Chapter Text
The Ostravice was once again an unbroken defense. The ferry station had been taken. On either grassy bank, the fields had been set to the torch. Screams told him that his men were just finishing with the workers of the town. Istvan was just glad he didn’t have to figure out wages for the next week. Messengers would find him from higher lords than he, and they’d have to take care of the whining pack of sellswords he had treading on his heels.
He had chosen the slopes of a low hill as the muster for the band once the fun was finished. The spot was perfect for a bit of sightseeing by the fires’ light.
A sight, he did see.
The boy stumbled through the ashes of the barley to him, spade held close by the hips.
The smoke that should have darkened the night further, curiously, lightened the sky to a violet grey. Istvan could see the boy move by the light of the farm’s outbuildings, merrily ablaze.
Men were all the same. That stupid pride of his would have this child believe that he could nobly fight this stranger who had torched his home.
Istvan watched with interest. The boy didn’t charge, hunched sullenly over his grip. Good instinct there. He kept his weight low to the ground.
“You’re looking awfully wary, boy,” he said to him.
Said boy’s doughy face drew in. Now at fifteen paces, his path veered. The weighty trudge took him over the fallen fence post and ‘round the spot where Istvan had chosen to survey his soldiers’ handiwork. To give the lad his due, Istvan turned with him. Even a young man of fifteen might be lucky. Once. Istvan fixed him with the attention he could spare from his surroundings. That was enough for a young peasant child, was it not? He should be honoured.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “But I don’t intend to be here all day. You’ll have to be quick about it.”
They turned, the two of them, in a slow circle. At one point, Istvan caught the eye of a man who paused in rolling a barrel up the path toward them. He shook his head. His men could do as they liked; Istvan would be entertaining for a minute longer.
“I’m losing patience,” he said, on the third circle. “Come, now.”
Istvan unclasped the left hand he held behind his back. He held it flat as he brought it round the front, grasping the dagger in his belt one finger at a time. Surely the boy wouldn’t let the short reach of the weapon escape his notice. Istvan could do with a diversion. He’d let the weeping youngster rush past, teach him a thing or two, and spear that jug-ear with the dagger’s tip to rip it from his head. The boy would prefer death in a few minutes.
Who knew whether Istvan might just give it to him? He was feeling merciful.
The quiet snap of popping sap shot out from the burning windbreaks. His men were making quite a ruckus in the village. Women wept as they were used, mutilated, in some cases, or their men and girls tormented in front of them. No huge stores of coins clinked in the bags that his troops took for themselves. There was still the noise of porcelain, pewter, and other peasant luxuries as they were jostled beneath sackcloth. Istvan could tell you all you needed to know from noisome texture of this world.
He could find the unfamiliar. The boy’s slow footsteps in the ash were one such sound. The sudden rustle that he heard just out of sight was another. Istvan had kept his senses trained on the world around with greater intensity since he had given his sight to the boy. He would dart a glance here and there to any suspicious patch of sound that he noticed. Which he did.
His eyes flickered in their sockets at the noise which, he saw at once, was some hutched rabbit making a run for it. Hah! Let no one say that he never did a good deed. That one would be spared the stewpot. Provided it survived its burns.
The glance couldn’t have lasted long. Istvan’s gaze snapped back at another sound, a movement, an instinct that always served him well. The boy had chosen now to charge.
Stepping sideways, Istvan easily avoided the short spade-swing that came at him. The follow-up strike was one he blocked with a bare hand as the other drew his dagger, even if it jolted his wrist, the next one jabbing for his waist as he grabbed the boy’s arm and relieved him of the weapon with a practiced twist. He slashed the boy a warning across the ear as he ran by.
The spade was at his feet. Fortune, as usual, had fallen decidedly in his favour. The boy was good! He had chosen his moment to press the advantage. Then, when his first attack had failed, he flowed as smoothly as a young boy could move into the next. Istvan might have killed a man for that if he had run at him with a sword. The boy would live another minute. He would have to choose wisely what to do next.
Bleeding, the boy appeared to have chosen to wait. They returned to their pacing. The man with the cask had deposited his spoils safely away from the fire and returned to the now-scorched earth that lay above the ruins of the town. The spot that Istvan had chosen to patrol, and where the boy had found him. A few others had also come to see what their lord was doing.
Istvan waved to the audience.
“No need to gawk. This young man came to ask me for a very important lesson. Shall I teach him?”
The handful of assembled soldiers roared with noise. Not all cheers. The boy had forfeit his chance of escape. His eyes darted to the spade at Istvan’s feet. Would he try to take it?