Fugitive of the Sky

Chapter Thirty-Two: Coward

"Me an' Tampul tracked it while you were still sleepin'," he whispered to the gathered hunters. "We foun' out where it's sleepin'. Stashed under a bush near a stream an' a small overhang. We can go an' surroun' it while it's still sleepin', if we're quiet enough." He paused long enough to pin each hunter with a glare. "Larkwin's sleep light. Me an' Tampul'll lead you, a few at a time. Look at your feet instead of us an' don't make noise."

"We're goin' first." Kintzon jostled to the front with a couple of Kazhrachs, sparking a whispered wave of protests.

Hornar cut them off with a gesture barely visible in the night. "You'll do wha' I say. Now you there, Pikzron, Nurtak, an' Natan, an' you beside Kintzon, come wit' me."

Natan's instincts roiled. Why was Hornar picking him out, again? Did he somehow suspect what he was planning to do? Why would he pick him out first, if he suspected he'd try to take the Larkwing cape? Hornar was putting him on the front lines if the Larkwing woke up before they had her surrounded.

And then he had to decide whether to protect her, take her cape, or kill her.

This choice was coming on him too fast. He'd had weeks to think about it, and he still didn't know for sure what he was going to do. He didn't know how on earth he was supposed to protect her—if he messed things up so she could get away Hornar would be onto him for sure—or how he would prevent her from recognizing him and giving him away in front of all the other hunters. Perhaps that was what Hornar suspected, and that was why he was sending him first. And he didn't know how he would get his hands and only his hands on her cape. The Kazhrach, at least, would try to take it for his own.

Natan gathered with the others and stumbled as the Kazhrach bumped him out of the way. He cursed quietly and fumbled for his sword. The starlight barely filtered through the leaves and he could hardly see where he was going, much less fight for a place behind Hornar. It would be all he could do to walk relatively quietly. He'd just have to resign himself to someone else being the first to target the Larkwing.

What was his plan going to be? Protect, distract, or wait and take the cape from the unsuspecting girl?

I trusted you! she shouted from the past. She thought he'd betrayed her when he'd only taken a piece of her cape, when he was trying to protect her. With her as the recipient, what did his promise even matter now? As far as she was concerned, he'd already broken it.

But you didn't. His conscience pricked at him, the hardest it had since his worst nights reliving Notir's death by his hand. Just because she'd thought he'd broken his promise didn't mean he had betrayed his honor. But if he did break his promise to protect her, letting the hunters kill her and taking her cape, then his honor would be betrayed in truth.

Her life, or his honor. Her cape, or his debts and remaining reputation. Now that the choice was before him, what would his character be?

He knew what was the right choice, the honorable one. But was it really the right choice if in doing it the hunters would see him as a traitor and probably get him killed?

She isn't really human. Your promise means nothing to a Larkwing, Maru scolded from one of their fights. Natan pushed back, fiercely pulling up her tears, her fear, and her grief over her parents' untimely fates. She spoke like a human and had human emotions like any Mongor child. She was a human. Larkwings were human.

Murderer. Blood-stained, honorless, indirect slaughter who trades in foul and soiled capes. You already sacrificed your honor long ago.

Now wisps were talking to him? If only he had some wardstone to drive them away! Natan gripped his sword and concentrated on navigating the brush in front of him. He could sense Hornar wince with every step the untrained city men made. He would keep his honor. He'd protect the Larkwing girl somehow. Perhaps that would qualify as seeking Adonai's light and he'd no longer have His mandate hanging over his head. He'd find a way to pay off Firot and the rest of his debts eventually. For now, what mattered is that he honored his promise and protected the girl. He only had to figure out how.