Chapter 1392: Face to face (5)

"How the fuck do you know this hedge knight’s name?" Edric asked, his dark eyes flicking suspiciously between the two of them, as though wondering if the whole affair were an elaborate jest designed to make a fool of him.

He looked down at the dent in the helmet, then at the thick linen wrapping Vilon’s side. Vilon, meanwhile, was busily chugging down the steaming draught thrusted into his hands by the medic, who offered all three men a sour, unblinking glare.

"In an hour or two, you’ll feel the edge taken off the pain," the medic muttered, wiping his hands on a grey rag and washing himself of the matter. "When it starts burning hot again, inform any of my boys. We’ll brew you another cup."

With the bitter tea draining down his throat, Vilon’s eyes met Edric’s. He saw the sharp light of understanding finally click behind the man’s eyes.

"So this is the hedge knight we owe our thanks to?"

Rykio nodded, his golden hair catching the dim light effusing from the linen wall. "A proper knight-errant, this one," he muttered with a low snort. "A noble fool charging down a ridge against a band of cutthroats to save a distressed maiden. You’d expect to hear such a thing only in a singer’s tale."

"Well, this one bleeds real enough," Edric replied, stepping closer. "How many were in that band, ser?"

"Five, my lord," Vilon replied, misliking the sudden weight of their stares. It felt as though he were a prized warhorse being judged at a market fair to see if he worth the price that was offered.

"And against five, you rode down alone?" Edric let out a bark of laughter. "Forgive me, but I am curious. What precisely passed through your head as you kicked your spurs in?Did you find them too hot under you feet to bear?"

"Not much, my lord," Vilon admitted, his voice quiet. "I was scared shitless. I thought of my skin, I thought of my squire...then I thought I would surely die. But then I thought it was better to die trying than to watch them drag her into the brush. And I asked myself if a man like me was worth anything at all if I turned away."

Rykio chuckled softly. "You usually don’t get that part in the songs. And what was the verdict? Were you worth it?"

"Well, my stallion was already thundering down the slope, my lord," Vilon offered with a strained, pale smile. "A tad late for taking it back or regret."

"One against five," Edric whistled quietly. "I’d gladly take a madman like you for my own cohorts, but this is more to your pack’s taste, isn’t it, Rykio?"

Rykio’s lips curled into a sharp, approving smirk. "As my outriders should have informed you, ser, you rendered a grand service to the realm. A purse of fifty silverii was decreed for any man who brought intelligence leading to the capture or slaying of the Vulture’s inner circle. That silver is yours. And if any commander wishes to reward you further, no man would take fault, least of all given our current fix."

Edric’s face turned sour, as if the silver fire-brooch on his breastplate were burning hot against his skin. "This Vulture Lord has proven a far more slippery rat than we anticipated. We have half the host scouring these woods, hundreds of Voghondai trackers, and it took a wandering hedge knight playing the hero for a farm wench to finally hammer the nail into the bastard’s coffin." He let out a dry, mirthless laugh. "The Vulture brought down by the chicken. EH! Men may be mad, but the gods are madder still, with a nice edge on their humor in them."

Edric turned his sharp gaze onto Rykio. "So, are you going to make the lad the offer, or shall I?"

"I’ll take the lead," Rykio said, stepping forward until his shadow fell across Vilon’s cot. "How would you like to sew your shoulders in black and white, Ser Vilon?"

Vilon sat agape, his jaw slack. "A... a legionnaire? Me?"

"Why not?" Rykio grunted. "You’ve clearly got the stone for bloodshed in your belly. And you’re undeniably mad, for only a madman charges five armed men on a hilltop."

Or a fool, Vilon thought. And a tall fool , at that.

"I can find a place for you under my own banner," Rykio continued, his voice dropping into a firm, magnetic rhythm. "You keep your fifty silverii. But the Crown’s peace would stand all the stronger with men like you in the saddle, men who don’t hesitate when iron needs spilt."

A strange, overwhelming tightness gripped Vilon’s chest.

For the first time in his miserable, wandering life, he was wanted. He was being valued, not mocked, not driven off with stones and scorn, but offered a place at a table.And what a table that was.

All he could recall of his past were kicks, empty pockets, and the cold sneers of men who looked at his threadbare cloak like trash on the road. And now, here was an open hand thrust toward him. An offering of pride, of honor, of silver, and a coat of iron that no man would dare laugh at.

He would be an absolute fool to refuse.

And yet... as the dark canvas stirred in the wind, the memory of the Hounds’ campfire washed over him like a wave of ice.

He saw Saron’s mangled eye somehow glinting in the firelight. He heard the casual, cold rasp of the captain’s voice boasting of barred doors, screaming villagers, and children whipped in the dirt. He smelled the charred wood of homes put to the torch, and remembered the crucified men pinned to the oaks outside the camp, their red guts trailing down the bark.

If he took the black and white... if he took their silver... would that be asked of him next? Would he be the one barring the shutters while smallfolk burned inside?Would he do the raping, the burning and the killing?

Burn me a fool then instead, he thought, a mournful sadness settling deep into his bones. The grandest fool in the south.

Vilon swallowed hard, leaning back against his straw pillow, his chest heavy as lead.

"I am... deeply honored, my lords," Vilon said, his voice quiet, but steady despite the trembling in his hands. "More honored than a man like me deserves. But... I must decline."

Edric lifted an eyebrow, while Rykio’s sharp blue eyes narrowed slightly.

"I am a knight of the road," Vilon continued softly, looking down at his pink-scarred fingers. "My place is out there... on the high roads and the muddy tracks. Helping the poor bastards who live too far out in the brush for the King’s host to reach. If I take your iron, my lords, there will be no one left to answer when a maiden cries out down by the creek."

Both men set their stares upon Vilon, unblinking and heavy as lead. It was abundantly clear that neither tof the two were accustomed to hearing the word no.

For a long, agonizing moment, the only sound in the white canvas tent was the wind howling through the rigging outside.

Then Edric broke the tension with a chuckle, while Rykio simply leaned back and let out a long, heavy sigh.

"I won’t bother wasting my breath making my own offer then," Edric said, fixing the wounded knight with a strange, searching gaze. "Though I’ll admit, you would have fit right in with a roaring fire stamped across your chest. My Fourth could have found a hundred uses for a man like you. You’ve got that quiet, iron madness in your blood that stokes and roar when pressed against the anvil." He shook his head, a faint smirk touching his jaw. "Regardless, a debt is a debt. The Crown does not take service without payment. Name your reward, ser."

"I have already received my reward, my lord," Vilon replied softly, gesturing vaguely toward the clean bandages bound around his ribs. "Fifty silverii is already far more than a man like me deserves. I did not ride down that hill for coin or honor."

"Humble, too," Rykio chuckled, a amused glint in his golden eyes. "Perhaps he belongs under the mountain with the third , Edric. He certainly carries the stubborn stock it takes to break a wave."

"The fifty silverii may be the King’s bounty, ser," Edric interrupted, his tone turning sharp and unyielding as he took a step closer to the cot. "But this reward is mine. I have a long, bloody bone to pick with the Vulture Lord. It is only a matter of days now before my trackers bleed his camp out of the brush, and then... well, the bill will be settled in full.’’ He smacked his lips ’’Were it not for your bloody intervention at the creek, what is now a matter of days would have dragged into months of hunting shadows. So ask of me whatever you wish, without hesitation or false modesty, and I shall see it done."

Vilon opened his mouth, the instinctual refusal rising in his throat once more. Fifty silverii was already a king’s ransom for a hedge knight; it was more than enough to keep himself, Owen, and Chestnut fed and shod for three years at the very least.

But just as he prepared to shake his head, a sudden thought sparked in his fever-warmed mind.

He remembered Owen, his wide, eager eyes scanning the camp, the boy’s endless, boundless curiosity, and the long, impossible list of grand knightly things he wished to buy and see for him. The lad had carried a short sword and a patched cloak without a single word of complaint through every muddy league of Oizen.

Who knew? Vilon thought, his heart softening despite the ache in his side. Perhaps this was the only chance the five gods would ever give him to actually make that boy’s world a little larger and the list of things , well...just a tad shorter.

He named his price.