Galan woke at first light to the sound of his mother moving about the hearth, stirring a pot of porridge bubbling above the fire. The interior of the daub and wattle farmhouse was chilly, only just beginning to warm from the hearthfire. The plank wood floor was icy cold when his bare feet touched it. He pulled his boots on and that helped a bit. It should not be so cold this late in the year. Breakfast was a bowl of hot oaten porridge with honey, bannock bread baked in the ashes of the hearth, and thistle tea, and after that came the morning chores, feeding the chickens and the cow and the horse and weeding the garden.

  Their home lay to the north of town, surrounded by oaks and pines in an airy wood. Their nearest neighbor was a mile off to the west, and two miles to the south. There was no one to the north or the east. Theirs was the last farm before the wilderness. The woods had been his playground as a child. Nora's farm was the closest to theirs, and they had often met to play under the trees for as long as Galan could remember.

  The woods were off limits for the foreseeable future. The discovery of the three bodies near the Ashlock farm had seen to that. Even worse, Grayar Callahan had called off his journey to the horse fair. It wasn’t fair. The one time his mother agreed to let him go, and this happened.

  Ambermill was in an uproar.

  In the afternoon, Sheora sent him into Ambermill to bring a basket of fresh eggs to Liddy and fetch back a bolt of wool that had come in on a recent wagon from Stormgarde. The day was bright and warm for once.

  It was an easy walk into town, one that Galan knew well. He kept an eye out though, not for bandits or highwaymen, or even the strange shadow, not so close to town, but for Caleb or Behil or any of the other boys. Sometimes they liked to catch him on the road and chase him, and sometimes they caught him. Not often, being smaller and more agile he could usually outrun the bigger boys, unless they cornered him. Sometimes he came home from trips into town with bruises or a black eye.

  Caleb and Behil were waiting for him outside the inn when Galan emerged from making his delivery. Liddy had given him a hot honeycake, and he was eating it as he went out the kitchen door. The cake went flying to land in the dust of the road when Behil came up behind him and gave him a shove. Galan managed to hang on to his mother's bolt of wool and regained his feet. He spun to face his attackers.

  “What’cha got there?” Caleb asked, closing in from the left.

  “Going to sew yourself a dress?” Behil was bigger than Caleb and older too. A faint shadow of a beard showed on his chin. He'd been trying to grow one of late, but his efforts only made him look as though he hadn't washed.

  “It's for my mother,” Galan said, clutching the bolt to his chest.

  “Naw, the little long ear is going sew himself a dress,” Caleb said. That was one of their names for him, long ear. They liked to call him a girl, too. He was small and slight, pale where they were ruddy, and his pointed ears showed plainly through his short sandy hair.

  Galan tried to run, but Alin stepped out from around a corner of the inn and cut him off. A few people crossing the village green had started to take notice. Caleb seized Galan by the back of his tunic and hauled him into an alley between the smithy and the inn.

  Alin held his arms while Caleb and Behil worked him over. He tried to call for help, but that only earned him a black eye. There was no fighting back against those three. Each was twice his size even though they only had a few years on him.

  “What's going on here?” Nora's voice cut through the older boys' laughs and japes. They turned to face her at the end of the alley.

  “It's none of your concern,” Caleb said. Alin still held Galan by the arms.

  “It is my concern,” Nora said. “Alin, let him go.”

  Alin held his grip on Galan. “Go away,” he said.

  “If you don't let him go, I'll go inside and get Liddy,” Nora said. “Behil, she hit you with a rolling pin the last time, as I recall.”

  “She missed,” Behil said. Still, Alin let go. Galan gathered up the bolt of wool, dirty now that it had fallen in the alley. Nora put her arm around his shoulders and led him away. Caleb and his friends watched them go.

  Nora brushed the dirt off Galan's face. He could feel his eye swelling already. He would have a nasty bruise there. “Come on,” she said. “Ma has a poultice for your eye.” She led him from the town proper and down the wooded lane.

  The Mosswood farm was a well to do homestead, with a neat, orderly vegetable garden out front, a dozen chickens under foot and neatly fenced fields out back, where they grew barley. Their farm was not in the woods, but on the edge.

  Nora's mother was a tall, round woman whose white apron was always immaculate, no matter what she had cooking over the hearth. Today it was a hearty beef and barley stew. She tsked when she saw Galan's face.

  “Those boys again?” she asked, ushering him to a seat at the table. Galan nodded. “You must stay away from them. This is what, the third time this month?”

  “They were waiting for him outside the inn,” Nora said.

  “Your mother should keep you home, lad,” Goodwife Mosswood said. She bustled about her kitchen and finally returned with a lidded stoneware jar. “Now, let's see to that bruise.” Her gentle fingers spread a white salve around Galan's eye. It was cooling and smelled of wintergreen. After that, it wouldn’t do but to stay for supper. Goodwife Mosswood insisted on feeding him whenever she saw him. “You're so skinny you're like to fall through a crack in the floor,” she often said.

  Nora came from a large family. The farmhouse grew crowded as her father and brothers came in out of the fields. No one was at all surprised to see Galan. He often came to the Mosswood farm, since they were his nearest neighbors. None of her four brothers were particularly friendly with him. Farlen, the youngest at eight years old, had played with him and Nora a few times, until their older brothers called him away one day to talk in hushed whispers. Whatever they had said, Farlen hadn't played with him again. Nora was the only one out of the Mosswood children that paid him any mind.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The stew was hot and good, thick with barley and carrots and onions, served with hot oat bread and fresh butter. It was dark by the time Galan started for home, carrying his bolt of woolen cloth and a basket Goodwife Mosswood had given him, filled with two loaves of the same brown bread, a small crock of butter, and a covered bowl of stew, wrapped in a thick towel to keep it hot. Goodwife Mosswood often sent him home with an extra meal for Mother when he stayed for supper at the Mosswood farm.

  The dark deepened around him as he walked. He often walked home in the dark, though, and it did not scare him, not anymore. No wolves or bears came near Ambermill, not for many years, and no bandits or highwaymen either. The moon was half-full, casting darker shadows through the trees.

  There was a red glow ahead through the trees. As Galan walked, he wondered what it could be. He had not seen a glow against the sky like that before, and it seemed to be coming from where home was. He walked faster. Something was not right.

  The smell of smoke met his nose. It was not the smell of a hearthfire, carrying with it the scents of the evening's meal. This smoke was different. He started to run.

  The fire blazed against the night sky. He could see the red flames licking up at the sky from the end of the lane. The farmhouse and the little barn out back were both ablaze. Flames licked out of the little windows and ate the thatch of the roof.

  Galan stood by the yard, staring in disbelief. The bolt of woolen cloth and basket of food fell from his arms. He screamed for mother, but there was no answer. There was no sound at all but the roar and crackle of flames.

  A hand laid upon his shoulder. Galan whirled and stumbled back. A figure cloaked and hooded stood behind him. The man might have been made of shadow for all the detail he could see. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “A friend. Come away from this place. It isn't safe.”

  A shadow stirred at the figure's side. Yellow eyes reflected the firelight. A big gray dog, nearly waist high. No, not a dog. A wolf. Even in his stupor, he recognized that animal.

  “You're the one they call the Nightwolf,” Galan said.

  “I am. Come. The ones who did this have not gone far.” He took Galan by the arm and led him away.

  “Where are you taking me?” Galan twisted, but couldn't break that iron grasp.

  “The inn. You'll be safe there.”

  Galan had expected the ranger to lead him back to the road, but instead the man took him through the woods. Galan's head swam. If the ranger had been leading him off a cliff, he wouldn’t have known. The man did not let up his grip on Galan's arm, pulling him roughly along. He stared at the ground and at the wolf padding silently alongside. Every so often it looked up and met his gaze with bright yellow eyes. They heard shouts and saw the flicker of torches through the trees. The neighbors had taken note of the fire.

  Galan was strangely numb. He knew... he knew, yet he didn't dare let the thought come to the front of his mind.

  One moment they were in the woods, the next they were in the outskirts of Ambermill. Candles flickered orange and yellow in many windows. It was not late yet. The ranger crossed the green and brought Galan to the inn's kitchen door. He knocked twice, then three times in rapid succession.

  Liddy opened the door and ushered them both inside. The kitchen was warm and bright. The wolf followed them in and flopped down in front of the hearth, head on paws. She wrapped Galan in a tight hug. “I'm so sorry,” she said. She knew, it seemed. How could she know? “Are you hurt?”

  Galan shook his head. He didn't trust himself to speak.

  Liddy looked to the ranger. “Was there anyone else?”

  The ranger had not removed his cloak or even his hood. The deep cowl shadowed his face, though his eyes seemed strangely bright. He shook his head. “The farm is a ruin. Nothing got out of there.”

  Galan began to sob. Somehow, the ranger's simple words had made it real. Liddy hugged him tighter, and drew him from the kitchen, down a short hall and into a small bedchamber. There was a narrow bed, a side table, a chair, all simply made, but sturdy. Liddy lit a candle on the side table. It seemed strange that Galan noticed such things, at such a time.

  Liddy sat with him for a long time, trying to offer what comfort she could. Her words rang hollow as he cried on her shoulder. Afterward, he couldn’t have recalled anything she had said. Eventually, his sobs died away. Liddy left him, and he curled up on the narrow mattress. He dragged the blanket over him and blew out the candle, plunging the room into blackness. He did not sleep.

  To his surprise, he could hear Liddy and the ranger called the Nightwolf talking in the kitchen. The wall must have been paper thin, for he could hear every word.

  “Something hit that place hard,” the ranger was saying. “Whatever it was struck and retreated, and set the fire to cover its tracks and draw the boy out. I drove it away, but it will be back.”

  “Well, what's done is done,” Liddy said. “I'll have to make arrangements to speed up our plans. The boy has six years yet before he is of age, so I had hoped we had more time to prepare. Did you get a look at the assassin before you let him get away?”

  Galan could hear the bristle in the ranger's voice as he responded. “Whoever or whatever did this used no small bit of stealth. They struck and vanished, likely within minutes. I had a sense of it when I came for the boy, but it melted away into the night. If I did not have to fetch the boy back here, I might have pursued it. Why is he so important?”

  “It's better if you know only what you need to know. Don't look at me like that, you know why. This is the most important task I have ever set before you, and I wouldn’t keep you in the dark unless I had too.”

  “I don't like this.”

  “What you do and do not like are none of my concern,” Liddy said. She had a stern note in her voice that she usually reserved for drunken patrons who had overstayed their welcome. “You work for me; in case you have forgotten. You will do as you are bid.”

  “How could I forget? You do seem to love to remind me of how much I owe you. What is this task you have for me?”

  “You will take the boy to Hardcoast. There will be a ship waiting there to take him across to the mainland. You will get him there by the safest roads and keep him away from prying eyes.”

  “Find someone else. I have no interest in traveling some village boy through the wilderness.”

  “There is no one else I trust in this,” Liddy said. Her tone softened. “Please Amon, I need you in this. I do not trust that anyone else will be able to stand against this assassin.”

  “Fine,” the ranger said. “I expect to be well-paid for this.”

  “You will be,” Liddy said. “And I will see that you have enough coin to get yourself and the boy to Hardcoast with some comfort. I will have your word that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone. Even Galan does not know, and it wouldn’t do for him to find out everything too soon.”

  “You have my word.”

  “I will tell you only that the boy is highborn, and very important to some very important people. The woman who died tonight in that farmhouse was not his mother, but a loyal servant who devoted her life to keeping him safe. We had hoped to wait a few more years, but the events of tonight have pushed us into motion. I cannot tell you more, but everything will come to light in the end. I require you only to take him to Hardcoast. Once there, if you choose to give him over to my agents on the ship and go back to your hermit’s life, then that is your choice. You may go with him or not as you choose. I am asking too much of you, I know, but you must trust me in this.”

  The voices died away. Galan lay in the darkness, tears running down his face. He hadn't been meant to hear any of that, he knew. He could barely understand any of it, anyways. Why had Liddy said that? Of course Sheora was his mother. He wasn’t highborn. He couldn’t be. It was impossible.