Chapter 1399: Long awaited dues(6)

"We found you out of your senses right beside the cunt," Saron muttered, his rough fingers working with surprising gentleness as he wrapped fresh linen tightly around Vilon’s swollen hand, he hadn’t noticed he had got himself wounded as he smashed down the rock.

He paused to glance over at the corpse, eyes pointing toward the small splashes of crimson pooling at the base of the iron visor, right where Vilon had lastly driven his hunting blade home.

By the time the Hounds had pulled Vilon off him, the man had ceased all breathing. Perhaps he was already dead before the steel sank into his throat, or perhaps the cracked visor had simply left him senseless enough for the final strike. Vilon hoped he was alive when he felt the blade sink in, he probably wasn’t though.

"That must have been quite the dance, eh?" Saron attempted a small, crooked smile, but the warmth died quickly on his face.

He looked down at Owen, who was still kneeling in the mud, clinging stubbornly to Vilon’s waist. The knight’s ribs flamed with a white-hot agony, worse now than before the brawl, but Vilon didn’t pull away.

When he had first opened his good eye through the blood and dirt, he had seen the lad weeping.

Crying for me, Vilon’s heart skipped a beat as the realization settled in his chest.

It was a strange, tender feeling. The nights on the high road were bitterly cold, and the struggles of a hedge knight were endless, but for a single moment of genuine warmth like this, every league of mud was worth enduring.

Saron’s single good eye met Vilon’s. Both of them were down to a single working sight now; Vilon could feel his left eye swelling shut like a bruised plum, the rest of his face faring no better on account of his shattered nose. He had sneezed a moment ago, spraying a red mist across his mail shirt, and the sharp shock of it had nearly brought him to his knees again.

"How about you, lad? You holding together?" Saron asked, turning his gaze onto the squire. "Look like you took a few proper scars for yourself."

"It’s nothing," Owen rasped, wiping his mouth with a bloodied sleeve. "Just took a couple of fists to the mouth, that’s all. Ser Vilon took the brunt of it." He spat a thick glob of copper-tasting phlegm into the leaves, then, suddenly self-conscious under Saron’s unblinking stare, detached himself from Vilon and stood up straight.

"My brother Harl took a tumbling with the crofter’s boy once," the lad added bravely, puffing out his chest. "Came home looking a bloody sight worse. Mama gave him the rest of a thrashing when he crossed the threshold. This was just like that. A few punches, nothing more."

Saron offered a strained, admiring smirk. "I don’t think the crofter’s boy was wearing a gauntlet of full-articulated steel, mind you."

"Well, the crofter’s boy is still kicking and breathing," Owen nudged his chin toward the corpse at their boots. "That one clearly isn’t."

"Aye," Saron grunted, standing up and brushing the damp pine needles from his knees. "Your lad has the right of it. The Vulture Lord is dead. Killed by a hedge knight and his squire."

"Mariol..." Vilon rasped, his voice catching in his raw throat.

"Aye, I know, Ser. We saw him," Saron said quietly, his gaze softening as he stared into the trees. He dusted off his leather doublet with heavy, tired hands. "But that’s our trade, ain’t it? We ride, we bleed, we drink, and we fight until one day the steel finds us. Today was Mariol’s turn. Next week it might be mine, or the GreenRider over there. He died with his boots on, serving the Crown. His was an honorable death. We all bled today."

Vilon looked around the quiet clearing. At some point during the chaotic brawl, the surviving outlaws had broken and routed into the deep brush. Though the ground was littered with bodies, there were far fewer than the twenty men who had descended the ridge. Corroded iron, dropped spears, and men pinned to the earth by broad-headed javelins painted an ugly scene, and yet this was no more than a small skirmish.

During his desperate duel with Ratio, Vilon had forgotten the rest of the world existed. The whole universe had shrunk down to the space between two blades.

"I know you’re battered to the bone, Ser," Selm said apologetically, limping over with his heavy mace resting on his shoulder. Last Vilon heard he had claimed five for his own tally before they broke. "But we need to be entirely sure."

"Sure of what?" Vilon asked, leaning heavily against Owen’s shoulder for support.

"That we actually got the bastard."

Vilon dragged himself forward, stepping up to the corpse. The iron kettle-helm had been unbuckled, revealing the face beneath. The Vulture Lord stared blankly back at his killers, his dark eyes glassy, his jaw slack in a frozen, bloody snarl. A thick, dark ribbon of clotted crimson ran from the corner of his mouth down his neck, a bigger river coming down from where Vilon’s made the cut, both of them staining the polished breastplate below.

Vilon was too exhausted to feel triumph, too broken to feel anger; he was merely glad it was over. He had exchanged words with the man before the steel clashed, so he knew it was him, but he needed to see the face one last time to burn it into his memory.

Here lay the rat who had bled this province far deeper than any war required, as if Oizen had not suffered enough under the boots of conquerors.

Vilon’s eyes drifted to the base of a nearby oak. His longsword lay resting against the rough bark, his trusted steel, filthy with red gore and brown mud, forgotten in the dirt. Beside it lay Mariol. The Hound’s hands were relaxed against his collarbone, right beneath the terrible, ear-to-ear red smile that had taken his life. Saron had gone to close his eyes.

Vilon turned back to the face of the dead lord.

He gathered the blood in his mouth and spat squarely onto Ratio’s open, lifeless eye.

"Aye," Vilon wheezed softly. "That’s him. That’s the Vulture Lord, all right."

A collective, heavy sigh seemed to ripple through the surviving Hounds. All at once, the posture of every man in the clearing collapsed. Shoulders dropped in unison, hands loosened their white-knuckled grips on sword hilts, and weapons were allowed to lower into the grass. The suffocating weight of the hunt, the lingering terror of the woods, and the tension of a long, brutal campaign seemed to drain out of them all at once into the cold soil.

It was over. The Vulture was dead, his nest was ash, and the road, for better or worse now belonged only to the falcon of Yarzat.

"Tamar," Saron called out, his voice heavy with fatigue. "You’re the freshest of us. You carry the dead fuck. Selm, give him a hand stripping the iron off, we need to haul the bastard back through the lines. Gods only know what the Fourth is doing now that they’ve turned his camp inside out and found no body."

"On it, Captain," Tamar replied, stepping forward. Selm offered a tired sigh, letting his mace rest in the grass as he knelt beside the corpse to undo the buckles.

"I’ll carry Mariol myself," Saron added softly, his single good eye lingering on the fallen Hound. "He gets buried with full honors. He was a fine soldier to have at your back."

"We did not know him long," Vilon offered gently, "and yet it felt as though we had known him a lifetime."

That brought a low, dry chuckle from Saron’s chest. "Aye... that was Mariol, all right." He sniffed, wiping a smear of soot and blood from his nose. "We’ll mourn our brother proper once we’re behind the lines. But congratulations on your kill, Vulture-Slayer. You’re in for a king’s ransom, I reckon. The Legate of the Fourth will be itching to get his hands on this carcass."

"What will they do with him?" Vilon asked, leaning heavily on Owen’s shoulder.

The Hound captain shrugged. "Hell if I know. Parade him from a wooden gibbet with a stick in his arse for all Oizen to see, most likely. The bastard gave the Crown endless grief; the Legate needs to remind these southern lords why they bow to us now, lest they get any grand ideas. It’s a matter of face, you see. Can’t let the folk think this dead fucker was anything more than a pebble under our boot. We have an image to maintain."

Vilon looked down at his own trembling, blood-caked fingers, then across the clearing to where Mariol lay peaceful against the roots, his face, where once was only a smile, was now fixed forever toward the sky.

"Saron," Vilon said quietly. "When we reach the Legate... I would like you to attest that it was Mariol who felled the Vulture."

Saron froze, turning his single eye on the hedge knight as if Vilon had suddenly grown a second head. "Have you lost the rest of your wits, man? You claimed the kill that will make you a rich man, you fool. Mariol is dead. Silver has no bloody use for a corpse.Don’t get fucking sentimental for a fool you met barely a month ago"

"Were it not for Mariol," Vilon replied, his voice firm despite the ache in his ribs, "I would have bled out down by the creek days ago. Every breath I draw right now, I owe to him. I would sleep far better knowing his name is remembered as the one who cut down the Monster of Oizen" He offered a pale, faint smile. "Besides, Lord Edric has already seen me and my squire well-rewarded. We have more than enough." He turned to Owen ’’Is that right by you?’’

’’I follow whatever you decide ser. I have got my own horse and armor. Gods preach to not be greedy...’’

Saron stared at both of them for a long, silent moment, the wind rustling the pine needles around them. He let out a harsh, disbelieving snort, though a strange glint of respect flickered in his eye.

"You’re going to regret this decision one day, Ser," Saron muttered, shaking his head as he bent down to lift Mariol’s body into his arms.He swallowed as he looked down. When he looked up he had a smile "When you’re starving on some muddy ditch of a road with an empty purse, you’ll curse yourself for giving away a lord’s bounty."

Vilon looked over at Owen, who offered his master a quiet, proud nod, then looked back at the captain.

"Perhaps I will, my father always said I was as tall and thick in the head as a tree" Vilon said softly, taking a slow, painful step toward his forgotten sword. He picked it up and put it back in his scabbard "But then again... it is not today that I will regret that yet.’’