The would-be chicken herder straightened and stretched his back with a groan. "Tried that. Still don't have a chicken roasting on a spit." He eyed Garin. "Maybe if a certain lad helped me chase them, we might both be chewing on succulent meat before the hour's up."
Garin pretended not to notice as his gaze wandered up to the sky. "Best hurry about it. Looks set to rain at any moment."
The man sighed. "Maybe the mud will stop them. Yuldor's prick, but chickens are degenerate birds, aren't they? What kind of bird can't even fly?"
The farmer stalked after the hens, a hand pressed to his side. He often touched that spot, Garin had noticed, like one might pick at a scab that refused to heal.
Garin shook his head and looked off toward the main muddy road through the town. The chicken farmer, incompetent as he might be at his chosen profession, had been the most exciting thing to happen to Hunt's Hollow in the last five years. Little else changed in their village. The seasons came and went; rains fell, and fields dried up; youths coupled against their parents' wishes and established their own farms. Life was trapped in amber, the same cycle repeated for every man, woman, and child in the village. The only thing to change in the last five years was the lack of deaths, for though the Nightkin beasts that came down from the Fringes had still been sighted, none had stayed long enough to attack.
His eyes turned toward the western tree line. Garin had traveled to all the other villages in the East Marsh, taking every opportunity he could get, but found them all the same, and Hunt's Hollow the largest of them, with its own forge and sharing its mill with only one other town. The World, he knew, lay with the rest of the Westreach.
I'll see it all and make my name, he promised himself. Someday.
His unfocused eyes were drawn by a figure approaching down the road. As the man drew closer, it became apparent he wasn't from any of the surrounding towns, or even the East Marsh. No wagon or horse — can't be a peddler. A wandering tradesman? But where he kept the tools of his trade, Garin hadn't the faintest idea, for his pack was small and slight.
As he came closer still, he observed how oddly dressed the traveler was. His hat, made of stiff cloth that was worn and gray and notched on the rim, was pointed and bent at the top. The long braid of hair draped over the front of his shoulder was black as a winter night. His chin was completely smooth and so sharp Garin reckoned he could cut a wheel of cheese with it. His clothes, like his hat, were well-used, but despite the many patches, they spoke of quality not too far gone.
A man of means, Garin wagered. Always best to be polite to a man of means.
"Welcome, traveler!" he called cheerily as the man came within earshot. "Welcome to Hunt's Hollow!"
"I read the sign on the way in."
He sounded somewhat irritable. But then, Garin reasoned, he must have traveled a long way. Opening his mouth to respond, he found the words caught in his throat. The traveler's eyes were shadowed by the wide brim of his hat, but he could detect a shining quality to them. Like staring into a forge, Garin thought before he could banish the boyish notion.
"Rain's blessing to you this day, stranger," he finally said. "A lonely corner of the World the roads have taken you to today."
The man cocked his head, the floppy tip of the hat tilting with it. "Not for long, I hope."
Garin kept his face carefully smooth. He was quite good at it, having had plenty of practice with Crazy Ean, who drank too much marsh whiskey and said things that could stiffen even an old man's beard.
"You'll be looking for a place to stay, I reckon?"
The stranger's gaze shifted past him, and Garin glanced back to see the chicken farmer approaching them. Somehow, he seemed changed, his shoulders back and posture upright despite his earlier defeat, and an unfamiliar hardness in his eyes.
"No," the stranger said. "I won't."
"Garin! Who's this you're keeping inhospitably in the mud?" The chicken farmer had reached his fence and leaned against it, wearing an amicable smile. But that smile… something about it made Garin suddenly feel he'd gotten in the way of two hogs who had their sights on the same sow.
"The boy has been accommodating," the stranger said before Garin could answer. "Silence pray that others in this town are just as kind."
"Oh, Hunt's Hollow is a fine town," the chicken farmer replied. "Peaceful and quiet. We like it to stay that way."
Garin swallowed and edged back along the fence.
The stranger turned his gaze on him. "Boy, I may yet take you up on your offer. Stay close by."
"No, that's alright," the chicken farmer said with his smile wider still. "I'm sure I could put you up if it comes to it. You get along now, boy."
If nothing else had his hairs on end, the chicken farmer calling him "boy" did. In the five years since he'd settled in Hunt's Hollow, the man had never been anything less than respectful to him, treating him as a man grown — which, at fifteen, he damned well was. A boy would run, he knew, but a man would stay.
"I'll stay. You might need someone to help you chase down chickens, Bran."
The stranger's eyes seemed more molten than ever as they turned back to the chicken farmer. "Bran, is it?"
"It is." Bran straightened, one foot still on the fence. "But I must have missed your name."
"I very much doubt that."
Man or boy, Garin was starting to think he ought to run for someone. Smith wouldn't be a bad man to have around if this came to blows. Though to look at these two, a bout wouldn't take long to settle.
Bran looked to have forty summers to him, from the crinkles around his eyes, and the dark tan-going-leather of his skin. But he had broad shoulders for a man of his middling height, and a chest and arms to rival Smith's, which Garin guessed he hadn't earned through chasing chickens. Then there were his tattoos, and the scars they covered. Bran always wore long shirts, even in the heat of the day, but Garin had glimpsed them: the bright colors, the strange, scrawling patterns, the puckered skin running beneath them all. The scar on his side looked the worst of them, and he often caught Bran clutching at it as if it pained him still. And his hair was streaked with white and gray so that Garin had occasionally teased him by calling him "Skunk."
Bran had been a soldier once, Garin had no doubt. Though, if his swordwork was as good as his chicken herding, he wondered how the man had survived.
The stranger, meanwhile, was slight as a scribe, and though tall and weathered, he didn't have a visible weapon. The match, he decided, could only sway in one direction. Except he couldn't quite shake the feeling that things didn't cut as straight as that.
Bran, quick as a snake in the brush, leaped over the fence to stand before the stranger. He tilted his head up to meet the other man's gaze, a slight, crooked smile still on his lips. Garin tensed, waiting for the strike that must come.
"Well, Aelyn Cloudtouched, He-Who-Sees-Fire, I'd hoped I'd never see you again. But since you're here, how 'bout I offer you a glass of marsh whiskey and we talk like old friends?"
"Like old friends," the stranger replied. "Or old enemies."
Bran shrugged. "Conversation is only interesting with animosity or amorousness — or so the bards sing. Follow me, it's not far."