The Hound's Prey (Revolution's Blade Book 1)

Chapter 1 - Siletto

I felt the warm blood spilling out over my hand which held the knife. I witnessed the last incredible look in her eyes. She fell to the ground; I caught her fall. I tried to lower her gently as tears began to roll down my cheeks. As she died, she spoke to me for the first and only time.

"It's okay," she said in a whisper. "I forgive you," and then the light in her eyes faded away, leaving me holding the dead victim of my crime.

The crowd had surged at just the wrong moment, pushing me, shoving my arm and the knife, driving it right into her chest. I only meant to take her purse, I didn't mean her any other harm. I staggered to my feet, crying like a child, and fought my way through the surrounding mob of people who were still oblivious to the murder. Ever since that day, I saw her face when I closed my eyes. The last words she said, the strange, unbelievable response to what I had done, they haunted me. It was worse when I slept; my imagination kept augmenting the memory into vivid nightmares.

I tried not to sleep.

It was an accident, I had only held the knife ready because of the bodyguard, but he'd been pushed away by the mass of bodies. Why had the crowd suddenly moved like that? Why surge at just that moment? It was a million to one chance. People are killed all the time, many on purpose, murdered by greed or passion. It wasn't the same thing, what I had done. It was an accident, a freak occurrence, and I was so sorry. Desperate for some release, some escape from the torment my mind inflicted upon itself, I ran. I hoped that if I went far away from the scene of my crime, the nightmares would fade. Maybe, if I went over enough horizons, I could forget, and forgive myself.

It hadn't worked.

Hundreds of miles had passed, along with the borders of many countries. I was beginning to think my dreams would never clear, that there was no getting over what I had done, but then something happened to help that was totally unexpected; I met this girl called Haze. All that distance, all that time, it hadn't had any effect, but she proved to be just the distraction my mind required. It had never occurred to me that another person would set me free.

The day I first saw her, the rain had started so suddenly that it caught me unprepared. I'd been walking along in a daydream, dwelling on my past and not paying attention to the present. I hadn't noticed how late the hour had become, or the dark clouds moving in overhead. It was mid spring, the leaves on the trees had returned following the retreat of winter, but the days were still cold, and the nights colder. Too often, the skies were filled with flash storms.

The heavens threw down their bounty, soaking the earth and me along with it. Cursing at myself for not paying attention, and also swearing at the weather, I looked around for cover, but there was none to be had. Sheltering under the leaves of one of the tall trees was the only choice; either that or I would have to press on and hope to find something more substantial.

I was in the south east of the Continent. It had been two days since I'd travelled through a small village, but after that I'd wandered off the main road in a moment of paranoia. Pursuit was a certainty; the girl who died had clearly been from a rich family, I feared a bounty had been placed upon me and a Hound was close behind. Such fears had sent me off down this path, into the wilds. I was confident that this smaller road re-join the larger one eventually, but I didn't think there was another village any closer than the one I'd come from.

I decided that pressing on had almost no chance of me finding any better cover from the rain. A tree offered the driest night's sleep around and, if I sheltered in the branches, it would provide distance from any of the ghostly Revenant that might wander in the area.

There was a suitable tree right by the side of the road. Struggling in the downpour, my boots slipping on the wet bark, I climbed. I stashed my pack in a nook and got into a sleeping position, with my back against the trunk and my legs sticking out along a thick bough. I tied rope around my shins and threw another piece about the trunk to tie across my chest, completing my bed for the night. You might think it's stupid to try sleeping up in a tree because you'd fall out. That's why you use the ropes. I'd done it before, a few times, and I was yet to wake up on the ground with a broken neck.