Cassian didn't look back, he sprinted into the bruised twilight, his boot kicking up red dirt as he cut through the central lane of Eveldor.
The village was winding down, but people still lingered. Cleaning windows, closing shops.
They turned as he ran past, eyes locking on to him with curiosity. In Norrath, a running man meant a heathen, and soldiers were never too far behind.
Some people would try to stop him, to gain favour with the Archon. Most would hide. To protect themselves from the criminal.
You do not taunt a man who has nothing to lose unless you are also prepared to lose.
The people here just watched, like he was some spectacle. Free entertainment on a quiet evening.
Their stares felt like beacons, broadcasting his location to any guard less than half a league away.
He pushed his legs faster, chest burning as he waited for the shouting to start behind him.
By all rights, they ought to have cleared the pantry door by now.
He could see the barricade around the village now, there were no sentries, no guards with spears, waiting for him. Nothing but an empty gate leading to the treeline behind it
Were they waiting to ambush him? Was an archer tracking his throat from the trees?
Or was Aziel so confident in his plan that he failed to predict this outcome.
Cassian didn't slow down to ponder. The gate was unguarded, that was what mattered most now.
He dashed into the forest, the canopy of trees swallowing the last orange rays of the sun.
He angled towards the shrine and kept running. When its tiled roof finally appeared, there was a bag resting against the pillar.
Cassian dropped to one knee, breaths coming in ragged hitches as he yanked open the bag.
Inside was a set of folded wool garments, a leather water skin, meat wrapped in butcher's paper, a small pouch that clicked heavy with coins and an iron headed machete wrapped in oily rags.
A slow breathed laugh escaped his throat before he could stop it. As if he could even use a machete.
Beneath the iron blade, there was a parchment, a piece of paper with a crudely drawn map of Eveldor. There was an X scrawled at the western border. Underneath it, in blocky handwriting, was a message.
This is where you're headed.
Garrett's handwriting was horrible.
Voices cut through the treeline off to the left. Urgent, Harsh shouts.
Had they found him already?
He didn't wait to find out. He snatched the bag, slung it over his shoulders and after one hard glance at the map, he put the parchment in his pocket, before he broke into a sprint.
Behind him, the noise grew sharper. The heavy, rhythmic clanking of metals and chain mail echoed through the forest. They were moving surprisingly fast for men weighed down by iron. But then again, they fought in these armors— and they were driven by a direct order from the Archon. He could see why they would be motivated.
He ran blind, in a direction he hoped wasn't too far off from where he was headed. His boots slipped on the muddy floor, and exposed roots but he'd gotten used to it, the running.
He ducked under low hanging branches, and his shoulder clipped thick trunks as he wove through the forest. He needed space, somewhere he could quicken his stride.
According to Garrett's hasty sketch, there was supposed to be a dirt thoroughfare cutting west from the shrine. But as the shadows deepened, the forest offered no such mercy. There was no road. Nothing. Just an endless suffocating maze of trees and stones.
And at the end of the maze were men ready to chop his head off. What a fantastic situation to be in.
He slowed his pace for half a second, spinning in a tight circle to orient himself. He looked up, but the trees were blocking the sun. He couldn't tell which way was west. He had sprinted into the unknown wilderness.
The guards behind him weren't slowing down, their screams echoed as they called out to one another, confirming positions. Closing the net.
Cassian's chest heaved as sweat ran down his face, stinging his eyes. How far were they willing to chase him through the dark before they gave up? He wanted to believe that he was in the clear when darkness fell, but these men were different.
They were chasing after him with fanatical focus. What difference would it make if the sun went down? They probably had torches.
A terrible truth settled in his gut. He couldn't outrun them, not in terrain he didn't know, and certainly not with a bag bouncing against his ribs. If he couldn't find the road, he would have to make a choice—stop and try to ambush them with the machete, or find some way to lose them. Both options seemed improbable. Both options seemed like death.
He ended up choosing to hide. It was the most rational option. What could he possibly hope to do against fully armed, blood hungry men?
Even if he managed to catch one off guard, they were armored veterans trained to kill. In an open brawl, he would barely last seconds before a sword ended his pathetic last stand.
Up ahead, the forest floor dropped abruptly into a shallow, shadow drenched chasm. Cassian didn't hesitate. He pitched his weight forward and slipped down the steep embankment, loose dirt and dry twigs showering down around him.
There was a massive moss covered boulder at the bottom. He scrambled behind it, curling his body into the space between the rock and the soil. He held his breath, pressing his chest against his knees as the heavy crunching of boots echoed above.
Seconds later, several bodies slipped down the slope into the chasm.
"Where is he?" a voice snarled rough and breathless "where is the boy"
"He couldn't have gone far," another replied, his armor clinking as he scanned the gloom. "Remember what the Archon's emissary said. Kill on sight. No questions, no games. The moment you see anything move, put a sword through it— then stab it twice more just be sure. This isn't some ordinary fugitive"
Huddled in the darkness, Cassian wasn't sure whether to be flattered, that they held him in such high regard. Or angry that they wouldn't even give him a chance to explain his side of the story.
But anger was a luxury for living men, besides they were just hounds following orders. The Archon had already passed judgement long before he entered Eveldor, so he never had a chance to explain in the first place.
With painstaking slowness, he opened the bag.
He slid his hand inside, fingers wrapping around the cold iron grip of the machete he drew it out without a sound, letting it rest on the moss beside him before clinching the bag shut.
He held the weighted steel in his right hand, back pressed against the stone, eyes locked on the sky above. He waited, muscles coiled like a trap ready to drive the blade into the first unlucky throat that poked around the corner.
The guards began scanning the area, their footsteps fanning out. They were methodically widening their search grid, slowly closing in on his rock.
A guard stepped past the edge of the boulder, mere inches away.
Cassian shifted his weight in a silent glide hugging the stones contour to remain entirely in the man's blind spot. Waiting to strike.
His eyes tracked the patrol: three men head to toe in overlapping iron plates.
Cassian paused
What was he doing? Iron cut flesh. It didn't bite through solid steel.
He waited one agonizing second, watching as all three men turned their backs to his hiding spot, moving deeper into the ravine
Now
Cassian exploded out from behind the boulder, sprinting in the exact opposite direction.
"There he is"
The shout roared behind him, but Cassian didn't dare look back. He ran in a sharp, erratic zigzag, veering wildly from side to side in case any of these fine gentlemen had brought a bow. He'd already taken an arrow to the leg once in his life, and he had no desire to test how it felt buried between his shoulder blades.
He threw himself behind a thick tree trunk, banked hard around a ridge, and hit a narrow trail, his boots pounding the dirt until his lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass.
He kept going. Through bushes, over stone, deep into the suffocating dark of the forest.
Minutes stretched into eternity until the shouts vanished and the heavy clatter of mail died away.
Slowing to a halt behind a dense wall of brush, Cassian sank against a tree, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He listened to the night. Nothing. Just the wind in the canopy and the hum of forest insects.
He had lost them.
he leaned against the bark, gasping for air.
He felt no sense of triumph.
Cassian looked around at the endless, nameless trees towering over him in the pitch blackness.
He was lost. Off the map, off the trail, and completely out of options. He was right back where he had started before Garrett ever helped him out of the mud: alone, hunted, with no idea where he was or how to survive the wilderness.