Three days of tense preparation blurred into a final, silent farewell at dawn. Arrion embraced Borryn, a wordless communication of love and fear passing between them. He clasped forearms with Orryn, the headsman's grip iron-tight. Lyra pressed a small, carefully wrapped packet of healing salves into his hand, her eyes wide but dry. Elara, defying sentimentality, shoved a razor-sharp skinning knife into his belt. "For close work," she muttered, before turning away.
He rode out on Briar as the sun crested the palisade. The great black warhorse seemed to sense the gravity of the journey, his gait steady and powerful. Arrion did not look back. The living thorn from the King was a warm brand against his sternum. Sergeant Evander's coin purse and the leaden Mudlark's Pass were secured in a oiled leather pouch tied firmly inside his tunic. Nightshade was across his back, the purple-wood bow in its harness beside it. He was a knight errant in worn hunter's leathers, a giant moving towards a storm only he could see gathering on the eastern horizon.
The ride to Oakhaven was uneventful, the familiar forest paths giving way to hard-packed trade roads. The town itself was a shock to the system after the quiet of Hearthstone. Oakhaven was a beast of noise and stink and relentless motion. The air hummed with the shouts of teamsters, the clang of the smithy, the sawing of lumber, and the babble of a dozen accents from merchants, prospectors, and adventurers. The streets were a muddy chaos of carts, livestock, and hurrying people. The grand Adventurer's Guild hall and the more austere Argent Shield chapter house loomed over the central square, but Arrion's destination was far less conspicuous.
Following Evander's precise directions, he stabled Briar at a reputable, if expensive, livery on the town's edge with enough coin for a month's care. Then he plunged into the warren of alleyways behind the docks. He found the place: a nameless tavern called simply "The Leak" with a sign depicting a sinking barrel. The air inside was thick with the smell of fish, cheap ale, and secrets.
The contact was a man called Gerrin, who had the perpetually damp look of a river rat and eyes that never stopped moving. He acknowledged Arrion with a slight jerk of his chin towards a shadowed booth.
"You're the big one Evander whispered about," Gerrin said, his voice a phlegmy rasp. He didn't ask for a name. "Passage east, quiet-like. To the edges of the Marches."
Arrion nodded, sliding the Mudlark's Pass across the sticky table. Gerrin palmed it, felt its weight and edges, and gave a grunt of approval. "Aye. The River Mule leaves on the evening tide. Captain owes me. You'll have a spot in the hold with the other 'private cargo.' No lights, no questions. Gets you to Blackwater Landing, the last civilized piss-pot before the Drakespine foothills. Three days on the river."
It was perfect. From Blackwater Landing, he could vanish into the wilds, approaching Ralke's domain from an unexpected, unofficial angle. Arrion paid Gerrin from Evander's purse—a hefty but fair sum for such discreet service—and received a chit of carved bone in return, his boarding token.
"Be at the south wharf, third pier, two hours before sunset," Gerrin instructed, before melting back into the tavern's gloom.
With hours to kill, Arrion moved through Oakhaven's crowded streets. He kept his hood up, but his size still drew glances. He purchased a few last-minute items: a waxed canvas tarp, a fresh whetstone, a sack of salt beef harder than boot leather. He felt the weight of the coin purse, the solid promise of the pass, the thrum of the King's thorn. He felt, for the first time, a sliver of hope. The machine was turning. He had a path.
He was in the bustling market square, a cacophony of haggling and livestock, when he felt it—a faint, almost imperceptible tug at his side, followed by a sudden, alarming lightness.
His hand flew to his tunic. The leather pouch containing everything—Evander's remaining silver, the Mudlark's Pass, Gerrin's bone chit—was gone. The cords had been sliced cleanly, not torn. A professional cutpurse.
A cold, visceral panic, sharper than any fear of assassins, seized him. Without that pouch, he was adrift. No money for supplies or bribes. No pass for the barge. No token to board. He was a giant with a famous sword and a story no one would believe, stranded in Oakhaven while the blight spread and the King's patience thinned.
His hunter's instincts, honed to a razor's edge, took over. Panic was a luxury. He became a predator.
He didn't shout or cause a scene. He stood perfectly still, his storm-grey eyes scanning the swirling crowd with glacial focus. He replayed the last thirty seconds. The tug had come from his right, at waist height. He'd been jostled by a gang of rowdy apprentices carrying timber… perfect cover. He cast his gaze down, looking not at faces, but at movement, at hands, at the flow of the crowd against a current.
There. Fifteen yards away, moving with an eel-like grace against the tide of people, was a slight figure in a dun-coloured, nondescript cloak. The figure moved not with the aimless drift of a shopper, but with purpose, heading for a narrow alley mouth that led towards the shanties by the river.
Got you.
Arrion moved. He did not run, which would have caused a stampede. He walked with immense, deliberate strides, his size and presence parting the crowd like a ship's prow. He kept his eyes locked on the dun cloak as it slipped into the alley's shadow.
The alley was a dank, refuse-strewn cleft between two tall warehouses. The thief, thinking themselves safe, had slowed, likely to examine the haul. They heard Arrion's boots on the wet cobbles and froze, then glanced back. A pale, pinched face under the hood, eyes wide with alarm, then with calculation. The thief bolted.
Arrion broke into a run. In the confined space, his size was a disadvantage; the thief was small and agile, ducking under hanging laundry, leaping over a pile of broken crates. But Arrion had the legs of a giant and the endurance of a man who tracked elk for days. He closed the distance relentlessly.
The alley twisted, then opened into a small, squalid courtyard behind a tannery, the stink overwhelming. Dead end. The thief skidded to a halt, whirled around, and drew a long, needle-like dagger. It wasn't a street thug's shiv; it was a tool for slicing purse strings and, if necessary, arteries.
"Back off, big man!" a youthful voice hissed, high with fear but laced with a street-rat's bravado. "You don't want trouble!"
"I want my pouch," Arrion said, his voice low and deadly calm. He didn't draw Nightshade; this didn't warrant it. He kept his hands open at his sides. "You can hand it over and walk away. That is the only offer."
The thief's eyes darted, looking for an escape that didn't exist. With a snarl, they lunged, the dagger aiming for Arrion's thigh—a disabling move, not a kill shot. Fast. Professional.
Arrion was faster. He pivoted, the blade whispering past his leathers. His left hand shot out, not to grab the wrist, but to clamp down on the thief's entire forearm with a grip like iron. He squeezed, not enough to break bone, but enough to make the fingers spasm. The dagger clattered to the stones.
A gasp of pain. The hood fell back, revealing a young woman, perhaps in her late teens. Her hair was cropped short, her face smudged with dirt, her eyes a fierce, desperate blue. She was all sharp angles and taut wire, a creature of pure survival.
"Give. It. Back," Arrion growled, applying more pressure.
Tears of pain and fury sprang to her eyes, but she didn't cry out. With her free hand, she fumbled inside her own ragged tunic and pulled out the leather pouch. She threw it at his feet.
Arrion released her, scooping up the pouch in one fluid motion. He checked it quickly. The weight of the coins was there. He could feel the outline of the pass and the chit. All present.
He expected her to bolt. Instead, she cradled her bruised arm, glaring at him with a hatred that was pure and undiluted. "Happy? Now I starve. Or worse."
Arrion stood, the pouch secure once more inside his own tunic. He looked at her, this sharp, desperate creature in a dead-end courtyard. He saw not a thief, but a resource. And he saw the flaw in his plan. He was a stranger, a giant heading into the most paranoid territory in the empire. He had coin and a pass, but no eyes, no ears, no knowledge of the underworld of Blackwater Landing or beyond.
"What's your name?" he asked, his tone shifting from threat to assessment.
She eyed him suspiciously. "Kestrel. What's it to you?"
"Kestrel," he repeated. "You're good. The cut was clean. The run was smart. You just picked the wrong mark."
"Seems I did," she spat.
"I have a proposition," Arrion said. He pulled a single silver Shield from the purse—a fortune to someone like her—and held it up. "This is for the bruise. And for your silence."
She stared at the coin as if it were a mythical beast. "And?"
"And I need a guide. Someone who knows the river rats, the landing towns, the ways unseen. I'm going east, into the Drakespine Marches. I need to move quietly, know who to talk to and who to avoid. You help me get to where I need to go, discreetly, and there's five more of these at the end." He gestured with the coin. "Or you can try to steal from the next mark and hope he doesn't break your neck."
Kestrel's eyes flickered from the coin to his face, calculating survival odds with a speed born of necessity. The hatred was still there, but it was being banked by a deeper, hungrier fire—the need to live.
"The Marches are death," she said quietly. "Ralke's men are everywhere. The hills have eyes."
"I know," Arrion said. "That's why I'm going. And that's why I need you. Do we have an accord?"
She was silent for a long moment, the stink of the tannery thick around them. Finally, she gave a sharp, single nod. "Accord. But I get the coin upfront for supplies. And I'm not fighting any of Ralke's brutes. I'm your shadow, not your sword."
"Fair enough," Arrion said, tossing her the silver Shield. She caught it with a quick, snatching motion. "Meet me at the south wharf, third pier, in two hours. Don't be late."
He turned and walked out of the courtyard, leaving the young thief staring at the coin in her palm. His heart was still hammering from the chase, but the panic had receded, replaced by a new, grim composition. His quest had nearly ended in a filthy alley before it began. Now, by chance and threat, he had acquired something potentially as valuable as his pass: a pair of eyes that knew how to navigate the dark underbelly of the world he was marching into. The path to the mountains had just gotten more complicated, and more human.