ouz breathed out and loosed.

The arrow struck high, drove in behind the jaw, and sank almost to the fletching. The sentry made a short wet sound and folded where he stood. Ouz crossed the distance at once, caught him before he hit the ground hard, and dragged him into the trees by the belt and collar. He worked fast in the dark. A few copper pieces. A narrow knife in the boot. Nothing else worth the weight.

He left the body in a hollow between roots, stripped the arrow free, wiped the shaft on the dead man’s coat, and moved again.

The right sentry lasted no longer. This one had an axe at his belt and a thicker purse. He died with his mouth open, hands barely lifted, halfway into a turn he never finished. Ouz pulled him back through brush and shadow, searched him, took the coins, found a pair of throwing knives tucked across the lower back, and paused over the axe. Small. One-handed. Enough weight in the head to bite deep if it landed true. He slipped it through his belt.

By the time he returned to the camp edge, the dark had swallowed both missing guards. No shout came. No one had noticed.

Ouz studied the rows of tents from the outside first. The fires stood closer to the center where most of the camp had gathered. The far edge lay in thicker dark. Starting there, he circled wide, came in behind the last tent, and crouched with one hand on the canvas. Voices drifted from the camp’s heart. Laughter. A cough. Wood shifting in fire. No sound from inside the tent.

He drew his knife and opened a slit across the back, low enough for him to crawl through on his belly if he had to. Warm stale air breathed out. He listened once. Still nothing. He widened the cut with care and slipped through. Blankets. Packs. One overturned cup. No sleeper. Empty. He went out the same way and crossed to the next.

This one held two men. One snored through his nose in short bursts. The other lay on his side with one arm under his head and a hand near a sheathed knife. Ouz watched them for three breaths, marked the first threat, and moved.

He moved to the man with the knife first, caught the wrist before it could rise, and drove the blade deep under the jaw before the sleeper’s eyes fully opened. A twitch. A thin rattle. Done. Ouz shifted at once to the snoring man, covered his mouth, and cut his throat. Hot blood spilled over his hand and wrist. The body jerked once, heels scraping against the blanket, then fell still.

He wiped the blade on a rolled cloak and searched the tent. A handful of coins. A bone token carved with a mark he did not know. Dried meat. He tore off a strip and pushed it between his teeth. He left through the slit in back and kept moving.

The third tent smelled of sour wine and damp wool. One woman slept inside with a short club beside her bedroll. Her hands were thick, her boots mud-caked, her clothes rough. Camp support, most likely. Carrying, cooking, cleaning, maybe worse when ordered. Ouz still cut her throat. He had not come this far to sort which hands had held a weapon yesterday and which might hold one tomorrow.

The fourth tent was empty.

The fifth held a boy young enough to make Ouz stop for half a breath. Sixteen, maybe. Seventeen. Hard to tell in the dark. A light beard. Thin wrists. A split knuckle. Not a child. Not safe either. The boy had a knife under his pillow and another tucked inside his sleeve. Ouz killed him too.

When he stepped back outside, the camp made more sense than before. This was no pure fighting force. Too many sizes of bedroll. Too many spare hands. Too much clutter near the stacked crates. Some carried loads. Some cooked. Some guarded. Some served whatever lived inside the old stone place behind them. That only made the whole thing worse.

He moved on and found the horse lines near the edge of the clearing. Ouz stayed back first and counted shapes before he came closer. One, two, three... nine horses. Maybe ten. Hard to tell with the way one stood behind another. Enough for fast movement. Enough to scatter if fear took them. Enough to turn a camp inside out if driven in the right direction.

He was still counting when a man broke away from the firelight and wandered toward the horse lines with one hand already at his belt. Ouz sank low and froze.

The man stopped near a post, muttered to himself, and started pissing into the dark. Steam rose pale for a moment in the cold air. His back was turned. His head hung heavy with drink or sleep.

Ouz slid along the edge of the tethered horses, one hand out, palm open, letting the nearest mare catch his scent before he touched her neck. The horse shifted and breathed hard through its nose. Another tossed its head and bumped the one beside it. Ouz waited a breath with his hand low and still, then touched the mare’s neck when the tension eased.

Behind him, from the center of camp, someone shouted. A sharp voice. Another answered at once. More voices piled over it.

“What do you mean he’s dead?”

“Here. Here, damn you.”

“Wake the others.”

The man by the post jerked in place, still half turned, still fumbling with his clothes. “What the hell?”

Ouz was on him before the last word died. His left hand clamped over the mouth. The knife opened the throat in one clean pull. The man bucked once and sagged. Ouz lowered him into the dirt and dragged him away from the horses while the first alarm spread through camp. Hooves stamped. One horse tossed its head. Ouz stroked the mare’s neck again, slow, steady, until the nearest animals stopped blowing fear into the air.

In the center of camp, the noise grew. More shouts now. One name called twice. Another called once, louder. Someone had found a body. Maybe one from the tents. Maybe the missing sentries had finally become a question in someone’s mind. Ouz measured the clearing in his head.

Two sentries dead. One man at the horse lines. Four sleepers. Seven gone. He had not cut deep enough into the camp before they realized men were missing. Too many remained.

He could leave now. Fade into the woods. Return at dawn from farther out. No. Dawn gave them too much choice. They could break camp before sunrise. They could move the horses, clear the tents, vanish into some other hole in the earth, link up with another group, double the problem. He could track them for a while, maybe. He could also lose them once and lose Lubau with them. If Lubau slipped free, he could rebuild the Iron Lotus with fresh men, and everything Ouz had done to keep Dafu’s house out of that shadow would mean nothing.

So be it. The clean version was gone. He would kill what he could and keep the rest off balance.

He turned and climbed. The nearest tree gave him a view over the center once he reached the second thick branch, and the trunk kept most of him hidden. He pressed close to the trunk and looked down.

Men gathered in a knot near the middle fire. One held a torch over the body they had found. Another pointed toward the outer tents. A third had a shield strapped on in a hurry, leather hanging loose at one buckle. Faces moved in and out of the orange light. He counted. Sixteen. No. Eighteen if he included the two near the crates.

Still too many to rush head-on. Ouz slipped down the far side, landed soft, and circled toward the front of the camp where the clearing opened widest before the dark stone steps. He moved through brush until he found a strip of shadow with a clear lane toward the men at the fire. There he crouched and checked his quiver. Seven arrows left. He watched the men by the fire.

They watched the firelit center of camp. Beyond that glow, the dark stayed harder for them to read. Shapes would break late. Motion would register later. Ouz had stayed in the dark long enough for his eyes to keep the advantage.

He set one knee to the ground, raised the bow on a steep angle, and chose the first throat. Loose. The arrow rose from shadow and dropped into a man at the edge of the firelight. He fell backward with both hands at his neck. Before the others understood where to look, Ouz had already shifted four steps left.

Second arrow. A man near the torch took it through the eye and spun sideways into another. Ouz moved again.

“There,” one man shouted.

“No, there,” another shouted back.

Third arrow. A shield-bearer caught it under the arm where the raised shield left a gap.

Fourth. Another shield man, this one through the mouth before he could crouch.

The camp started to spread, some ducking, some staring into the woods, some backing toward the stone structure. Ouz changed position after every shot, never far, just enough to stop them from marking where he was.

Fifth arrow. A broad man at the rear dropped with the shaft buried in his chest.

Sixth. A runner who had turned to grab a spear pitched forward face first.

Seven men had stood near the middle fire at the start of it. Now six arrows lay in six bodies. Ouz drew the last shaft, found another shape through smoke and moving shoulders, and loosed.

Steel flashed. The arrow split away with a crack and vanished into the dirt.

A man stood near the rear of the cluster with a sword already half raised. Thin beneath a heavy cloak. Hood thrown back now. Narrow face. Sharp chin. Calm eyes. Too calm. Firelight painted one side of his cheek and left the other in dark. Lubau. He had to be. Even from this distance Ouz could feel the difference in him. The others flinched and cursed and searched. This one watched.

The men tightened. A few dragged the dead inward. A few raised shields toward the woods. One started shouting into the darkness, voice high with fear forced into anger.

“Come out.”

“You know who you’re dealing with?”

“Show yourself.”

Ouz let them shout.

He pulled back with the bow low and looked once toward the horse lines. That would work.

He circled wide again, keeping brush and darkness between himself and the camp, until he reached the tether posts. The horses smelled the blood on him this time. One sidestepped and snorted. Ouz caught the lead rope close to the post and cut it. The second rope followed. The third. He moved through them in order, keeping one hand on warm necks, guiding heads, turning bodies until the loose horses faced the camp. One sidestepped and knocked into another, but the line held.

Voices kept coming from the camp’s center.

“Spread out.”

“No farther than the crates.”

“Stay together, you fools.”

“Shields up.”

Ouz waited through the last shout, listening for more distance in their feet and hearing none. He cut the last rope, took hold of the nearest rein, and walked the front pair two steps forward. Another horse bumped behind them. Ouz slipped around to the rear of the cluster and struck one hard across the haunch. The horse flinched, bunched, and broke forward into the others.

The first horse broke into a panicked run. The others followed, bodies crashing shoulder to shoulder, hooves tearing through slush as panic ran through the herd. They thundered toward the camp’s center and men. Ouz was already running the other way.

He cut back toward the angle from which he had fired the arrows, coming in from the dark edge behind the fireline. He dropped the bow. His hand found the throwing knives at his belt, the stolen pair at his back, the short sword at his side, the axe hanging low near his hip. By the time the horses hit the camp, he had his angle. Smoke and breaking bodies kept his approach from settling cleanly in anyone’s eyes. The impact ripped the order out of the clearing.

Men shouted. One torch spun away. A shield went down under a horse’s shoulder. Someone screamed under hooves. The whole knot broke apart in three directions at once. Some tried to catch reins. Some stumbled clear. Some turned toward the woods again, sure the killer would use the stampede as cover, unsure from which side. Ouz did. He burst from the dark.

The first knife left his hand before the nearest man even registered him. It struck the side of a shield-bearer’s neck above the rim. The man dropped the shield and collapsed into another.

Second knife. A second shield carrier took it under the chin.

Third. A spearman turned too late and caught the blade high in the chest.

Fourth. One of the men trying to form around Lubau jerked as steel buried in his throat.

Ouz’s hand closed over the axe. He let it fly. The small axe spun once through firelit air and hit a man at the edge of the clearing in the temple. Bone cracked. The body fell sideways into the dirt.

By the time Ouz reached the camp, the short sword was out. The stampeding horses had already torn through and scattered toward the dark beyond the fires. One lay shrieking near an overturned crate. Another dragged a length of rope through the dirt. Men coughed in smoke. One clutched a broken arm. Another crawled. The dead and wounded lay across the clearing in uneven shapes.

Ouz slowed and counted. One with a shield still standing. Two with spears. A thick man with a club. One man reaching for a dropped bow. One more dragging a wounded leg. And Lubau. Six still in the fight.

They faced him in a ragged line, all of them breathing hard, glancing from Ouz to the bodies scattered across the camp, to the dark around them, still trying to fit one figure into what had just happened. Ouz stood with the short sword low by his thigh. Blood darkened one sleeve. His breath came steady. Firelight touched one side of his face and left the rest in shadow. Across from him, the survivors kept looking left and right, still expecting more men to step out of the trees. There were no more men.

Only Ouz.

And for the first time that night, they understood they had been losing to one set of hands.

Lubau’s eyes stayed on him. No panic. No confusion. Only a thin shift at the mouth that might have been anger, might have been interest.

Around them, the fires snapped. A horse screamed again somewhere in the dark. One of the wounded men near the center tried to crawl and failed. Eyes kept shifting from the tree line to the shadows between the tents, then back to one another. No one else moved. The clearing held its breath. Ouz tightened his grip on the sword.

Six left.