Chương 13: Tracks in Mud

By morning, Tessa was watching Ren's mouth. He sat on the rug with the spoon between his knees, one hand flat for balance and the other curled around the wooden handle. The room smelled of old wool, rain-damp shutters, and breakfast drifting up from below. The word-map sat open beside Tessa's knee, unchanged from the night before except for one fresh line of chalk under the goblin mark. Tessa had pressed so hard that chalk dust gathered along the groove. Ren looked toward the shutter. His throat tightened.

"Gah-bin," he breathed. Tessa's fingers closed around the slate edge.

"You did it again," she whispered. Ren turned back to her. She did not look proud of herself for understanding. She looked as if she had found a crack in the wall and could hear weather inside it.

"You say it when the road is loud," she said.

"Or when Papa opens the bar." Ren heard the back bar scrape downstairs. Bren muttered something under his breath. Ren's hand tightened around the spoon until his fingers hurt. Tessa heard the scrape too. Her eyes moved toward the door, then back to him.

"Goblin," she whispered. Ren slapped once. The sound was small against the rug. Tessa swallowed, picked up the slate, and went downstairs. Ren followed as far as the rug allowed, which hurt more than it helped. He planted both hands, dragged one knee under him, and crawled after her until his arms began to shake. The bedroom door stood open. Voices rose from the main room below.

"Mama," Tessa said. Elna answered from near the hearth.

"What is it?"

"He said it again." Silence followed. Ren stopped crawling. Bren's voice came next, lower than before.

"Goblin?" Tessa's answer was quiet.

"When you moved the bar." The house held still around the words. Ren pictured the main room from memory. Elna stood near the hearth with the slate within reach. Bren had one hand on the back bar. Tessa stood at the table, too small beside the adults and too stubborn to step away. Mara's bark copy had left the house yesterday. Tovin had been asked about the western ditch. The warning had already left Ren's reach. Now it returned as waiting. Somehow, waiting was worse than disbelief.

Disbelief gave Ren something to push against. Waiting gave him time to imagine failure wearing adult faces. He crawled another handspan and stopped before his elbows buckled. Resting belonged in the cycle now, whether pride liked it or not. He opened his fingers, lowered his chest to the rug, and breathed until the tremor settled. Below, Elna said, "Bren."

"I know."

"You said Tovin would check."

"He went at first light."

"And?"

"If he found anything, he will come back soon." Elna's voice sharpened.

"And if he does not know what he found?" Bren took too long to answer. A quick answer would have been comfort. A slow one meant the argument had reached the part where adults knew comfort was thin. Ren pushed up again. His arms objected. Body Conditioning held the protest below collapse. He crawled to the stair door, reached the threshold, and slapped the floor once. Tessa looked up from below. Ren could hear the movement.

"Ren?" Elna called. He slapped again, then looked at the room-facing shutter. Tessa understood first.

"He is looking at the window again." Bren's boots moved across the floor. The shutter latch clicked. Ren flinched so hard his elbow slipped. A breath later, Bren said, "There is nothing there." Nothing there yet. The words lived in Ren's head without needing anyone else to say them. Elna came upstairs soon after and found him half-sprawled near the doorway, trying to pretend the position had been chosen strategically. She did not smile, and that frightened him more than a smile would have.

"No more crawling to the stairs," she said. Ren stared at her. Lies and slander! Necessary slander, perhaps, but slander nonetheless! She lifted him, checked his forehead, then his hands, then the tremble in his arms. Her fingers lingered at his palms, where the skin had gone red from rug work.

"You are wearing yourself thin again." Ren considered objecting, but his little baby body declined to participate. Elna carried him downstairs. The main room had changed in ways too small for strangers and too large for Ren to miss. Bren's axe lay on the table within arm's reach. The water bucket had been filled and set beside the hearth. A bundle of cloth, bread, and a small knife sat under Elna's shawl on the bench. The back bar had been checked so often that flakes of old wood dust lay beneath one bracket.

Bren saw Ren looking.

"It sticks in wet weather," he said. Ren slapped Elna's shoulder once. Bren looked away first. Tessa stood by the table with the slate hugged to her chest. She had redrawn the same shapes on a broken board: door, window, road, forest, tracks, and goblin. Ren still could not read the letters, but he knew the order from the drawings. Elna sat with him on her lap and touched the cup. Ren stayed still. Then she touched the tracks. Ren slapped once. She touched the goblin. You could be reading stolen content.

Head to the original site for the genuine story. His mouth moved before his hand did.

"Gah-bin." Bren's jaw tightened. Tessa whispered, "See?" Elna did not correct her. Ren looked toward the road-facing shutter. Elna followed his gaze. The old easy words stayed out of the room. No one called it a game anymore. No one told Tessa she had frightened herself. And everybody was just a little… unsettled.

A knock came at the front door before noon. Every adult in the room turned. Bren took the axe from the table before opening it. Nela Voss stood outside with a basket on her hip and rain in her hair, though the rain had only just begun to threaten the lane. She looked at the axe, then at Bren's face.

"Well," she said, "that makes borrowing thread feel underdressed."

"Nela," Elna said. Nela stepped inside without waiting to be invited.

"Tovin went west again. He stopped at my gate long enough to ask whether the old cart road still dips behind the alder stand." Bren shut the door. Ren felt Tessa's hand move to the slate. Elna asked, "Did he say why?"

"He said he was looking for marks before the rain softened them." Nela set her basket down.

"He also said he wanted a guard to see them if he found them, which is the sort of thing a man says when he already thinks he knows something." Bren gave a short breath that nearly became a laugh. Nela pointed at him.

"Hey! Do not waste my precious sacrifice! I had to pretend I was trimming beans by the gate in this weather. Can you imagine?!" Mara arrived while Nela was still talking. She came without herbs in her hands. Her cloak was pinned wrong, and the hem had caught on burrs. She looked like someone who had walked quickly and disliked needing to.

"Elna," she said. Elna stood with Ren in her arms.

"You saw Tovin?"

"I saw him heading west with one of the watchmen." Mara looked at Bren.

"He took the bark copy with him." The room tightened. Bren's grip changed on the axe. Mara looked at the slate.

"Has Ren answered again?" Tessa lifted it.

"He says it more," she said.

"And grows visibly unsettled when things happen." Mara's eyes moved to Ren. Ren declined to perform. The shutter clicked in a damp breath of wind. His throat tightened.

"Gah-bin." Nela went still, while Mara's face sharpened as if she had found the edge of a blade under cloth.

"When things happen," Mara repeated. Tessa nodded. Mara crouched before Ren. She kept her hands to herself.

"What things?" Tessa answered before Ren could decide how to slap meaning into the floor.

"The bar. The road. The shutter. When Papa says ditch. When people say tracks." Mara looked toward the shutter. Then toward the axe. Then at Elna's bundle on the bench.

"Keep noticing," she said. Tessa stood up a little taller, proud. Ren loved Mara briefly and with renewed suspicion.

The rest of the day split between waiting and controlled motion. Adults moved through the house and lane in pieces. Bren spoke with Nela at the door. Nela carried the warning farther than any formal messenger could have managed, disguising it as gossip, errands, and moral judgment. Mara went out once and came back with mud on one side of her skirt. Elna packed and unpacked the same cloth bundle three times before leaving it near the cellar door.

Ren trained because waiting without movement made his mind gnaw itself. He crawled from the hearth blanket to the chair leg, rested before the tremor turned sloppy, gripped the rung, and pulled until his body rose high enough to see the table. Axe. Slate. Cup. Knife. Latch cord. Elna's bundle. He held long enough to choose what mattered before his arms failed. Bren caught him by the back of his tunic.

"Careful, little spark." Ren dangled for half a breath, then was settled back on the rug. His arms shook, but the movement had been cleaner than yesterday. He had looked for tools, exits, and hands instead of staring at everything. [Skill Level Increased: Athletics Lv. 8 -> Lv. 9] The message flickered in the edge of his vision. Ren read it and breathed through the ache. Tessa knelt beside him.

"Good?" Ren slapped once. Her mouth tried to smile and failed. Rain began in the afternoon. The fall was lighter than what Memory remembered. The rhythm uneven, the air warmer than that first death morning. Except the rain already stopped during the raid… Oh no, no. Memory knew the differences. It told him things he didn't want, yet needed to remember. The road darkened, the raid was getting closer. Ren lay beside the spoon with his chest hot from training and his knees aching. The shutter clicked.

Adult voices moved below him and around him. Ditch came twice. Tracks came three times. Tovin's name came once, and after that Elna stopped pretending to mend. Resting had become the hardest work in the room. He opened his hands. He slowed his breath. He let the body recover before fear could spend it empty. [Skill Level Increased: Resting Lv. 3 -> Lv. 4] The next nap came as a shallow drop against Elna's knee. He prepared it before it took him. Door, window, spoon, Tessa, Bren, axe, road, tracks.

He reviewed the chain once, then let go. [Skill Level Increased: Sleeping Lv. 5 -> Lv. 6] He woke to Tessa shaking his sleeve.

"Ren." Her voice was careful. The light had shifted toward gray. Rain tapped steadily at the shutter now, soft but constant. Tessa sat beside him with the slate in her lap. New marks crowded the road drawing, smaller and deeper than before. Downstairs, an unknown voice was speaking. He heard the name 'Tovin' and suddenly everything was clear. His voice landed with the carefulness of a man choosing each word because the wrong one might cost them something. Ren pushed up on both hands.

His arms trembled, but Body Conditioning kept the effort in order a little longer than it should have. [Skill Level Increased: Body Conditioning Lv. 4 -> Lv. 5] He crawled to the stair door with Tessa beside him. The voices below sharpened.

"Small prints," Tovin said.

"Narrow. Three forward marks, one dragged mark on some of them." Mara asked, "Children?"

"No." Bren said, "Dogs?"

"No." Silence moved through the house. Elna asked, "Goblins?" Tovin answered slowly.

"I saw goblin tracks a few times, most recently after the mill raid. These were smaller, but the shape matched." Tessa made a tiny sound. Ren slapped the floor once. He did it for himself as much as for her. The warning had worked, and the adults finally found their own proof. Finally! The house moved faster after that. Bren set the axe on the table and fetched the second hatchet from the shed without taking his eyes off the lane for more than a breath.

Elna tied Tessa's cloak, then untied it and moved her toward the cellar door instead. Mara sent Tovin toward the watch post. Nela carried the warning house to house, her voice cutting through rain and shutters. They said practical things. They said to bar the back, bring in the goats, keep children inside, find Corin, find Davi and Pella, and tell the guard. The village began to pull inward. Ren stayed on the rug with the spoon in reach. He hated waiting, so he spent what the body could spare.

He crawled once to the chair, rested, threw once at the cup, missed, rested again, gripped the rung, held, and rested before his arms failed. Tessa watched him with the slate hugged to her ribs.

"You do not have to do it now," she whispered. Ren looked at the door. Then he looked at the spoon. He did not know what the world would demand next. One noise might matter. One grip might matter. One crawl might matter. In the first raid, he had reached the cellar with nothing but memory and helpless breath. This time, he had pieces. He crawled again. His hand slipped halfway back, but he corrected before his face hit the floor. His breath stayed under control. His knee tucked. His palm found the rug.

The spoon waited near the chair leg. He reached it. This time, when he threw, the spoon struck the cup. The cup wobbled. Bren, Mara, and Elna turned towards the noise. Ren stared at the cup, then at the spoon. Noise on command, crude but effective. [Skill Level Increased: Throwing Lv. 2 -> Lv. 3] Tessa whispered, "Huh, you're getting better!" Ren slapped once. Yes, he was! Boots hit the lane outside, hard and running. A handbell rang, sharp and uneven, too fast for ceremony and too frantic for practice.

Elna crossed the room at a speed Ren had never seen from her. She lifted him with one arm and grabbed Tessa with the other.

"Cellar," she said. Tessa clutched the slate. The front door opened before they reached it. A guard stood in the fading rain, mud to his knees, cloak dark with water, breath tearing at his throat. Behind him, another man ran toward the next house with a spear in one hand and a bell in the other.

"Confirmed," the guard said.

"West ditch and old cart road. We have counted at least six, but Tovin claims more. Stay alert." Bren's hand closed around the axe. Mara's face went flat. Tovin came in behind the guard, breathing hard.

"They cut around the warning line." Elna pulled Ren close.

"How far?" The guard looked past her, toward the road-facing shutter. Too long passed before he answered.

"Close enough that you should not be here." A horn sounded from the west end of the village. It rang once, then again, breaking halfway through the second call. The room moved. Bren shoved the back bar into place. Mara pulled Tessa away from the window. Elna turned toward the cellar door with Ren pressed hard against her chest. Ren looked past her arm, through the narrow gap between shutter and frame. Leftover droplets of rain slid down the lane.

The rain had stopped, and with it, low green shapes arrived, fast enough that the first scream reached the house before the guard reached the table. Ren's heart lurched with anxiety. His warning had arrived too late, the raid had already begun.