Andraescav had beheaded a dismounted cavalryman, and I saw that our enemy was in mufti. Perhaps they weren’t the King’s Rangers after all. Perhaps this was simply a bandit raid, and all of my calculations had been wrong. Chahsaeda seemed to read my thoughts as I hesitated. “They are who we think they are,” he said. “I know that man. He is a ranger.”

  Still I hesitated. Vaenahma spoke at my side, their voice soft. “Captain, you should obey the prince.”

  I glanced towards Andraescav. His back was to me. He was leaning forward, all of his being concentrated on the cavalry, which was regrouping at the end of the road. I didn’t know if his picket could withstand another charge. I’d never expected to feel sadness at the possibility that I would never see him again. But I did. I regretted the loss of his mustaches. I was grieved by the thought that I wouldn’t see him strut about the parade grounds anymore. I knew that I would miss his fanatical eyes, his bluster, the way he stared at the princess with puppy dog devotion. I took a step forward, thinking to take his place.

  Vaenahma grabbed my arm. “No, Captain,” they said. “Think of your sons.”

  So we left him. Myself, Vaenahma, and the prince. We went running away, and I could not think of it as anything other than cowardice. I cursed Vaenahma for not finding a more noble reason for me to depart. For not telling me that I was necessary to the health of the company, and Andraescav was not. But we both knew that none of that was true. The company had mutinied. The mutineers would be executed and I would be demoted. And Andraescav was both a better swordsman and a better commander, as he was proving with the stand he was making on that ridge.

  Fortunately Iyedraeka and Martiveht were at the back of the column of fleeing royals. We came up behind them and Chahsaeda reached out to grab Iyedraeka’s arm. She screamed. The rearguard of the King’s Guard turned, sensing some threat. They saw the prince and saluted.

  “I need ten of you to hold the bridge,” he said. Then he brushed past their look of confusion. Captain Slaedrin was in the clump of guards running beside the palanquin. Lieutenant Eslaehn was commanding the rearguard, but he was running and hadn’t noticed our incursion into his orderly retreat. “Soldiers, I am your prince, and I am commanding you,” Chahsaeda said. There was something rehearsed about the way he said it. As if he had been preparing to say it all of his life.

  The soldiers parted and let us run past. The king was over the bridge, and we weren’t following him. Instead we were scrambling down the bank into the stream. I heard a voice calling and looked up. Yaendrid was scrambling down the opposite bank. She had seen us and chosen to join us. I didn’t know why.

  “You’re not going to the shrine?” she asked, flowing into our midst as we splashed through the water. There were shrieks from the top of the ridge.

  “We fear for the princess’s life,” I shouted above the clamor.

  Iyedraeka, who was a few paces ahead, looked back at me. Her face was white with shock. It is possible that, until that moment, she hadn’t realized that she was the cause of our current predicament.

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  Yaendrid accepted my pronouncement too quickly. She gave a swift little nod and said, “There’s a hidden cave. About a mile north of here.”

  The water was splashing up and soaking the hem of my short battle robe. The long robes of the nobles were soaked and heavy. The shale was slippery, the footing treacherous. I looked up and saw the bend in the river, and shouted a warning.

  “There’s a pool there. It’s deep. Get to the side of the stream.”

  Chahsaeda, who was leading, heard and obeyed. He led Iyedraeka and Martiveht up onto the narrow ledge that ran beside the stream. The footing there was even worse, but they assailed it like rope walkers. All of those palace dancing lessons paying off.

  I heard the pounding of hooves and looked back. The road was obscured by the trees, but I could see the bridge, and I caught a glimpse of riders charging onto it. There was a clash as they met the picket of King’s Guards. I ran, leaping onto the muddy ledge and skipping along it, my whole being concentrated on not falling. I slipped anyway, but Vaenahma reached out and steadied me. Then we were around, and back in the middle of the stream.

  The sound of horses charging at us through the water. Our enemy had made short work of the troops on the bridge. I glanced back and saw three riders, leaning hard over their horses’ necks, their swords drawn. I caught a flash of the leader’s face. It was Pertrahn. I knew that he meant to kill me.

  But he didn’t know about the pool, and his horse went plunging down into the water with a great shriek. The other riders were coming too hard and fast to stop. They, too, plunged into the pool and disappeared. I had a sudden fantasy of the fish rising from the depths and twisting its body to break the vial of explosives. But I knew it wouldn’t happen, and that our enemy would be out of the pool soon enough.

  “Keep running, Captain,” Vaenahma shouted at me, when I made to turn and take my stand. They didn’t break their stride. The stream was narrowing between two stony ridges. Up ahead, it was tumbling over rocks. The prince was scrambling up them. He reached the top and turned back and offered a hand to Iyedraeka. Sunlight came sharply through the trees and lit his noble face. There was such a look of avid hope and fulfilled heroism in his expression that I almost wanted to weep. He was very young.

  Then we were all at the top of the little waterfall and the stream was widening. Its bottom became sand, and the steepness of its banks fell away. Yaendrid took the lead. There was a narrow trail through a hemlock grove, and she went up it cautiously. We were all aware that the woods could be full of bandits. If I had troops with me, I would have sent them ahead to scout. But Yaendrid seemed to know the trail. She was very sure of her way, and she knew just where to stop to listen. Knew where the ambushes would be laid, if there were any.

  But there weren’t, and we came to the cave, our robes soaked, our bodies reeking of sweat. The princess’s hair was disheveled, and Martiveht’s hair was slicked back, as if she’d ducked her head underwater. Her beautiful face seemed even more distant and unreachable than usual. We took ten steps into the cave, and Iyedraeka started to cry. Vaenahma turned at the entrance and looked out, guarding the way we had come. The cave was very dry, and there was a fire pit in its center, and kindling. Yaendrid was standing by the ashes, raking them with her foot. The prince swept Iyedraeka into his embrace.

  “The ashes are cold,” Yaendrid said. “I don’t think that they know about this cave.”

  “How do you know about it?” I asked, and she looked at me. She said nothing, but that look planted a suspicion in my mind.

  When Might a Hero Find His Rest. If you want to read the little world-building stories I'm writing as I go along, go to my Patreon page.

  Copyright KPB Stevens, 2025

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  The Rahnitdarjani Bestiary, by Ahrain Buhdmani

  exempla should not be disregarded by scholars who have no interest in ghosts. Sometimes these small stories speak eloquently of other things. Take, for example, the story of the guardsman who first discovered the olagmatchee. There is no previous record of anything like that strange and disturbing fish. Documents from the early kingdoms are hard to find. But a monster of such size and strange occurrences would surely have been noted, if only in a folk song.

  exempla does not say. All that is known is that this strange man went swimming in one of the deep pools beside the Empty Shrine, and he met the great fish and offered to explode it. The fish accepted this offer with alacrity, but it did not explode. It swam back into the depths of the pool, and was not seen again for thirty years.