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Silas went to the stable, the horse was gone. “No.” He placed the back of his hand on the horse shit. Cold, he could be miles away. “Fuck.” How will I catch him?
Hooves thudded past the stable. Silas rushed out to see a king’s guard, sat atop the white horse with the same gold blinkers as the horse he’d escaped on, though in considerably better condition.
“Water, man. Water for the king,” the king’s guard shouted at James.
James didn’t look up.
“Look at me, man. Your king requires water.”
“In here,” Silas shouted. “He’s deaf, the water’s in here.”
The king’s guard sped the horse to the stable. “As much as you can spare, and quickly. Your king requires it of you.”
“Come, help me carry it.”
The king’s guard’s golden armour rattled as he dismounted the horse, then followed Silas into the stable.
Silas spun and grabbed at the small blade on the guard’s hip, but a swift helmet to the face sent Silas to the ground.
The guard drew his sword. “You’ll die for that, peasant.”
Silas’s head fizzed with pain, he couldn’t see straight.
The horse neighed loudly, and the guard rushed out of the stable. An awful shriek followed.
Silas’s head felt like an anvil hung from it as he crawled outside. James came into view as he backed away from the guard, his arm a bloody mess, barely attached to his body.
“I must follow him,” James shouted. “I need to see more.”
The guard drove his sword into James’s chest. “Fucking peasant.”
Silas felt woozy, his legs barely holding him up, but it was die fighting or die on his back. Not here, not now.
He lunged for the guard, wrapping his arm around his neck and collapsing backwards. The air burst out of him under the weight of the guard and all his armour. He gasped as he squeezed as tight as he could, using his other hand to pull it tighter still. Silas screamed, muscles burning as he wrapped his legs around the guard who flailed and hissed above him.
The guard gargled as he clawed at Silas’s forearm. There was nothing more Silas could do but hold on and scream louder, and it wasn’t long until the guard only pawed, then went limp.
Silas moaned as he pushed at the heavy torso, sucking in deep breaths as he wiggled from underneath. Free of the body, he turned onto all fours and puked red wine over his hands, then collapsed.
A woman cried nearby. Mother? Pain slowly spread across Silas’s body as he opened one eye. It wasn’t his mother. James’s wife, Maria, knelt over James, ashy black smudges smeared across her face and clothes.
Silas tried to call her name but only managed a gasp. The guard lay next to him, bloodshot eyes bulging from their sockets. Silas groaned as he tried to roll onto his side.
Maria crawled over to Silas at speed and began beating him with her fists. “What did you do? What did you do?”
Silas tried to reach up to stop her, but she easily knocked away his feeble defence.
Maria sat back, head in hands. “What is happening? I don’t understand.”
Silas tried to speak as he forced his head up, but dizziness came like he’d received a left hook.
The next time he woke, his forehead was cool. He blinked a single eye and reached up to feel a wet rag. He was back in the stable, head propped up on straw. The rest of him was a dirty, bloody mess. Hands covered in scratches and bruises. He groaned. The horse, where is the horse?
The snort of a horse outside brought a most welcome feeling of relief. All is not lost, I can still get to him. He felt over his eye, crusty and swollen closed. He tried to slip a finger into it to prise it open, but the pain was too much. He swallowed, even struggling to do that.
Maria stood at the door. “Did you kill the man who killed my husband?”
“Yes.”
