for such a thing.
Finishing the piece of meat, Suath crouched and rolled up the cuff of his breeches. In his haste to get away with the vial, he’d neglected something. He brushed his fingers across the flesh of his calf, tracing the bumps and ridges of the scars carved there. Finding an unmarked spot, he pulled his knife, gritted his teeth and drew the tip an inch along his leg, cutting deep.
“For the magic-user,” he muttered. His finger searched for and found another as-yet unscarred area. “And here will be for the rest of them.”
He nodded, satisfied, and pulled his pant leg back in place ignoring the blood trickling into his boot. After cleaning and re-sheathing his knife, he crossed the rocky ground to the edge of the field, looking up at the clear sky as he went. Overhead, a falcon wheeled and glided, its huge wings dark against the blue sky. Suath grunted. The bird had followed him off and on since he fled the beach. Some doing of the magician he left bleeding on the sand? Perhaps the counter on his leg was premature. Too bad if the magician lived, he had learned long ago the least dangerous magic user was a dead one. He dismissed the bird. It didn’t matter if they knew where to find him, they had to catch him.
And then they had to take the vial from him.
Then they’ll earn their cuts.
He grinned and stepped into the wall of grass, the tips of some blades brushing his cheek. Its toughness surprised him. Instead of parting easily like a curtain, each blade stood straight and strong like a reed, resisting his movement with the stubbornness of a living thing. After a couple steps fighting its firmness, he realized he’d have to cut his way across the field like a farmer harvesting hay. It would slow him, but his substantial lead gave him time. He stepped back from the grass and drew his sword.
As steel scraped leather, the grass leaned away, shrinking from the blade like a child seeing punishment coming. Suath blinked and shook his head to dispel what must be a trick of the light. The mercenary set his jaw, gripped his sword with two hands, and swung.
The sharp edge cut through the grass, though not easily, clearing a patch ten feet wide at the level of Suath’s knee. A sudden wind rose, sighing through the field with the low howl of an injured dog. The uncut blades around him whipped and swirled with the wind, lashing his hands and face. Suath swung again, hewing another patch, and the wind ceased as suddenly as it had risen. He paid it no attention and pressed on, each swing of his sword extending the path before him, each stroke leaving hundreds of fallen blades of grass in its wake.
Half an hour passed. Suath’s battle hardened arms ached, sweat streamed from under his helm into his bare eye socket, irritating the scarred flesh, but he kept moving. The deeper he went into the field, the more resistant the grass became. His sword swung left and right rhythmically, opening the path before him. As time stretched on, his pace slowed. He wanted to keep going but had to rest and catch his breath if he was to make it across the field—he didn’t even know how much farther he had to go. He stopped, leaning on his sword, its tip inserted in the ground, and breathed deep, then stretched to his fullest to peer over the grass before him. He saw only more grass. He shook his head and looked back to see how far he’d come.
The sight behind him made his breath catch in his throat. The knee high stubs of grass were not yellow like the uncut field around him; instead, the trail of cut grass glistened crimson and rust. Suath’s brow creased.
Some fluid in the blades, he thought, rationalizing what he saw. Not blood, but like sap from a tree.
As he turned back to his task, the wind sighed again, whipping a blade of grass against his cheek, drawing blood. Suath whirled toward it, bringing his sword to bear and another struck him from behind, opening a cut on the back of his neck. He spun back to his right to face an attacker he neither saw nor knew how to fight. An unfamiliar feeling crept into Suath’s gut, curling up in the bottom and making itself at home: fear.
Heavy gusts of wind whipped the