The Queen of Grass and Tree (Southwind Knights #2)

Chapter Two, Part 6

Galen approached the shack alone, his feet finding each quiet patch of grass. He held his ear to the door.

“We should help him,” Finn whispered.

Galen rested a hand on the door’s bent handle. His legs tensed and head bowed as though he were measuring beats in his mind. Then, in one motion, he swung the door open, leaned inside and pulled a man out by the neck.

The man screamed as Galen threw him down into the grass and pressed a boot against his chest. He was young and weak. There was no fight in him.

“Please!” he cried. And when he saw Galen’s mutilated face, he panicked. “No! I didn’t do nothing!”

Finn stepped out of the tree cover, and Asher followed him, letting Harriet free.

“I’m not watching any more prisoners,” Finn said.

The new voice startled the man, and his eyes flicked in fear to Finn and back to Galen. “Prisoner? No, please, masters. I done nothing wrong! Just a traveler stopped to rest. None was here, and no sign of nothing. Didn’t know this was your home!”

Galen removed his foot, and the man scrambled to his feet. He was thin and mousy, rubbing his chest through a faded gray fabric.

“Go,” Galen said.

Without hesitation, the man took off into the woods, but Galen’s voice halted him.

“The city is that way,” Galen said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, to the east.

“Thanks!” the man said, but he resumed his way westward. The crunching beneath his feet faded. Galen watched him go, staring in that direction long after the man had left.

“So that was or wasn’t your master?” Finn said.

As Galen disappeared into the tiny shack, Asher brought Harriet and the mustang into the clearing and relieved them of their burdens.

“Where is he, then?” Finn called out.

The Healer emerged, shaking his head. “Said he was going for a walk.” He shrugged. “That was about a year ago.”

The shack was too small for more than one occupant, so they set camp in the area out front. The animals were allowed to roam, and the boys spent the waning hours practicing with Galen’s bow. When night fell, they gathered wood and set a blaze in the fire pit. They sat around, enjoying the warmth.

“If I can just get one chance,” Finn said, “I’ll prove myself to them.” He’d been a quick study with the bow, though the tips of his fingers blistered open.

Finn couldn’t wait to go, but Asher was troubled. He had until morning to select a path, though he knew which he would choose. “What’ll you do?” he asked Galen.

Galen fit a bough into the fire. “Set up here, like before. Healers are always in demand, especially the way this country is going.”

Asher stared into the fire.

“I’d offer this place to you two,” Galen said. “But it seems you’re doing well enough for yourselves.” He took a knife and a thick branch from their pile, and he began to whittle.

There was a hint of loneliness in Galen’s voice. The man was giving Asher an opening to join him. The boy didn’t take it, but he wasn’t sure how to tell him no.

The Healer glanced over at Asher, who was lost in thought.

“Sleep on it.”

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