One thing you have to understand about our flight is that we didn’t have a plan. We didn’t have time to think. And we certainly didn’t have time to stop and think about any of what had happened. The shock of what happened blinded us into a fear-driven, all-out panicked run.

So naturally, we did what was the most familiar to us. We ran into the woods to lose ourselves.

The woods hugging this part of the river were set off to the east, and extended north after the river emerged. Fernsglade was north of us, and not too far from the woods themselves. But the shorter path back would have left our terrified selves uncomfortably exposed. So we chose the woods.

Our tattered wits didn’t understand that there would be no pursuit from the group that let us go. They’d take want they wanted, and get out of here on the quick. That’s how these types of groups work, you see. Take what you can and don’t stick around for a marshaled force to try to stop you.

We didn’t stick in any sort of cohesive group as we ran. We just ran as fast as we could. Our mind’s overcoming the physical exertion that running up and down was quickly taxing us. It was the pure need that we were experiencing that overcame our bodies objections.

By the time we entered the woods, our willpower was quickly failing us but I felt my mind coming back to me.

Drew was the first have his legs give out only a couple dozen yards with in the tree line. Fumbling forward and falling over a extended root, Drew went down on all fours and retched violently.

He started shaking from his head to his toes, shock taking over. He wasn’t going to be easy to deal with.

“Come on Drew, we have to go. We can’t stay here, we have to get back to town. We have to tell everyone what happened.”

He didn’t even look up, he’s breathing was becoming short, shallow and quick. This wasn’t a good sign.

Reg bent down and placed an arm on his shoulder, and looked up toward me. “We need to go. If he’s not going to come, we should leave him here for now. We can always come back for him later. But right now, we need to go back to town.”

Jon and Kevin were leaned up against a tree nearby, looking at us but not contributing to the decision. Their eyes were showing the same kind of shock that Drew was experiencing. While they were there physically, mentally their minds had withdrawn within themselves.

“We can’t just leave him here. The two men that split off from the larger group are out here somewhere, and I have a feeling like they aren’t going to be as lenient as the last group.”

“You… call… that… lenient!?!?” Drew gasped between sputtering breaths. His face was turning a brighter and brighter shade of red. Shock and rage battling for dominance on his facial expression.

“Drew. That’s not what I meant. I was just worried about what might happen to us if they find us. Or Aaron. Who knows what they may have done to him. What they did to your father was inexcusable, but right now we have to worry about what we can take do. We have to make sure we stay away from the other group of bandits, and we have to get back to town as soon as we can.”

My words were having no effect on Drew. He wasn’t showing any sort of improvement or reaction at all. It was like he didn’t even hear what I had to say.

“We can… we can bring some of the adults back with us to bring your father back to town. So we can, doing this properly. You know, bring him back for a proper burial. It’s not right leaving him out here.”

“Yeah, I think… I think I’d l-like that. Mother would want that.”

Drew slowly started to push himself up off the ground, but fell back on his seat. His shoulders slumped and he began to sob uncontrollably.

Reg strode over to me and spoke quietly to me.

“We can’t wait for him Justyn. We have to get out of here.”

“Please, for goodness sake, just give him a moment. He just watch his father be killed. Violently killed. We can’t just leave him here, he’d die out here alone.”

“There’s no sense in risking my life, your life, and Kevin and Jon’s lives while he comes to his senses. If you’re going to stay with him, that’s your choice. But I’m going to back to town with or without you.”

Reg wasn’t the most empathetic of people, he got like this from time to time. When he was put in stressful situations he tended to turn inward and only think about himself and his own needs and desires. Right now, he wasn’t thinking about Drew and his plight. He wasn’t thinking about what was the safest course of action for all of us. He was only thinking about how to take care of himself and make sure that he’d be okay at the end of the day. That’s just who he was, and I’d learned to live with it.

“Look, take Kevin and Jon back to town, they’re no good out here. Don’t leave them behind, I’m not sure what they would do if they were left alone. But I’m going to stay here with Drew while he snaps out of this. I’ll get him back to town.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Just make sure that when you get there, you start gathering as many men together as you can to hunt down these bastards.”

“I thought you told Drew we were just going to go get his father’s body back.”

“I did, but that was for him. Hunting them down, that one’s for me. These men don’t deserve to live another day after what they’ve done. By killing Drew’s father, they’ve shown themselves to be unworthy of leniency. And by taking our flocks, they’ve doomed us to a deadly winter. They’re probably on their way to Sparrowwood right now to do the same to them. We have to end this now, before they’re allowed to do any more harm.”

“Be safe out here,” Reg said as he clasped my arm. “I’ll put together the biggest hunting party this town’s ever seen. I’ll save a spot for you right up front.”

And with that, he turned and headed off to gather Kevin and Jon for the continuation of the journey home.

It took sometime, the shadows of the woods growing longer all around us, before Drew had calmed down to the point of being coherent. I’d seen neither hide nor hair from the thieves during this time, but that did not stop me from being as tense as a drawn bowstring.

When Drew has recovered enough to be mobile, we starting creeping our way through the woods to make our way back to town. I knew that Aaron had been making his way to the far side of the river before we’d lost sight of him, so I decided to follow the route I thought he would have been likely to take.

It was slow going as we made our way through the denser woods on this side of the river, but it would be the safer journey by far as long as we were careful with our footing. The woods nearest the river was sparser than the further in, but it risked us traveling over slippery or loose stones that could be hazardous.

So I chose to make our way further inland, knowing that the Drew wasn’t in a good state to keep his wits about his footing. It would be slower, but I had less to worry about with him trailing along.

Picking our way through the trees, I kept the river close by to our lefthand side knowing it would keep our path from straying too far into the woods. We weren’t lucky enough to have the use of any game trails to use since they tended to trail more into the woods than they did along the direction we needed to go.

When we got to a small clearing, I decided that it’d probably be best for us to take a quick break.

“Let’s hold up here for a little while” I said over my shoulder, which was met with a short nod and a grunt of agreement.

Drew flopped down on the ground almost immediately. His shoulders were rigid and tight, and his hands slowly clenched and relaxed again and again. He was mentally more aware than he had been before, but he was far from good.

“I don’t really know what to say Drew, other than ‘I’m sorry’. What those men did was horrible. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop them. I was so sure that they wouldn’t actually go through with their threats. They seems so unsure of what they were doing. I thought they were new to this and wouldn’t have the conviction they needed to do what they did. I… I’m sorry.”

Drew’s eyes filled with tears, a glimpse of soft emotion to accompany his otherwise tightness.

“Is it… is it supposed to hurt like this?” He placed a hand over the center of his chest. “It feels like a part of me has been torn away. God, it hurts.”

Tears once again began to run freely, but gone was the sobbing cry that racked him with grief early.

“I just, I just, I just…”

“It’s okay, I’ll take care of it. I’ll fix this.”

I really wasn’t sure how I was going to fix it, or what about the situation could really be fixed. But I was determined to do something to alleviate the pain he was going through.

“Stay here for a second, I’m going to go look ahead of us for a second.” I pointed in the direction we still needed to travel, “I’ll be right over there. If you need me, I’ll be able to hear you when you shout.”

Drew nodded back to me, his face now buried in his hands as he sat upon the ground.

“Okay. Just right over there.”

I was reluctant to leave him there, but I knew that if we were going to make it back safely I needed to keep my wits about me.

So off I set.

I approached the edge of the clearing cautiously, straining with every sense to detect the slightest hint of danger. Now that it was getting later in the day, it was much more likely that we’d face dangers other than just the two remaining bandits that might or might not be lurking somewhere out there. We were likely to have to face dangers of the wildlife of the forest. Bears and wolves were both native to these woods, and it was getting on in Fall[ Is this when animals are most active?] when they’d be most active. I needed to be careful.

By the time I’d reached the densely packed woods, I’d neither heard or seen anything that raised my alarm. It was almost as if we were alone here with the chirping of birds.

Birds were always a good sign. If they detected anything, they were sure to go silent as a fox to avoid detection by a threat. But right now, they were chirping happily.

I spent another couple of minutes venturing into the woods nearest the clearing, never quite losing sight of it. I felt responsible for Drew now, and I wanted to make sure I could make it back to him in a hurry if I needed to.

I was about to turn around and head back into the clear, when an odd glint caught the corner of my eye. It was further into the woods that I would’ve liked to go, but it was so out of place that I couldn’t ignore it.

I cut my way through the trees to place myself between the the odd sight and the clearing, trying to get as close as possible to it without having to venture any further into the woods.

As I got closer to the gleaming sight, I noticed that it was coating the leaves of one of the local ferns from which Fernsglade derived its name. It was glossy, reflective, and dark, but I couldn’t tell much more about it from this distance. It was too shaded to make out clearly.

When I finally made my way to the point directly between it and the clearing, I stepped in a pool of what I took to be the same liquid on the forest floor. It was slick and clung to the heel of my boot.

I reached down and touched my boot, and I when I brought my fingers up to my face I immediately recognized it.

Blood.

Drew temporarily forgotten, I rush forward following what I clearly recognized as a path of blood leading from the clearing. Splotches of it litter the ground very half dozen feet or so. No pool was that large, but it was clear where the flight had brought runner crashing through the underbrush. Bent and broken branches were strewn all along the path.

My mind had suddenly failed me once again as I blinded began making my way through the foliage. In no way was I prepared to encounter what was at the end of the bloody path.

It was Aaron. And he had a terrible gash running all along his back, from his shoulder to his hip. The blood was clearly his, it was pooled under his body.