The mud tasted just like the mud in Blackwood. Cold, gritty, and humiliating.
Cian scrambled, kicking out wildly. His boot connected with a shin, eliciting a grunt of pain, but a heavy weight dropped onto his back, pinning him flat.
"Feisty little rat," the man snarled. He grabbed a handful of Cian's hair and yanked his head back.
Cian screamed as a knee drove into his ribs. Air left his lungs in a wheeze.
"Check the pack, Jory," the man on top of him ordered.
Cian watched from the corner of his eye, gasping for breath, as the youngest of the three bandits—a boy not much older than himself, with acne scars and a patchy beard—tore open the canvas sack.
"Bread," Jory muttered, tossing the loaves into the mud. "Cheese. Garbage." He shook the bag upside down. The water skin flopped out. "Water."
"No coin?" the third man asked. He was older, leaning against a spear as if he couldn't be bothered to stand unsupported.
"Not a copper," Jory spat. He kicked the empty bag.
The man sitting on Cian sighed. It was a sound of genuine disappointment. He leaned close to Cian's ear. His breath smelled of onions and sour beer.
"You're a waste of time, boy. You know that? A waste of energy."
"Please," Cian choked out. "Let me go. I'm exiled. I'm nobody."
"Exiled?" The man laughed. "You hear that, lads? He's a criminal. That means no one's looking for him."
The man shifted his weight. He pulled a knife from his belt. It was a long, jagged blade, dark with rust.
"Take his boots," the man ordered Jory. "They look like they might fit you."
"No!" Cian thrashed. "They're mine!"
The man slammed the pommel of the knife into the back of Cian's head.
White light exploded behind Cian's eyes. The world spun. He felt his stomach heave. He went limp, the fight draining out of him instantly.
He felt his boots being yanked off. The cold air bit at his stockinged feet.
"Tunics too," the older man said. "Wool is worth something in the next town."
They stripped him. They took his tunic, his belt, his mother's paring knife. They left him in his undershirt and breeches, shivering in the mud.
The leader stood up, wiping his hands on his trousers. He looked down at Cian with cold indifference.
"You should have stayed home, boy."
He kicked Cian in the stomach. Hard.
Cian curled into a ball, retching dryly. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think.
The bandits gathered their spoils. Jory was already pulling Cian's boots onto his own feet. They fit perfectly.
"Should we stick him?" Jory asked, looking at Cian. "Save him the cold?"
The leader looked at the sky. It was getting dark.
"Waste of a blade," he said. "The cold will do it for free. Besides, look at him. He's already dead."
They laughed. They turned and walked away, heading south down the road, taking everything Cian owned.
Cian lay in the mud. He listened to their footsteps fade. He waited for the anger to come. He waited for the burning desire for revenge that the heroes in the stories always felt.
It didn't come.
Only the cold came. And the pain in his ribs. And the crushing, suffocating realization that he was small, and weak, and utterly alone.
He began to cry. Not the angry tears of the day before, but the quiet, desperate sobbing of a child who realizes the lights are out and no one is coming to turn them back on.
He crawled. He didn't know where. Just off the road. Away from the open.
He found a hollow beneath the roots of a massive fallen elm. It was filled with dead leaves. He curled up inside it, pulling his knees to his chin, shivering so hard his teeth clacked together.
I want to go home, he thought. I want my bed. I want my mom.
But home was a closed gate. And his mom wasn't there.
As the true dark of the forest set in, the temperature dropped. The frost began to form on the leaves.
Cian closed his eyes. He felt sleep dragging at him, a heavy, warm blanket. He knew, instinctively, that if he fell asleep now, in this cold, with no fire and no clothes, he might not wake up.
Let me sleep, a part of him whispered. It hurts too much to be awake.
"No," he whispered.
The word was barely a breath.
He forced his eyes open. He forced his limbs to move. He began to rub his arms, his legs. Friction. Heat.
He had to survive the night. Just the night.
If he could survive the night, he could figure out the rest.
He reached out and grabbed a handful of dry leaves, stuffing them into his undershirt. Insulation. He'd seen... someone do that. Who? A hunter? A beggar? It didn't matter.
He packed himself with leaves until he looked like a scarecrow. It scratched, and it smelled of decay, but it held the heat.
Cian stared out into the darkness.
He wasn't a warrior. He wasn't a hero. He was a scavenger.
And for the first time in his life, he accepted that.
"I am a rat," he whispered to the dark. "And rats don't die easy."