Death in the Rain

When Alden saw the black signal smoke rise, he did not hurry. Instead, like the former owner hunting a mountain bear, he went back into the woods where he had set his traps and carefully checked each one. He adjusted and repaired those most likely to fail before returning to his ambush point and watching the narrow mountain road that led toward the smuggling path.

Time passed. The morning rain did not weaken. It grew heavier, a dense curtain falling through the trees, blurring the distance and burying every unusual sound beneath the patter of drops. Even Alden's hearing, already beyond that of ordinary men, could not pick out much beyond the rain.

For him, that was both good and bad. The downpour would help hide the traps in the woods and catch passersby unprepared. It also prevented him from using his sharpened hearing and sight to understand the enemy's movements.

Perhaps because of the rain, or perhaps because the fighting at the front had ended, the black signal smoke no longer marked the distant sky. Alden was not affected. He merely shifted position, worked stiffness from his body, and waited in silence, even as rain soaked through his clothes.

Another half hour passed before he seemed to hear something in the rain. He turned slightly toward the woods where he had set his traps, raised his ears, and focused on every sound reaching him.

He did not know whether it was an illusion or whether his abnormal hearing had gained some support under that concentration, but the muddled roar of rain suddenly arranged itself like shelves in a well-kept library. Each sound separated into its own place. He could distinguish the details of each one clearly.

The extraordinary state lasted only a few seconds before fading back to normal, but those few seconds were enough for Alden to understand what was happening ahead.

As he drew the weapons at his waist, he analyzed the information hidden in the sounds he had just heard.

'Twenty-three in all. Thirteen wounded, seven badly. Six more hit the traps and are likely beyond saving. Two are in plate. Real knights, perhaps. Harder to deal with.'

A little while later, blurred figures appeared at one end of the mountain road. As they came closer, Alden could gradually make them out, though the curtain of rain let him distinguish little more than their number and equipment.

As he had judged from the sounds, two armored warriors or knights walked in the middle of the group, protected by the rest. Their status should not be low. The others were more plainly dressed. Only a few wore leather armor. Most wore ordinary clothing. Their weapons were mostly spears, and only a handful carried swords.

The number before him differed slightly from what he had estimated. Several were missing. He understood the reason quickly enough. Those missing men must have hit more traps in the woods and died there.

After emerging from the forest, the group did not linger. They looked around, found the mountain track hidden among the weeds, and hurried onto it, moving quickly toward the smuggling path.

Perhaps all they could think of was reaching safety. Perhaps a night of flight, battle, and more flight had exhausted body and mind alike. They did not consider whether the traps behind them had been set for them, nor whether more ambush waited ahead. They kept their heads low and pressed forward.

Soon, they reached the foot of the low hill where Alden lay hidden. Grass, trees, and the heavy rain covered him well. None of them noticed the man waiting so close by.

Alden had no intention of letting them pass and then trailing them from behind to kill them one by one. In their current state, they were exhausted and had little fighting strength left. They could be dealt with from the front.

When the two plate-armored men at the center came before him, Alden, who had been gathering strength for some time, drove his foot into the ground. His whole body shot out like an arrow loosed from the string, reaching the armored men in the blink of an eye.

He was too fast, and the rain concealed him too well. The two men sensed no danger until it had already arrived. When they noticed something wrong, all they saw were two flashes of reflected steel. Then cold opened at the throat where helm met breastplate, and weakness swept through their bodies. Their exhaustion finished what the blades had begun. They collapsed at once, limbs twitching without command.

After dispatching the two armored men with startling ease, Alden did not pause. The outlaws around him had not yet understood what had happened. His body turned in an exaggerated half spin, arms following the rotation as his blades cut toward several sword-bearing men nearby.

The edges, driven by that turning force, fell with terrible precision into the seams of leather armor. Steel parted flesh like a hot knife through butter, leaving mortal wounds across vital points. Before blood could fully spray from one cut, the blade had already moved on to the next target.

As Alden fully absorbed Peacekeeper's combat experience, he began to understand that the style could be reduced to one principle: strike the weak point.

In a direct contest of strength, Peacekeeper's power was only slightly above that of an ordinary person. But abnormal agility, speed, and precision in reading weaknesses allowed Alden to reap lives with cold efficiency. In less than ten seconds, five fully armed warriors had died under his hand-and-a-half swords.

"Enemy attack!"

The outlaws in the rear saw their leaders fall and a stranger appear among the bodies. They understood at once and shouted in panic, partly to warn those ahead and partly to steel their own courage.

Their cries did not affect Alden. In that moment, he was like a cold killing machine. He followed the order he had set in his mind and crashed into the spearmen behind them, hand-and-a-half swords moving with each step. Every cut found the vulnerable places at the neck. With every swing, a man fell. Lives before him were as fragile as grass by the roadside.

Even after the outlaws realized they were under attack, they could form no effective defense. The men who commanded them had been killed in the first instant. Worse, the spears in their hands were ill-suited to close combat. They could neither strike the enemy properly nor defend themselves from his blades. They could only watch the attacks land.

The enemy was too fast. Their eyes caught only glints of metal, never the full bodies of the swords. Even at their freshest, they would have struggled to evade such attacks. Exhausted as they were, they had no chance.

The five outlaws scouting ahead heard the shouts and noise behind them. Trained by instinct, they tightened their grips on their weapons and turned to look.

The sight froze them.

In the heavy rain, the dozen or so companions behind them had all fallen. Blood poured from wounds and mingled with rainwater, staining the mountain road beneath their feet red.

Among the corpses stood a figure holding two swords. Rain blurred his face. They could see no features, only feel the cold gaze cutting through the curtain of water, as if one of the Others from the old tales had fixed its eyes upon them.

Fear spread through them in an instant. Whatever intent they had to resist vanished. One by one, they turned and ran madly along the mountain road. Some even shoved one another in their eagerness to be first, each hoping the men behind would delay the killer long enough for him to escape.

Had the five worked together, they might have used their spears to hinder Alden for a time. Once they reached the narrow smuggling path carved into the cliff, he might not have risked continuing the pursuit and might have let them go.

But now they cared only for the road ahead, even attacking one another as they fled and leaving their backs completely exposed. It was almost an invitation for Alden to kill them.

He did not refuse the invitation. In the end, the five men ran less than ten yards before they all died beneath his swords.

After finishing that group, Alden checked them carefully. Only when he was certain all were dead did he relax a little. He rested briefly, left the battlefield as it lay, and went into the woods to inspect his traps one by one.

Most of the traps he had set had been triggered, and all of them were lethal. Anyone struck by them had no chance of survival. A rough count gave him fourteen dead.

He did not move the bodies. He did not reset the sprung traps. Instead, he hid near one of the outermost traps and waited quietly for more prey.

About half an hour later, two more groups escaped from the front battlefield, one with seven men and one with thirteen. It seemed the heavy rain had also disrupted the allied force's encirclement. Otherwise, with the arrangements Joel had made in Standfast's council hall, so many fugitives should never have slipped through.

Those outlaws were fortunate enough to use the rain as cover, avoid the killing on the battlefield, and reach what they thought was safety. No pursuers followed them. As long as they crossed a small stretch of woodland, they would reach the smuggling path and escape the danger completely.

But the moment they entered that wood, they never came out again. Alden moved through the trees like a ghost, appearing silently where they least expected him, killing them one by one, and driving the living into lethal traps.

So many men had died that the woods were thick with the smell of blood. The scent drew predators, making the forest still more dangerous.

Ryman Webber was the son of Lord Lyndon Webber and cousin to Lord Emmon Webber, the current lord of Coldmoat. With his long face, he was known in the Reach by the nickname the Mole.

The nickname meant that Ryman usually hid in his estate and lived his own life, only poking his head out when something stirred beyond his door and there might be profit to gain. This campaign against the outlaws was just such an opportunity.

The name Mole was not flattering, but those who knew him understood that anyone who underestimated him would pay dearly for it.

This time, his task was to lead a hundred-man company around the edge of the battlefield and kill any fugitives. His central duty was even more specific: prevent the several dragon-loyal fugitives who had once dealt with House Webber from escaping the sweep.

If everything had gone smoothly, they would already be celebrating the successful end of the campaign against the outlaws of Red Lake Forest and the Targaryen holdouts. But the sudden morning rain had opened flaws across the entire operation. In particular, the attacking lines moved unevenly over the muddy ground, and many gaps appeared.

The outlaw leader was capable as well. He broke his men into small groups and sent them scattering through those gaps.

Most failed to break out and died on the battlefield. A few, however, escaped the encirclement through sheer luck. Ryman should have cleared them all away, but the rain slowed his own movement. After he killed some stragglers, others slipped beneath his eyes and fled into the mountain woods near Standfast.

If they had been ordinary outlaws, he might have let them go. But he had seen two men in plate armor among those who entered the forest. Any outlaw who could wear plate had to matter. Men like that were very likely to know secrets.

For that reason, after clearing away several fugitives, Ryman did not rest. He took his men and followed the traces left by the fleeing outlaws, soon arriving at the woods where Alden had set his traps.

Once they hurriedly confirmed that the outlaws had entered the trees, Ryman led his men in at once. He had to catch those men quickly and kill them.

Yet they had not gone far into the forest when they stopped despite themselves.

They saw a corpse hanging from a tree, feet dangling above the ground. A sharpened stump had punched through the man's chest. From a distance, it looked as though the trees themselves had killed him.

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