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What kind of monster am I becoming?
“Nay, Edrick. I gave them my vow.”
Edrick wheeled beside him and crossed his mail-covered hands over his horse’s flowing mane. “At what price? Are you willing to pay with your life? That of your family’s? I’d never put Kathryn at risk so recklessly. Please, Rowan, as your friend, I beg you to consider the consequences. I won’t let you walk away. I care for you far too much. Ever since we were boys, you’ve been like a brother to me.”
Rowan stared at his friend long and hard. Edrick’s eyes pleaded with him. Rowan gripped the reins, a barely restrained heat pulsating through his veins. He could make out the townsfolk at work in the village below, not three miles south. Men, women, and children labored in the cold wasteland that had become their home, bundled under heavy skins and cloaks.
Those were the lucky ones. Many wore naught more than shirtsleeves—a mockery of warmth amid a relentless winter.
They stood there, mounts side by side, until the sun dropped from the sky and painted Norland in swashes of orange and red. It looked picturesque. Even peaceful. But inside of Rowan’s heart… that was chaos.
He closed his eyes; the inside of his eyelids wept blood. He saw beautiful, exotic Beatrice, her hand on her belly, humming softly… a melody as sweet as Norland’s summer wind.
“Pray we to that child, and to his mother dear,
Grant them His blessing that now make cheer…”
But that was when summer still sang, and the breeze blew warm. Now winter had come, and the chill in the air had frozen the blood in Norland’s veins.
Rowan hanged them all by dawn. Priests and the villagers. He walked through the forest of gallows as the carrion crows and ravens circled the village. They squawked and screamed from naked tree branches, swooping down to pick at the hanging corpses when the opportunity presented itself. Rowan crossed his arm over his body and rested his hand on his sword’s pommel. He traced the snarling wolf’s head as he stood amid all that death and destruction—a massacre caused by his own hands.
Who am I becoming…
He wandered through that forest, feeling the agony of every soul. He stopped before a gallows, where a boy hanged in shirtsleeves far too thin for the weather. He’d picked up his father’s sword for the first time a week ago. The promise of a rebellion that could bring warmth back into his life had seduced him.
And now here he hung, cold and alone. Rowan cursed, and his breath showed white against the frosty night air.
“They are supposed to be up all winter,” Edrick cautioned. “I like it no more than you do.”
“They’ve endured enough winter. Let them know some warmth in death, for mercy’s sake.”
He withdrew his longsword; it echoed shrilly, almost like a scream, as it left the scabbard. Then he cut into the rope just above the boy’s head. It took three powerful slashes to get him down.
Rowan was out of breath from the exertion and surge of anger. His fingers loosened on the hilt, and the longsword made a dull, hollow sound as it hit the gallows’ wood platform. Rowan fell beside his sword and the boy. Edrick gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. This pains me as well.”
Rowan shoved his hand away and stared up at his friend with a look of pure loathing. “Leave me,” he spat.
Rowan inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with Norland’s ice-cold air. An hour later, he stood over a gaping hole in the earth. He stared off into the horizon, where the sun sank below a blanket of low-hanging clouds. Orange and red streaked the sky. He stood at the precipice of a cliff that overlooked the town. Edrick walked between the gallows and hanging bodies—the only sign of movement in that sea of death.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thouartwith me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me…
But he was no shepherd. Rowan Dietrich was a wolf, he conceded, glancing at his waving banner in the distance.
My father’s gray wolf.
He shrugged away his heavy cloak and wrapped the boy. He looked impossibly small, lost in the dark material, his flesh pale against the black of his cloak. Rowan inhaled, then slowly blew all the air out.
“I’m so sorry,” he muttered, carefully scooping the limp body into his arms. Then he laid him down in the hole. Such an unfortunate place for so young a boy to dwell for eternity. That thought disturbed Rowan more than he could say. “Rest now.”
He scooped a handful of earth, and just as he was about to sprinkle it over the body, the boy’s face seemed to morph. His face’s sharp, malnourished lines softened and shifted.
A nauseous feeling overcame Rowan as he looked down at his wife’s features. He blinked, and her likeness faded away, leaving behind the poor boy’s face again.
Rowan looked off into the horizon as if he’d find an answer there… or maybe forgiveness. He tried to bring a prayer to mind. None would come. Not while those priests hung.
Then he spotted Edrick again, and the words flowed like the Rockbluff River.
He covered the boy with earth, where his fragile, small bones would return to the dust.
