“I Do Not Think You Understand That I Am Your Body Guard,” said Windstopper. “Bad Things Happen When I Am Not With You.”

  “I know, Windstopper, but we need to be quiet for this, and, well…”

  Windstopper continued breathing heavily as he waited for me to finish my sentence.

  “Well,” said River for me, “we need someone to watch over Brass Bell. She’s one of our companions now and we can’t just leave her without a Body Guard, I mean bodyguard. Do you think you could watch over her for us?”

  Windstopped shuffled, the boards creaking beneath his immense weight.

  “I promise to look after Sparrow while we’re gone,” River finished.

  “Oh. Kay. But Do Not Let Anything Bad Happen. Bad Things Always…”

  We left Windstopper grumbling to himself as we slid out the back window facing the precipitous bank. There was no guard posted – that would have been too obvious – but if Uncle had betrayed my father, and was planning to turn me and my companions in to Dreadwolf’s men or to some local bandit chieftain, there was no doubt that someone would at least be watching our door from a distance.

  In any case the back window was safest.

  We clung to the steep banks that led down to the creek, dark water coursing a few dozen spans below us after what looked like a long painful tumble.

  We were within the hereditary lands of my father, the Imperial province known as the Plains of the Falcon, but our detour had taken us out of the flatlands for which the region received its name and into the foothills that became the Bronzesong Hills a few more li north. The Bronzesong Hills were the second of three great lands officially under my father’s protection but far more rugged.

  As such, smaller tributaries of larger rivers like these were common in the hills, and though the one below us seemed small now, deep into autumn, in later winter and spring this river might be a raging rapid.

  We managed not to slip down the bank as we made our way along the southern boundary of the complex, and despite the steep terrain on this side of the manor, we approached the kitchen fairly silently.

  A window had been left open to let the heat of cooking dissipate. Though we didn’t dare peek over to identify the speakers, we could hear their voices clearly enough.

  “Now?” Someone was saying, a young male voice, thick with an accent I didn’t recognize. It must have been a “son-in-law.”

  “Yes, yes. And be quick and quiet about it. If you wake them it will get messy.” That must have been Uncle’s wife. I didn’t doubt that he could find a wife among bandits, someone to help him keep the others in line. There was no way anyone would have waited for Uncle to return home all those years he had been serving my father. And there was no way he wouldn’t have mentioned her in those five years we were on campaign together. It's not like he and I were very close, but…

  “What is that?”

  “Um,” said the son-in-law, “a knife.”

  River and I exchanged glances in the darkness.

  “Barely,” said the wife. “Get someone to help sharpen it for you. Otherwise they won’t die quickly and then they’ll start squealing and… Fenn! Come sharpen this knife for your idiot brother.”

  “Maybe we should gag them first,” the idiot brother chuckled. “Ow!”

  River’s eyes had gone wide but still she listened intently.

  “Any more nonsense like that and I’ll gag you! A sharp knife while they’re sleeping, a quick clean cut from ear to ear, and then the business is done with. Better yet, take Fenn and do two at a time. Less chance of trouble that way. Start with the biggest one, and maybe the other male. If I hear a single peep, I’ll…”

  I tapped River on the arm and we slunk back down the riverbank a ways.

  "I swear I'll kill him for this," I hissed, then turned to River. “Convinced?”

  “Sparrow, I don’t…” She froze.

  I cocked my head in the direction she was looking. “They’re moving. We have to follow them.”

  She nodded and fell in behind me, our footfalls soft in our trapper’s boots and the natural camouflage of our furs blending in with the half light of the complex’s torches.

  We saw two young men slink out of the kitchen and close the door as gently as they could. It was not lost on me that they were the two most dangerous-looking of the bunch. One started walking but the other grabbed him by the arm, gave him a silent, significant look, and then led the way, padding quietly like a hunter… or an assassin. The other followed and I saw the glimmer of steel in each of their hands, knives freshly honed. They made their way quietly across the courtyard in the direction of our own quarters. River and I followed, silent as moonlight.

  “We can’t let them…” I started. But River clutched at my arm, eyes wide on the men we were following.

  One had straightened up and stiffened. He had heard me! He turned to scan the darkness and it was too late now. In a flash my sword was out and I broke from the cover of darkness. The first knife came around and in one smooth motion I took off the hand that wielded it then rammed my sword through the middle of a torso. The second man was too terrified to even brandish his weapon, and his face contorted in the beginning of a scream.

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  His head flipped end over end as my blade passed cleanly through his neck in a countercut.

  By heaven! It had been so easy. I had killed before, of course, but they had always been rebels or bandits, monsters or at least men armored and armed with more than just… kitchen knives. These men had barely def-

  An arrow fell at my feet.

  I looked up to see a young man, barely more than a boy really, with his bow still vibrating in his hands as he stood on a small parapet atop the wall.

  He reached for another arrow in his quiver but fumbled it as I re-gripped my sword and took my first step towards him. He decided to drop the bow entirely and began furiously beating the gong beside him.

  “Attack!” the boy cried, “Attack! Attack!”

  River grabbed me by the arm. “We need to run. Now!”

  I cocked my head and could hear the sound of battle cries coming from outside the walls, which only confused me more. What was happening? Had there been more outside the walls ready to rush in and help if the assassins failed?

  “Sparrow!” River tugged at my arm and I reluctantly fell into step with her, leaving the two bodies and rushing to where Windstopper and Bell were hunkered down in our rooms. Windstopper almost took my head off with his halberds as I crashed through the door, before recognizing me.

  “There Is Blood On You.” said Windstopper.

  I looked down but otherwise ignored the comment. “How is Bell?”

  “I can move,” came the answer from the bed as she rose shakily.

  “Still feel the warning?” asked River.

  “Yes,” Brass Bell groaned. “The gong?”

  “There’s more than we thought,” I said hurriedly, “We need to get out of here.”

  “Where?” asked Bell.

  “To the creek,” said River. “We can hide in the brush. Hurry.”

  Windstopper went out first then helped Brass Bell through. By the time I was shoving River in front of me, there was a pounding on the door. I had barred it but that wouldn’t hold them for long. I leapt through the window after my companions.

  And my face met a cudgel.

  ***

  My hands sunk deep into mud as I tried to push myself up from the ground, only to realize that I was halfway underwater.

  I shook myself trying to get my bearings as my head throbbed.

  A creek. I was a few span into a shallow creek, the manor and the room we had just occupied far above me atop the steep bank.

  A dozen men circled Windstopper, prodding him with spears like a cornered bear and keeping out of reach of his swinging halberds. It seemed they had learned about the man’s strength the hard way, as four bodies lay at his feet, beginning to slide and spin tranquilly with the creek’s current.

  A pair of men pinned Brass Bell to the ground. In her weakened state, only one of her daggers had made it out of the sheathe before she had been overwhelmed. I pushed myself up from the river’s edge, stones turning underneath me.

  River?

  The world spun drunkenly as I turned my throbbing head, scanning the riverbank and the steep wooded hill.

  “River!”

  A burly man I had never seen before was dragging her by the hair deeper into the woods. Into the woods? Why not the-

  Another bear of a man stepped in front of me, blocking my vision of her.

  “Now why do you look familiar?” said the stranger. There was a dark glee in his voice.

  I reached for my sword, but found it wasn’t there.

  A mace swung for me, and on instinct, I dove forward, not back. I had ahold of the man’s weapon-arm and was trying to wrestle him to the ground. Only there was no ground here; there was only deeper creek and slick riverstones turning underfoot and we fell into the cold, dark waters together.

  The air was forced from my lungs and then a fist met my face. My vision swam and threatened to turn dark again, but I fought it back with all I had, my head screaming, my lungs screaming, River screaming.

  I pulled myself from the current long enough to see her, still held by the hair as a man forced her to her knees and put a blade to her neck.

  Her eyes rolled back.

  I managed only a single, stumbling step toward her before a vice gripped my furs from behind and dragged me backwards. Then the world flipped and went cold again. The weight on top of me was unbearable and I choked. I called out for River and choked again. Why couldn’t I get any air? And why was my vision dark and rippling?

  Ah. I was drowning. I was drowning and though my hands clutched at air above the surface, long, hard arms pinned my face and neck to the creek-bottom. My feet scrambled on slick stones and could not gain any purchase. My hips bucked and thrashed but every movement only made my lungs scream for more air and I felt the world slipping away faster and faster. Darkness swam before me.

  This was it. The darkness would take me one last time and River would be…

  Wait… No.

  A dark shape actually moved past my face from deeper, darker water. It moved upstream faster than I thought possible. And suddenly, there was a muted cry from just above the surface. The arms gripping me grew slack but the weight settled atop me. I fought with renewed fury to get free, and the form that had been drowning me no longer fought back.

  I pushed it to the side and took my first, burning breath of air. I choked, I gagged, I vomited, and I clawed up the riverbank to witness this new scene of horror.

  Shadows flitted all around the riverbank, skimming the water, seething over rock and through brush without so much as disturbing a single leaf or leaving a single ripple.

  Everywhere they went, men choked and died, their eyes turning milky, their veins turning black, water pouring from their throats as if they had been dredged up from the deepest, darkest waters. Many of them were far away from the creek, seemingly drowning on their feet.

  As I clawed higher up on the riverbank, the accursed man beside me clawed bloody rivulets in his own throat as he too drowned, mere feet from the water’s edge.

  I recoiled in horror and continued moving.

  I stumbled, scrambled, fell further into the wood until I stood beside River. She still knelt beside the bloated corpse of her capture, who had met the same grotesque and unexplainable fate as the others: drowning on dry land.

  I fell to River’s side and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her, shouting her name again and again. Her eyes were rolled back, her every muscle tense with contortions.

  “Windstopper! Windstopper, help!”

  I cast around for my bodyguard though I wasn’t sure what he could do for her.

  “Bell! Someone please!”

  Both of my companions appeared at my side at the same moment, but by then it was already over.

  River collapsed into my arms, as a sudden rush of cold air, like the indrawn breath of Heaven nearly pulled all of us – all except Windstopper – from our feet. In the wake of that collapsing vacuum, dark inhuman shapes flooded around us as if they were being sucked back into the dark depths of the water.

  In their wake, only death and darkness remained.