Okay. Why was I hiding inside Grogan's trunk?
My name is Leno. Leno of Ennox. I'm ten years old, and I'm skinny—skinnier than most kids my age. I live in a large town called Ennox, in Rovena, and I was raised by my blind grandfather.
Yes, blind.
He found me in the woods when I was a baby, while he was out hunting. He always told me, "I may be blind, but I see better than most people I've ever met."
That morning, close to sunset, I went to fetch water from the well. I filled the barrel and hoisted it onto my wheelbarrow.
I was about to leave when half a dozen boys appeared down the street.
The Mace twins.
Their father was the richest knight in town. He preferred using a mace because that was his last name. Like father, like sons.
And with them were their friends, all standing there like oversized gnomes with too much confidence. They liked bullying skinny kids like me.
Normally I could outrun them.
But not with a wheelbarrow full of water.
"There you are, you runt!" one of the twins shouted. Nama or Mana—I never knew which was which. Identical faces, identical stupidity.
I was a cheeky kid. I couldn't hold my tongue.
So I said, "There you are, you gorilla's get!"
The girls braiding each other's hair on the corner laughed, then shut up when the twins glared at them.
"What did you say?" one twin asked, stepping close. Too close. Only my wheelbarrow stood between us.
"Oh," I started, "so you're a deaf gorilla's offspring—"
I didn't get to finish.
Peek—one of their friends—pulled out a club with iron spikes and smashed my barrel.
Water exploded across the street.
"Bloody hell!" I shouted.
Since when did they carry weapons like that? They used to bring sticks. Harmless sticks.
The twins drew their maces. They didn't even give me time to move the wheelbarrow out of the way—they smashed it to pieces.
My instincts screamed run.
But my grandfather made that wheelbarrow.
So I grabbed one of the broken handles.
When the twins lifted their maces to swing, I struck. I hit the one on the right in the elbow, and the one on the left in the ribs—wide open because he thought being big meant being smart.
They both dropped their maces and screamed like little girls.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
One of the girls whispered, "How did he do that so fast?"
The twins barked at their friends. "Peek! Get him! I want to skin him alive and smash him with my father's mace!"
As quick as that, I was gone.
They chased me. I was smiling. I was proud, and I knew they would never catch me.
I was the fastest kid in town.
Then I realized I was running the wrong way.
I knew the streets, not the alleys. And I'd just sprinted straight into the busiest part of Ennox like a genius.
"Spread out!" Peek shouted.
They split into alleys on the right, except Peek who stayed behind me.
I smiled again. If they all went right, I'd run straight and turn left at the next street.
Easy.
Oh boy, was I wrong.
There was no left turn. All streets turned right. The only openings on the left were alleys.
I jumped into the nearest one.
Dead end.
I heard fire roaring. Steel banging. A forge.
A window was open. I scrambled up and threw myself inside, then shut it.
Grogan Drogba was there, forging an axe.
I dove under his table and prayed my skinny bones didn't knock anything over.
****
"Where is he?!" one of the twins shouted outside.
"He entered this passage and disappeared," Peek said.
"He can't disappear, you fool! He's not a wizard! Can't you see there's a window next to you?" a twin snapped.
"Let's get him, boss!" another boy said.
"Do you know whose workshop this is, Finan?" the twin asked.
"No. Some blacksmith?" Finan replied.
"Not just some blacksmith. Grogan Drogba himself. My father always talks about his giant axe and how he butchers thieves. If he finds Leno in there, he'll hack him to pieces."
My stomach dropped.
I didn't know this was Grogan Drogba's workshop.
If he found me, I was dead.
The front door was a no-go. I spotted a door behind a wall full of shields and slipped through it, quiet as breath.
I landed in the largest kitchen I'd ever seen. Everything was chestnut wood, polished and rich. No window. Just two doors.
I thought the left led to the bedroom, and the right led to the back door.
Boy, was I wrong again.
I opened the right door and got punched in the face by the smell of a privy. I slammed it shut and pressed my back against it, trying not to die on the spot.
"Good evening, sir!" Peek shouted over the forge noise.
"What?" Grogan grunted. His voice was deep and raspy, like gravel dragged across iron.
"There's a thief in your workshop," Peek said.
I thought I heard fear in his voice. But maybe I was just scared enough to imagine it.
"What thief?" Grogan growled. "There's no one here but you boys—and I'm about to chop your heads off if you don't leave right now!"
Even through walls, that voice felt like it could split bone.
"But, sir… the thief entered through the window."
"Huh." Grogan's tone changed. Not kinder. Just… interested. "You're right. I always leave that window open."
My heart tried to escape through my throat.
I snapped out of my panic and rushed into the left door.
The bedroom was massive. It wasn't clean. It reeked of sweat.
I spotted a bed trunk and jumped in.
The trunk was full of letters—yellow paper, definitely love letters.
I closed myself into darkness.
They searched the workshop. They searched the house.
Somehow, Grogan forbade anyone from opening his trunk.
So Grogan had a secret lover.
And I was currently lying on top of his love letters like an idiot.
"Right," Grogan said at last. "There's no thief in here. Go home, you scoundrels!"
"But sir, the trunk?" Peek asked.
"Not even a dwarf can fit in that trunk, boy. Go home now!"
I was offended. I knew I was small, but I wasn't smaller than a dwarf.
It took everything not to jump out and call Grogan an ogre.
But my life depended on it.
They left.
For a few seconds, I couldn't hear anything. I strained my hearing… and regretted it.
For a moment, it was like I could hear the whole street at once. Voices too loud. Too close. My ears rang and I clamped my hands over them inside the trunk, breathing through panic.
****
I waited four hours for Grogan to fall asleep so I could sneak out and go home.
I might've taken a small nap.
But Grogan didn't sleep.
As you already know, slavers came screaming into our town.
When Grogan grabbed his axe and ran out, I crept out of the trunk.
I was about to leave when I noticed a thick brown book with no title on it. I've always liked books, so I snatched it.
Then I saw the sword.
The most beautiful sword I'd ever seen, hung vertically on the door.
The blade was dark and glossy. The cross-guard V-shaped. The hilt black with the finest pattern I'd ever seen. The pommel diamond-shaped and made of silver.
A scream yanked me back to reality.
There was slaughter outside.
So I grabbed the sword and ran.
Grogan was twenty feet away, fighting half a dozen men at once—three with spears, two with swords. I admired his skill, his reflexes, his speed.
I thought he was winning.
Then a spear took him in the back.
He fell, and I swear the ground shook.
I ran.
I ran home.
When I reached my house, my grandfather stood in the yard, listening and smelling the air like it was daylight and not death. He loosed arrow after arrow, calm as winter.
How can someone kill so calmly?
I don't know.
But my grandfather did it just fine.
He always knew when I was close. How, I don't know that either. But he knew.
"Leno!" he shouted. "Quickly—hide under the bunker! No questions!"
His calm face frightened me more than the screams.
I obeyed. The bunker was concealed under the dinner table. There was a small hole in it, so I peeped out.
My grandfather didn't miss.
The slavers wore black boiled leather and black sheep cloaks. They spoke a language I didn't understand. Wherever they came from, it was far from Rovena.
I knew every language in this country—the common tongue, Dwarven, Elven, the hunters' cant, the priests' words, even the mermaids' songs.
My grandfather taught me everything he could. He'd been a traveler once, before he hurt his knee so badly he limped forever, and he screamed in pain whenever rain approached.
In the bunker, I lit a candle and admired the sword I'd stolen.
I brought the light closer. I couldn't tell what kind of steel it was, but I knew it was rare. The blade had a wavy pattern. I slid my finger to the edge and cut myself at once.
Sharp as truth.
"Ahh!"
My grandfather screamed.
I peeped through the hole.
He'd run out of arrows.
Now he swung his bow like a cat protecting its kittens. He was limping hard, fighting two slavers—one with a sword and shield, the other with a sword alone.
He tried to parry with the bow.
The blade cut through it.
Then he was down.
One slaver cut his neck. The other cut his stomach.
"No!" I screamed.
I burst out of the bunker with the sword in my hand and charged.
Within a blink, they were both dead.
I didn't even understand how I'd done it.
I dropped to my knees beside my grandfather as his life faded out through his eyes.
He looked at me—blind, but seeing anyway—and whispered, faint as smoke:
"Run and hide, boy."
And then he was gone.