Riding To The End

Rain ticked against the brass buckle in Tomas Kade’s hand, each drop striking the same dent as if trying to open it. Beyond the lean-to stable, the border road shone black beneath the old watchtowers, and the towers’ broken teeth cut into a sky the color of iron.

He tightened the girth on the gray gelding and glanced toward the eastern ridge. Dawn had not yet reached the road, but the darkness was thinning there. If the map spoke true, the coast lay less than a day away by the shortcut through the towers. By nightfall, he could be riding beside salt water instead of mud, stone, and men who asked too many questions.

The thought pulled at him harder than the reins.

He slid the map from inside his coat. The paper was stiff and yellowed, marked with a red line that bent away from the king’s road and vanished through the border hills. A merchant in the last village had sold it to him for half a silver crown and a warning.

“Road’s closed,” the man had said.

“Then why sell me the map?”

The merchant had looked past Tomas toward the rain. “Because closed roads still lead somewhere.”

Now the folded paper trembled between Tomas’s fingers - not from the cold, he told himself. His left shoulder had stiffened during the night, and the old wound beneath it pulled whenever he raised his arm. He tucked the map away and swung into the saddle.

The gelding shifted beneath him, ears pricked toward the watchtowers.

“Easy,” Tomas murmured. “We’re only borrowing the morning.”

The horse gave a low, doubtful snort.

Tomas turned him onto the border road.

Mud caught at the hooves, sucking loose with wet claps. The road ran between low stone embankments and thorn scrub glazed with rain. Above it, the watchtowers stood on either side of the pass, their windows black and empty. Once they had guarded the frontier. Now their roofs were gone, their walls split by frost, but the road beneath them remained narrow enough to stop an army.

Tomas kept one hand near the pistol beneath his coat. He had seen no guards at the village, no patrols on the road. The shortcut had seemed like the answer to every delay that had plagued him - the washed-out bridge, the ferryman’s price, the miles lost circling the flooded lowlands. The coast was close now. Close enough to hear gulls in his imagination.

At the first bend, he found a wagon overturned in the ditch.

Its wheels spun slowly, shedding beads of rain. A mule lay tangled in the harness, alive but shivering. The wagon’s canvas had been slashed open. Crates were scattered across the road, their contents gone.

Tomas drew up.

The gelding stamped.

“Someone here?” Tomas called.

Only the mule answered, a thin, strangled bray.

He dismounted and approached with his pistol drawn. The mud sucked at his boots. One crate had split against a stone, spilling bolts of blue cloth into the ditch. Another bore the faded seal of a coastal trading house.

He crouched beside the wagon. There was blood on the driver’s bench, diluted pink by rain. No body. No tracks leading away except the churned marks of several boots disappearing toward the trees.

Tomas looked up at the watchtower.

A shape moved in one of its lower windows.

He fired before he could think.

The pistol cracked through the pass. Birds burst from the thorn scrub. The shape vanished.

The gelding reared, and Tomas seized the reins with both hands. Pain flashed through his shoulder. He landed hard against the saddle and dragged the horse down.

“Damn you,” he hissed, though he could not tell whether he meant the animal, the tower, or himself.

A crossbow bolt struck the wagon behind him.

Tomas kicked free of the road and drove the gelding into the scrub. Branches whipped his face. Another bolt hissed past his ear, close enough for him to hear the leather fletching cut the air.

The horse scrambled up the embankment. Tomas leaned low, one hand knotted in the mane, the other gripping the reins. Thorn branches tore at his coat. Behind him, men shouted.

“Don’t kill him!”

The words reached him clearly through the rain.

Tomas looked back.

Three riders had appeared at the bend, dark cloaks slick against their shoulders. One held a crossbow. Another raised a hand toward the tower. The third sat still, watching the road as if he had expected Tomas to arrive at that exact moment.

Not robbers, then.

The gelding broke through the scrub onto a narrow track above the road. Tomas urged him onward. Hooves struck stone. The horse slipped, recovered, and climbed toward the pass.

The map’s red line had led him here.

He had wanted the coast. He had wanted speed. He had wanted one clean road after too many bargains that had left him with less than he began.

Below, the riders spread across the road.

Ahead, the track narrowed between two walls of wet rock.

Tomas pulled the map free while the gelding climbed. He unfolded it against his thigh. Rain blurred the ink, but the red line remained visible, bright as a fresh wound....