Outlaws, she decided, rising from the crouch. Not my concern.

More screams, a babble of incoherent pleading, choked off into sudden terrible silence.

Reva thought of the outlaws she had killed at Rhansmill, of corpse-fucking Kella and the others who had not troubled her sleep one whit since.

She sheathed the sword to conceal its gleam, shouldered the quiver, hefted the bow and started forward, moving as Al Sorna had taught her when they hunted, foot raised only enough to clear the ground, strides short, crouched low. The flickering cone of the fire grew as she neared it, flames rising high from logs stacked in the centre of a clearing, dark forms moving in silhouette, a voice raised in fierce conviction.

She dropped to the ground when she got within thirty paces of the fire, crawling forward, the bow in her left hand, the string resting on the upper side of her forearm. A few moments of crawling brought something into focus, something that made her stop. A heavyset man standing with his back to the fire, eyes scanning the forest with diligent attention. He wore a sword on his back and cradled a crossbow in the crook of his arm, drawn and loaded. A sentry. No outlaw was ever so conscientious or well armed.

Reva crept a little closer, slow and careful, fingers sweeping the ground for twigs or dry leaves which might betray her, unseen by the sentry who, she now saw, wore a black cloak. The Fourth Order.

The voice became clearer as she closed, the speaker moving into view, a lean, sallow-faced man, also cloaked in black, gesticulating towards something off to the right as he spouted an unhesitating tirade: “. . . as Deniers you live, as Deniers you will die, your souls cast forth into oblivion, finding no refuge amongst the Departed, the falsehood that makes you wretched in this life will earn you an eternity of solitude in the Beyond . . .”

Reva waited until the sentry’s eyes shifted to the left then rose as high as she dared, following the direction of the speaker’s frantic gestures. There were four of them, all bound and gagged, a man and a woman, plus a little girl no more than ten years old and a beefy boy maybe five or six years older. Two black-cloaked brothers stood behind them with swords drawn. The boy was the most animated of the group, straining against his bonds which consisted of a stave thrust between his elbows and his back, lashed tight enough to gouge the bare flesh of his arms. A six-inch length of wood had been jammed into his mouth and tied in place with twine. Spittle flowed over his chin as he raged, his eyes alive with fury, not directed at the ranting black-cloak but beyond him at the fire.

Reva looked closer and saw there was a darker form visible through the flames, something blackened and vaguely human in shape, something that gave off a stench of burning meat.

“You!” the sallow-faced speaker pointed an accusing finger at the bound man who, unlike the boy, knelt in his bonds with his head bowed in dumb submission. “You who have ensnared your children in this falsehood, corrupted them with your Denial, you will witness the fate you have reaped for them.”

One of the black-cloaks took hold of the man’s hair and jerked his head back, revealing a face curiously absent of fear or rage, the eyes tearful but showing no sign of terror as the ranting brother loomed closer.

“See this, Denier,” he hissed, face twisted and red in the fire’s glow as he took hold of the little girl, dragging her to her feet. “See what you have wrought.”

The girl squealed and twisted in his grip but he lifted her easily, advancing towards the fire. The beefy boy’s scream was choked by his gag as he surged to his feet only to be clubbed to the ground by one of the brothers, a sword hilt coming down hard between his shoulder blades.

Reva’s eyes took in the scene in the space of a heartbeat, the ranter, the two by the captives, the sentry. Four that she could see, no doubt more she couldn’t, all well armed, none of them drunken outlaws. It was a hopeless prospect, and this was not her mission. The choice was clear.

The sentry died first, taken by her knife as she stepped out of the blackness, clutching at the gaping wound in his throat and falling face-first to the ground with barely a groan. Reva sheathed the knife, notched an arrow to the bow and sent it into the back of the ranter as he raised the girl above his head. He collapsed instantly, dropping the girl who thrashed at him with frantic kicks of her small legs, scrabbling free.

Reva had time for one more arrow as the two remaining brothers recovered from their shock and turned to face her, swords ready. She chose the one closest to her, the one who had been forcing the man to witness the girl’s end. He was quick, dodging to the left as she drew a bead on his chest, but not quick enough. The shaft took him in the shoulder, sending him sprawling. She drew her sword and advanced on the other, killing the wounded brother with a slash to the neck as she passed.

His companion moved from behind the captives, raising a crossbow. With a howl the beefy boy launched himself at the brother, his shoulder connecting with an audible crunch of breaking ribs, pitching the black-cloak into the fire. He screamed and flailed in the flames, tumbling free to roll on the ground, voicing his pain in a continuous torrent of high-pitched yelps.

A shout drew Reva’s attention to the left where three more brothers came charging out of the blackness, crossbows raised. Reva glanced at the boy, crouched on his knees, eyes wide and pleading above the gag.

She turned and sprinted for the trees, ducking to scoop up the fallen bow, a crossbow bolt fluttering her hair before the darkness claimed her.

She stopped after twenty paces, turned and crouched, taking two great breaths then forcing stillness into her body as she waited. The three black-cloaks were all anger and confusion, aiming kicks at the boy to vent their fury before heaping earth on their smouldering brother, babbling at each other about their next course of action, standing in a row, outlined against the fire.

Not so hopeless a prospect after all, Reva thought, raising the bow and taking aim.

? ? ?

The boy was named Arken, his sister Ruala, the mother Eliss and the father Modahl. The body on the fire belonged to Modahl’s mother, her name had been Yelna although Ruala and Arken called her Gramma. Reva had no inclination to ask the only surviving brother his name so kept on calling him Ranter.

“God-worshipping witch!” he cried at her from his place slumped against a tree trunk, his legs splayed out on the earth before him, slack and useless. Reva’s arrow had punched clean through his spine, leaving him dead below the waist. Sadly, his voice was unaffected. “Only with the aid of the Dark could you slaughter my brothers so,” he accused, waving an unsteady finger at her. His skin was pale and clammy, his eyes increasingly dull. Killing him would have been a mercy, but Modahl had stopped her wielding the knife the night before.

“He was going to burn your daughter alive,” she pointed out.

“What is mercy?” he said, his long face tense with fresh grief but still devoid of any anger, his eyebrows raised as if he were asking a sincere question.

“What?” she replied, frowning.

“Mercy is the sweetest wine and the bitterest wormwood,” Eliss, the mother, said. “For it rewards the merciful and shames the guilty.”

“The Catechism of Knowledge,” Arken informed Reva, heaving a black-cloaked body onto the fire. His voice had a bitter edge to it. “She’s obviously Cumbraelin, Father,” he said to Modahl. “I doubt she wants to hear your lessons.”

Catechism? “You are of the Faith?” she asked in surprise. She had expected to find them adherents of one of the myriad nonsensical sects appearing out of the shadows since the Edict of Toleration.

“The true Faith,” Modahl said. “Not the perversion followed by these deluded souls.”

Ranter said something, scattering earth with his breath. It sounded like “Denier lies!”

“Tell me if this hurts,” Reva said, reaching down to pluck her arrow from his back. It didn’t, he couldn’t feel it.

The burnt brother had also survived her attack but succumbed to his wounds before the sun came up. He had screamed for quite some time and once again Modahl had stood in her way when she went to silence him. Nonplussed, she busied herself with aiding Arken in consigning the bodies to the fire.

“This one was skilled,” she commented, hefting the legs of the tallest brother, the last one to fall. “Expect he was Realm Guard before the Fourth Order took him.”

“Not skilled enough for you,” Arken said, lifting the corpse by the shoulders. “I’m glad you made him suffer.”

Was that what she had done? She had certainly played with him a little. After the others had fallen to her arrows, he had managed to duck the final shaft, running for the safety of the forest. She met him at the edge of the clearing, sword in hand. He was fast, experienced and knew many tricks. She knew more, and was faster. She made it last longer than it should, feeling her skill grow with every parry and thrust, every scar she left on his face or arms, like a lesson with Al Sorna only played for real. She finished it with a thrust to the chest when she caught sight of the little girl weeping on the ground, still bound and gagged.

Forgive me my indulgences, World Father.

Modahl said the words as the flames grew high, calling on his family to thank Yelna for the gift of her life, to remember her kindness and wisdom and to reflect on the flawed choices that had brought these unfortunate men to their end. Reva stood apart, cleaning the blood from her sword, seeing how Arken’s face darkened as his father spoke on, glaring at him with a fury that seemed to border on hatred.