"Thank you, child! Thank the Seven!" Mona collapsed at Kevin's feet, her hands clutching his surcoat, her eyes streaming with tears of raw gratitude. "You must be an avatar of the Mother herself!"
Behind her, Old Joby sat up on the cot, his hand wandering over the smooth skin of his back. He rolled off the bed and onto his knees, his voice a hoarse rasp. "The gods watch over us! The Light has returned!"
Kevin, having witnessed this scene a hundred times beside Aldric, handled it with practiced grace. He gently lifted the elders, whispered instructions for them to rest, and slipped out of the cottage into the cool night air.
Outside, Morley leaned in close. "Kevin... do we really need the long prayer every time we cast Sun-Mend?"
Kevin lowered his voice. "The spell works without the words. But the Master calls it 'The Weight of Ritual.' When people hear the prayer, they trust the healing. It makes the miracle feel earned. In the beginning, he used to make the whole family chant with him. I'm already using the short version."
Morley nodded. He was a former merchant's apprentice who could read and write—manpower Aldric wanted for administration—but Morley had insisted on the front lines. He was still learning that a Sunwalker was as much a mummer as a soldier.
Brother Rune, the old village monk, approached them with a hesitant gait. "Child... no, Lord Kevin—"
"I am no Lord, Brother," Kevin interrupted. "I am a seeker of the Sun. Call me brother, if you wish."
Rune swallowed hard. "Brother Kevin, then. Tell me... I heard you call upon the Seven, but you also called upon Anshe. Is this power from the Father, or from this new name?"
Kevin saw the opening. He took a cup of water and, using a trick Aldric had taught him, caught the firelight to refract a small, shimmering rainbow against the stone wall. Rune gasped, tracing the sign of the seven-pointed star over his heart.
"Anshe is the source, Brother Rune. The Seven are the refractions. The old hierarchy has hidden the Sun from you to keep you weak. Don't you want to bring the true Grace back to your people?"
Rune didn't argue, nor did he agree. He simply bowed his head and continued whispering the old scriptures.
"Haste is the enemy of the harvest," Kevin muttered, recalling one of Aldric's many proverbs. He signaled to Morley to let the old man be.
That night, Dancing Village feasted the Brotherhood. It was a meager spread of hidden grain and salt, but the spirit was high. Two village girls tried to entice Kevin and Morley into the shadows for "games," but the Sunwalkers—bound by Aldric's strict code of conduct—declined. The "mercy" was left to two younger Brotherhood outlaws who were less concerned with the purity of the Light.
At dawn, as the Brotherhood saddled their horses, Lrand noticed Rune and two other monks standing by the gate with packed sacks.
"You're leaving?" Lrand asked, surprised.
"I must see this sanctuary Kevin describes," Rune smiled. "The statues are gone, the glass is broken, but the people are healed. They no longer need a keeper of ruins. They need the Light."
Kevin offered a grim, approving nod. "My Master welcomes any who seek the Sun."
The party grew to thirty souls as they moved southwest along the road. The sight of Karstark sunbursts on the prisoners drew alarm from every village they passed until Lrand explained they were captives. At the holdfast of Torrentpeak, the captain of the guard shared a cup of wine with Lrand.
"Careful with those Northmen," the captain warned. "A dozen riders in those same colors passed through yesterday. Their leader was a one-handed boy claiming to be the King's man. He demanded we open the gates. When I refused, they shot at my sentries and called us traitors. Vulgar barbarians."
Lrand turned to Kevin. "That's the party we're hunting. They're on our path."
They pushed the horses, reaching the village of Brenn before dusk. They didn't find a welcome. They found bodies in the road. Screams echoed from the cottages.
Lrand sent Tom to scout. The woodsman returned quickly. "Ten horses in the stables. Three villagers hanging from the Great Oak. It's them."
Lrand looked at his prisoners. He feared a betrayal in the heat of battle. He turned to Kevin. "Can you... disable them? Wound them so they can't run, but live?"
Kevin drew his sword. "A gut-nick will keep them on the ground until morning."
"No!" Conrad shouted, having overheard. "Kevin, give us our steel! We will fight for you!"
Lrand sneered. "They're your kin, Karstark men. You'd kill your own?"
"Lord Rickard was a good man," Conrad spat, "but his captains treat us like fodder. Give me a chance to see Aldric with my head held high!"
Kevin and Lrand shared a look. "Give them their gear," Lrand ordered. "But you lot lead the way."
The battle was short and brutal. The Karstark riders charged out of the village, but the Silver Hand veterans knew their tactics. They used pikes to stall the horses, stripping the cavalry of their speed. Lrand and the Brotherhood riders slammed into the flanks.
The Mummers of the North were broken in minutes. Most were cut down; the survivors were bound and dragged to the village square.
As Kevin finished healing a Brotherhood scout, a voice rasped from the dirt. "Kevin... boy... give me a touch of that Light. My shoulder is screaming."
Kevin turned. A man in battered plate lay bound in the mud. Kevin signaled a guard to remove the helmet. "Sergeant Edi. It's been a moon."
Edi offered a greasy, desperate smile. "Too long, lad. Too long. Look, tell them to loosen these ropes. We'll have a cup of wine, talk about the old days."
Kevin's face was a mask of ice. "How about a warm bed and a girl to keep you company, Edi? Is that what you want?"
Edi's eyes lit up. "Now you're talking! Young Torrhen would like that too." He gestured to a knight in heavy, polished armor.
Torrhen Karstark, the youngest son of the executed Lord Rickard, stood up. He had lost his left hand at the Whispering Wood—saved only by Aldric's intervention. He had stayed with the army when the Silver Hand split.
"Kevin Turner," Torrhen said, trying to summon a lordly dignity despite the mud. "You know my house. I demand the treatment befitting my station."
Kevin didn't move. "Crouch down, 'Lord.' We'll decide what you're worth soon enough."
Torrhen started to argue, but a guard slammed a wooden pole into the back of his knees, forcing him into the muck.
"Kevin!" Edi barked. "That's no way to treat a high-born!"
Kevin looked at his hands, then at Edi. He walked over, hauled the old mercenary up by his collar, and began to hammer his iron-clad fist into Edi's face.
"High-born?" Crack. "Gold?" Crack. "Betrayal?" Crack. "Sgt. Edi?" Crack.
Six punches left Edi's face a pulp of broken teeth and blood. The other prisoners stared in terrified silence. They remembered Kevin as the harsh drill-master; they had forgotten he was a student of the man who killed three men for a single crime.
Kevin cast a weak Light-Flash to stop Edi's bleeding, then stood up, breathing hard. "Learn when to shut your mouth, old man."
Lrand and the villagers emerged from the cottages. The stories were the same: rape, theft, torture.
"They're soldiers of the King!" Edi screamed, spitting blood. "We have the right to forage! Refusal is treason!"
"No one here calls the wolf 'King' anymore," Lrand said. "And the Karstarks have no house. You're just—"
"Homeless dogs," Kevin finished.
Lrand nodded. "And a dog that bites must be put down."
The villagers brought ropes, intending to hang them from the same tree as their kin. Kevin stopped them.
"No," Kevin said. "Hanging bodies bring crows and plague. Lrand, have you heard of the Mound of Judgment?"
Kevin convinced the Brotherhood to use the ancient style of the East. The Karstark riders were brought forward one by one. When it was Edi's turn, he wailed for Aldric. "The Captain wouldn't do this! I bled for him!"
Conrad, standing by, looked away. "Goodbye, Edi. Every sellsword has his day. Yours just came a few hours before mine. May the ancestors find you."
The axe fell.
Finally, only Torrhen Karstark remained. Lrand hesitated. A Lord's son was worth a ransom that could fund the Brotherhood for a year.
"His father is dead," Kevin argued. "His brother is a puppet of Bolton. There is no gold coming for him, Lrand. And in the eyes of Anshe, a Lord's crime is no different from a beggar's. If you let him go for coin, you tell these villagers their daughters were worth a few silver stags. Is that who the Brotherhood is?"
Lrand looked at the survivors, then at the glowing power in Kevin's hands. The Sunwalker's word carried the weight of a god. He stepped back.
Torrhen's pride finally shattered. "Kevin... my father was kind to your Master. He saved the Silver Hand."
"My Master saved your life first," Kevin said. "The debt was paid in the West. You are being judged by the people you broke. I am merely the witness."
Torrhen looked around the circle of cold, grieving faces. He realized there was no chivalry here. Only the Sun.
"You'll burn for this, peasant," Torrhen hissed as he was forced down.
The axe fell.
As the villagers began to pile the heads into a cone of earth and stone—the Mound of Judgment—to warn any other "homeless dogs," Kevin watched the horizon.
"One more Lord in the dirt," he whispered. "The Sun is rising."
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