Ashborn: The Hunter Who Returned Before the End

Chapter 18 — Exile on the Northern Road

They traveled north under false names.

Kael became Kalen Voss, a mercenary with a bad eye. Seris used the name Vale because she refused to invent a better one. Bram claimed to be a traveling carpenter, which made every wooden bridge they crossed nervous. Nessa remained Nessa because she said disguises interfered with scholarship.

Toma was hidden beneath the wagon’s canvas whenever they approached a checkpoint.

Greywall’s bounty notice appeared in every roadside settlement. Kael’s face had been drawn too thin, but the black mark on his palm was accurately shown. The guild offered enough coin to feed a village for a year.

“You are becoming popular,” Seris said.

“I preferred being unknown.”

“Unknown men rarely attract assassins.”

The first assassin came at dusk.

He wore a farmer’s coat and waited beside a broken milestone. Kael spotted the wire around his wrist before the man raised his crossbow. Seris threw a knife. The bolt struck the ground where Kael’s throat had been.

The assassin drew a curved blade and attacked without speaking.

Kael parried twice, but the third strike slipped through and opened his cheek. The man was skilled, trained by the guild rather than the Hollow King. That made the fight more dangerous. Monsters obeyed patterns. Hunters learned from mistakes.

Kael let the assassin drive him toward the wagon. When the man committed to a thrust, Kael stepped aside, trapped the wrist, and drove the ash-steel pommel into his jaw. Seris kicked the back of his knee. Bram finished the fight by dropping a wheel on his arm.

Nessa searched the assassin and found a silver seal shaped like a closed eye.

“Central Warden intelligence,” she said.

Kael looked north. “Rook did not send him.”

“How do you know?”

“Rook would have sent three.”

They buried the assassin beside the milestone. Kael did not take his weapon. A man who hunted from a false name deserved to keep one secret.

That night, Seris sat beside the fire while Kael stitched his cheek.

“You knew the attack was coming,” she said.

“The wire reflected moonlight.”

“You knew he was trained.”

“His stance.”

“You knew he would choose the third strike.”

Kael tied the thread. “You ask many questions.”

“You answer none.”

The fire cracked between them.

Seris’s expression softened. “My younger brother disappeared during the first winter after the rifts. The guild told me he had been taken by wolves. I found his coat in a sealed archive three years later.”

Kael said nothing.

“The coat had a black mark on the sleeve,” she continued. “The same symbol now living in your hand.”

Kael looked at the mark.

“You should leave,” he said.

“Because I might discover what you are?”

“Because the truth is expensive.”

Seris leaned closer. “I have been paying for it since I was sixteen.”

Their faces were close enough for Kael to feel her breath. The moment held, dangerous and unspoken, until Elia shouted from the wagon.

“The boy is missing!”

Kael stood.

Toma’s blanket lay empty. Beside it, a line of wet footprints led north into the dark.

The footprints were too small for an adult and too deep for a child. Each one held a thin layer of salt that glittered beneath the moon. Kael followed them beyond the camp, across a field where the grass had died in perfect circles.

Seris moved silently at his side. “You think this is another lure.”

“It is.”

“And you are following it.”

“The lure is the only road we have.”

They found Toma at the edge of the marsh just before dawn. He stood in black water, staring toward a temple that should not have been visible from the road. The silver feather in his hand was wet, but it did not bend.

“Who gave you that?” Kael asked.

Toma looked at him with terrified eyes.

“The woman who remembers dying.”

Behind the temple, something moved beneath the fog. The marsh answered with a low, patient breathing.

Kael tightened his grip on the sword. The road behind them was already disappearing beneath a veil of gray mist, leaving the marsh as their only direction.

Seris stepped into the water beside him, and together they followed the boy’s footprints toward the temple.

The mud swallowed their boots.