The Night in Kingswood

A young Caravan Guard grows up fast on his first trip through the Kingswood forest.

The Night in Kingswood

The caravan rolled north through Kingswood, wheels creaking under a sky heavy with dusk. Thomas gripped his rifle, stock smooth under calloused hands, eyes tracing the tall pines leaning over the dirt track. He shifted in the saddle, leather boots stiff, and kept pace with the lead wagon. It was three days’ ride from Wilem to Marshal-Tulkren, and the air was sharp with pine sap. Mules snorted, drivers muttered, and cargo clinked with each jostle.

Thomas wasn’t new to caravan drives or riding guard, but this was his first job on his own. He’d done everything his father had shown him, no-nonsense introduction with the guard leader, Martin, smiling placation with the merchants, and friendly introductions with the wagon drivers. At 17, it was time he started working on his own and this job felt like the perfect proving ground.

As they rode deeper into Kingswood, darkness dropped fast, tall trees threatening to swallow the last daylight. Thomas pulled back from the lead when the road narrowed between several tall trees and looked back to the next wagon. He saw the second wagon had fallen further behind than was allowed and sighed. The drivers were engaged in what looked like a heated debate and were paying no heed to their slacking mules. Thomas glanced up at the darkening sky and wondered when Martin would send the call to make camp. Food and a stretch out of the saddle were a welcome thought. He looked back at wagon two, hoping to see Martin or another rider coming to tell him just that, but only saw the arguing drivers continuing to gesticulate wildly at one another.

His own wagon's drivers shouted from up ahead and he turned around to see them slow their heavy cart, its wheels sinking deep into mud. Thomas's eyes widened when he saw the whole road turned into a mud pit where the trees squeezed them narrow and close. His instincts flared with alarm, and a rustle of leaves crunched under a heavy weight beside the road. He reined in, ears sharp, and glimpsed eyes low in the brush, vanishing too quick to track.

As the drivers worked the mules to try and clear the muck, the creature struck. A hulking dark shape with bright claws. It raked the lead mule’s flank and launched itself at the wagon. Someone screamed, wagon tipped, crates spilled. Thomas raised up and fired at the creature’s back, and the beast roared before retreating into the dark.

Thomas dismounted, boots hitting sludge. His pulse thumped in his ears as he stepped toward the wagon.

"James?" Thomas called, taking another step. " Carl?" He listened hard to hear beyond the frantic braying of the injured mule.

A soft squelch of mud warned him too late, as a mass of muscle and coarse fur slammed him down from behind. The rifle skidded away, and he rolled, hand reaching for the knife at his belt. Teeth snapped near his neck, hot breath, as a clawed hand reached for his face. He drove the blade up, feeling it glide through muscle until it jarred against bone. The beast yelped, pulling back into the dark. He sat up and retrieved his rifle, blood slicked fingers threatening to lose their grip. Thomas heard hooves on the road, glanced up, and saw a man with a pale face and crimson vest ride up hard, looking at him on the ground.

The stranger dismounted and knelt beside Thomas, a pouch of herbs appearing in his hands. He checked Thomas’s torn shirt and blood-stained trousers with quick, practiced movements, letting out a breath when no wounds showed.

“You’re the tracker Martin hired, aren’t you? I saw you in Wilem before we left,” Thomas asked, but there was only the briefest nod in reply.
“I think it got James. He was driving the wagon,” Thomas said, gesturing toward the lead wagon. “I heard him scream…” His voice faded, following the stranger’s gaze. The lead wagon’s axle was clearly snapped, and beside the dying mule lay two bodies, legs bent wrong, white shirts now black with blood. The man in the crimson vest stood, pocketing his herb pouch in the folds of a long black coat. “Burn them,” he said, already moving off into the woods beside the road, following the creature’s deep prints and dark blood.

Thomas stared at the bodies, rifle heavy in his hands. He turned, boots sliding in the bloody mud, and trailed the stranger into the trees. He found the stranger a little way ahead, knelt in the loam and muttering what sounded like a brief incantation or prayer. As he approached, his footsteps grew quiet on the dry leaves and the stranger’s figure became a mere shadow among the pines.

“Where’s it gone?” Thomas called, voice low and gaze darting to the underbrush looking for sign.

“Deep,” the stranger answered, and a shadowed arm gestured forward. A broken branch loomed, clawed bark and dripping blood, and Thomas raised his rifle with a jerk.

“Will it be back?” he asked. There was no reply. He looked towards the stranger but saw no shadows at all now.
“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness. “He’ll be back.”

Thomas trudged back to the caravan, rifle slung over his shoulder. The mules brayed and shuffled, eyes wide, and the other drivers were up front now, crouching over the bodies. The stranger’s words repeated in his mind as he looked at them. Jame’s neck was torn open, and Carl’s chest flattened. Friends for a day, dead for the rest of his life.

He'll be back. Thomas felt a hand slip over his spine and shake it. He had to move to make it stop.

He grabbed a tarp from the wagon, the fabric rough against his palms, and spread it over James and Carl, their shapes still beneath the mud-streaked cloth. Another driver helped move them from the road, grunting as they lifted the weight, dragging them clear of the wreckage. Thomas turned to the wagon, its axle buried in the muck, and seized a rope. They looped it around the frame, muscles straining as everyone pulled, the mud sucking at the wheels. The carpenter stumbled forward as soon as the bulk of the wagon was free of the muck, tools clanking, and knelt by the broken wood, soon Thomas heard a hammer striking with dull thuds. The rest of the guards approached, and several merchants followed them to survey the damage while Thomas told Martin what happened and pointed towards where the stranger, the tracker, had gone.

Slowly everyone dispersed to attend to their own needs as camp took a haphazard shape. Martin gathered the other guards to set watch schedules, standing on a crate to bark out orders, but Thomas was given the night off. Martin ordered the wagons circled around, as best as could be managed in the growing dark with all the trees, and fires were lit, but music was sparse and the food cold.

Night deepened, the forest silent save for the carpenter’s continued work. Thomas sat by a fire, back against the broken wagon. His bedroll beside him was still tightly packed. Though others had drifted off to sleep, he hadn’t felt the pull. He reflected on work he’d done with his father for other caravans. They’d been smaller, the merchants meaner, and often he and his father the only guards. But never had he experienced something like this. Thomas had thought a larger caravan would be easier, let him get into the swing of working on his own. He replayed the attack over in his mind, but found it hard to focus, like a wall was holding back his thoughts.

The stars had turned in the sky 30 degrees or more before the tracker with the pale face and crimson vest emerged from the shadows only a few feet away.

He stood near the flame and unscrewed a small flask. Thomas eyed the silvery vessel, contemplating a swig when the distinct aroma of coffee hit his nose. He looked at the stranger with interest and was offered the flask.

“You might find this more soothing than the alternative,” the pale stranger said. The flask was warm in Thomas’s hands and the coffee inside more bitter and rich than he’d ever tasted before. He tipped it back and drank a long swallow before returning it to the man.

For a while they stared at the flames, before the stranger spoke. “Grab a gun and a torch. Follow me.”

“Why?” Thomas asked, as he tightened the buckle on his gun belt and stood. “You track that beast?”

The stranger paused for a moment then smiled. “I require your assistance, Mr. Thomas, if you’d be so obliged.” The shift in tone caught Thomas off guard, and he found himself agreeing to help with an eager nod. The stranger gestured towards a dark torch beside the wagon and then turned towards the wood.

Thomas holstered his pistol, then grabbed the torch and lit it, the flame casting jagged shadows. He stepped into the trees, where the stranger had been and the torchlight caught a single boot print pointing the way.

He walked several minutes before he heard a faint jingle ahead. He pressed on through the trees following the few clues he could find of the tracker’s trail. The stranger was like a ghost, pale of face and silent as death. Following him at night was nearly impossible without constant focus. The smallest rustle of a leaf indicated when to turn left or right. Twice he paused wondering if the stranger had left him. Barely perceptible boot prints indicated he was still on the right trail. Only once did the torch light glint off something metal briefly in the branches ahead, gone before his eyes could focus. Thomas pressed on, the forest thick, determined not to be lost in the woods like a child, until a clearing opened, and he startled. The torch light illuminated the man in the crimson vest clearly, kneeling near a large stack of wood and two shapes wrapped in canvas.

“Is that—” Thomas started to ask and looked back towards where the caravan camp would be. “Did you drag them here... by yourself?”

“Daisy brought ’em for me,” came the reply, as the pale man held out a bottle. “I told you to burn them. I know it’s not a savory thought, but it is what it is. These things shouldn’t wait.”

Thomas took the bottle. It had no label and held a clear liquid inside. “Why?” he asked.

“There’s a darkness hiding in these trees. Not that werebeast, he’s new to these woods and has … his own purpose. But someone’s stirring up powers she shouldn’t be. Best not to leave tools like these poor souls around for her to play with.”

“How do you know there’s some dark power out here?” Thomas asked, voice low, gripping the bottle tighter.

The stranger’s eyes flicked to him, then back to the trees. “A ghost of my own lingers in these woods. You needn’t worry about her just yet, son. You’ve got more immediate threats to consider.”

The bottle lingered in Thomas’s hand. The liquid inside caught the torchlight. It was clear. He sniffed it and smelled the sharp bite of strong alcohol.

He considered. Then handed it back.

The pale man took it without expression, sliding it away into the folds of his coat.

“Probably wise,” he said, and turned slightly to look deeper into the woods.

After a silence, he spoke again. “That thing’s not wandering. It’s hunting.”

Thomas blinked. “You mean it’s following the caravan?”

“No,” the man said. “It’s following you.”

Thomas frowned, grip tightening on the pistol. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“You were at the front. Riding point. When the road turned to mud.” The man in the crimson explained in the calm voice of a teacher.

“That wasn’t—” Thomas stopped. “It rained last night. Probably runoff.”

“No. I checked the creek upstream. Someone dammed it. Stacked stone. Felled trees. Enough to back a lot of water across the road.”

Thomas didn’t respond.

“He slowed the wagons. Bottlenecked the team. The first two men died fast. Crushed. Slashed. That left you there alone for a moment.”

Thomas shook his head. “It got me too. Knocked me down. Should’ve finished me… but I stabbed it! Maybe that scared it off.”

“Think back,” the man said. “It was looking at you, wasn’t it? Tried to see your face. Only reason you had time to stab it.”

He turned and walked a few paces toward the shrouded bodies.

“Fast kills,” the man said, gesturing toward them. “But not you,” he pointed at Thomas. “You were the target. It had to be sure.”

Thomas felt it then, a pressure in his chest. The darkness thickening, as if the woods were leaning in to listen.

“You in trouble, Thomas? Can you recall anyone powerful enough to send something like this after you?”

There was a long pause before Thomas spoke.

“Why did you drag me out here?” he asked, voice tight.

“I needed help to stack and burn the bodies,” the stranger said, “and I needed to find out what you may have done to get that thing coming after you.”

“You could’ve warned me.”

“Would you have still come?”

Thomas hesitated. “Yes. Probably.”

The man nodded. “Yeah… probably.”

Thomas looked back toward the trees, then again at the pale face across from him. “…So it set the whole ambush for me? Why me? What is it?”

“Yes, it’s after you.” the man said. “It’s a werebeast, a shapeshifter. Part man, part beast … probably a bear, based on its size. You have no idea why someone like that would hunt you? ”

“I’ve done nothing,” Thomas hissed. “No unpaid debts, no gambling, or thieving, or other things! And I’ve not been with a woman since I left Silverton and she…” he saw the tracker raise an eyebrow at this “She and I are promised!” he exclaimed “Her father is a friend of my father, he wouldn’t send something like that if he wanted to end it. He wouldn’t want to end it at all!”

“What about your father? Is he in any trouble?”

Thomas thought back to the old caravans and work he’d done with his father. There had been a job, a “merchant” that was clearly smuggling something and paid the two of them for their silence. But that job had gone smooth and everyone left wealthy and quiet.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered. “Maybe? He did a lot of work on his own before I was able to help. But I don’t know why it’d go after me if my pa had done something.”

The stranger stared at his face a moment then nodded and looked away towards the trees.

“So what do we do now?”

The man didn’t move. His voice stayed calm.

“We wait. And when it comes, we kill it.”

Thomas watched the man with the pale face unload and clean his pistols. The man took two pouches of ammo from the inside pocket of his vest. One brown, the other red. He loaded both guns and holstered them. The flask of coffee was produced again, but Thomas waved it off. The pale faced man pocketed that too and moved to stand beside a thick pine at the edge of the clearing. He watched the farther edge, eyes barely blinking. Thomas watched too, but kept glancing at the pale man. The longer the man went unmoving, the more Thomas thought he looked like carved marble, or some royal garden statue. At least 20 minutes passed, when the man stooped beside Thomas and spoke without looking away from the trees.

“Walk to the middle of the clearing. Hold the torch high, and don’t run.”

Thomas glanced at him, but that pale face gave no room for questions. He stepped forward.

The ground was soft, roots threading underfoot, leaves damp from yesterday’s rain. He stopped in the open, lifted the torch above shoulder height. Its flame hissed and danced, casting long, shivering shadows that reached into the trees. How long was he supposed to stand here?
When he turned to ask, the man was gone.

The dark rushed in behind him, thick and pressing. The torch felt smaller now. He stood alone. No sound but the crackle of resin in cloth, and Thomas breathing. Something moved ahead. Were those wings? Something hooted. Little forest noises began to make themselves known and Thomas started to listen to each, seeing if he could hear the discordant ones. Maybe heavy footsteps, a shuffling gait, a deep breath. Surely the creature would still be wounded from his knife?
The forest silenced.
Thomas froze.

He felt the eyes on him long before he saw their dull amber glow, low in the brush between the pines. He took one more step into the clearing, the wood stack behind him, then drew his pistol in a flash and fired at the eyes in the brush. His ears rang from the shot, but he knew he’d missed. The eyes darted just as he pulled the trigger. He choked back a brief feeling of fear and tried to focus on the sounds of the forest again.

Branches rustled above. He looked up just as a shape dropped, fur and fangs and teeth and claws. Thomas snapped his pistol up and fired, just as a searing heat rushed over his left shoulder, once, twice, then a third. The shape lit with flame and he could clearly see the distorted form of a huge bear thrown off course. It landed in the clearing only a few feet away, bright and burning, and Thomas aimed, firing another shot.

Then the earth punched him in the face as a thunderclap flung him to the ground.

He rolled to his back and wretched from the instant nausea, ears ringing. His eyes couldn’t focus. Something moved nearby. He flattened out, braced the pistol on the leaves. Grunted from the pain in his head.

The beast loomed, hunched and twitching, inside a ring of blackened pine needles and earth. Its fur smoked, its chest looked crushed inward, one paw hanging limp. The thing’s jaw moved odd, too loose, too fast, maybe trying to form words. The claws retracted into fingered hands. He heard nothing. Its eyes weren’t on him.

Boots moved into view beside Thomas’ head. He hadn’t heard them arrive. The boots stepped forward. Another muzzle flash tore through the dark. Pressure rolled through Thomas’s ribs, threatening to punch him deeper into the ground. A perfect smoke ring puffed toward the beast. Then it flew back, hard, into a pine trunk. Its head tipped back and legs thrashed trying to free itself.

Another flash. Another earth-shattering quake. The smoke ring formed, and a spray of black splintered out of the trunk, blooming across the trees behind.

The beast stopped moving.

Thomas’ ears continued a dull ring for the rest of the night. He saw the beast start to twitch, then slowly shift into the visage of a man, skin more sallow and pale than his companion. He watched as the tracker extracted the body from the tree and dragged it towards the others. Thomas tried to stand and lost his balance. He crawled to a tree and sat up, checking himself for injury. The pale man walked over and stood near him.

Slowly, feeling returned to his legs and the ringing in his ears faded a little. Once he could stand, he joined the tracker by the bodies, and lifted the canvas-wrapped forms of the two former drivers beside the werebeast’s corpse. Thomas’ breath caught as he looked at the sallow man’s forearm, where the skin of his forearm twisted unnaturally below the elbow. There was a faint tattoo, a set of scales tipped to one side.
“Wait,” Thomas said loudly, barely able to hear his own voice, pointing at the body. “I know that mark, those unbalanced scales. It’s the sigil of the trade company that hired my pa and me for protection, back when he was showing me the ropes.”

The tracker glanced at the tattoo, his pale face unreadable. He nodded once, sharp and final, then turned back to the pyre, dousing the bodies with the bottle of alcohol he’d offered earlier.

Thomas stepped back as the man worked, mind trying to make sense of what he saw. The sharp smell of alcohol stinging his nose. Thomas’ torch barely held a flame, but it was enough to light the pyre.

He stared for a long while, until the bodies had burnt to deformed lumps and the wood was coals and ash.

“You’ve got a few hours before the dawn catches up to us,” his pale companion intoned, eyes to the sky. “I reckon it’s time you unrolled that blanket back at camp and tried to sleep.”

Thomas nodded and turned towards what he assumed was the direction for camp.

“It seems the thrill of all this… adventure has wore off. You look half dead from exhaustion. I think you’ll make a full recovery, in time,” the pale man chuckled, “but your horse is this way.”

Thomas turned where the man pointed to see two horses walking out of the woods, the stranger’s black and silver mare followed by his own chestnut gelding.

He mounted and slowly followed back to the caravan, head becoming heavier with every minute.

In what felt like an hour that passed in a moment, Thomas realized he was staring at the now glowing embers of his camp fire, the pale stranger watching his face. Thomas shuddered at the pale man’s intense gaze and looked away.

“Thank you,” he said. “I haven’t anything… well, I haven’t much until we get to… to where we were going. But you can have this.” Holding out his pistol, he tried to meet the stranger’s gaze but his eyes were heavy now too. “If you want more… for saving my life… I don’t have it. But my parents in Silverton do. I can write them.”

The stranger took the offered pistol and looked it over before handing it back. “Much obliged, Thomas. As far as bounty payments go, this would do just fine. But it’s Martin that hired me, not you, and you may have need of this before the end.” Then he turned his horse’s head and moved further down the road. “You did good, for a green guard. Better than most, braver too. You’ll be in Marshal-Tulkren by nightfall tomorrow. Martin’s going to push the caravan hard after I speak to him. They’ve ravens and telegraphs, whatever you want to use to message your father. Let him know it feels like a debt needs to be paid.”

Thomas sat down with his back against the now fixed lead wagon, and tugged at the strap holding his bedroll together. His fingers stopped working the strap and within a moment Thomas was lightly snoring as he leaned against the lead wagon.

He woke fitfully to a hushed blue sky, sun not quite over the horizon, as a small boot tapped his ribs. Thomas coughed, tasting dirt in his mouth. The bedroll still in his hands, the strap only half undone, he was lying on his side near the wagon.

“Need you up and working, Tom,” came Martin’s gruff voice. He lifted his head to see the halfling guard leader standing above him, grey haired and muscled, a heavy crossbow across his back. “We’re moving as soon as you’ve eaten. No spare drivers so you’ll be driving the lead wagon. I’ll take your spot riding point. Now get up and eat something.”

He set about preparing to leave, tying his horse to the rear of the wagon and stowing his gear inside. He unholstered his pistol, memories of the fight last night came vividly to mind and he felt a slight shake in his grip that he fought down. After wiping the gun with a clean rag as best he could he grabbed his rifle and stowed it up front on the bench. One of the drivers brought him a bit of dried meat with a bowl of luke-warm porridge.

As he walked to the creek to refill his waterskin Thomas noted the deep gouges of dragged boulders in the muddy embankment. There were sawn trees piled to either side of the creek’s banks and several had been pulled recently to the road to form a make-shift bridge in the muck. Here he saw boulders had been dragged and placed to prop up the trees where the mud was deepest, allowing them to support a wagon’s weight without sinking.

The caravan moved at a rough pace once they’d all cleared the mud trap and Martin made it clear he expected them to eat in the saddle. The merchants were more than willing to forgo a more comfortable pace, especially after someone discovered that the bodies of the dead drivers had disappeared in the night. No one wanted to stay another night in Kingswood.

By midday they’d gone about 10 miles and Martin allowed them to slow the mules to not risk their exhaustion. Thomas was feeling his shoulders droop and wishing he’d gotten more rest when he heard hooves approaching from behind.

The tracker, who he now knew as Jesse Crane, rode up beside the wagon and kept pace for a time, eyes looking forward down the road.
“I thought you’d left, tracker,” Thomas finally said, uncomfortable with the prolonged silence.

“Oh, I was just checking on a few things for Mr. Martin. I’ve got a job to do, same as you.”

“My name is Thomas by the way. Thomas Danvers. Yours? I never asked your name, and I hate thinking of you as a stranger after what you did last night.”

The silence returned for a time and just as Thomas was trying to figure out what to say next, his pale companion spoke again.

“The name is Jesse Crane.” The man replied. “If you slowed a moment, I’d take those reins and let you have a rest. I doubt there will be any more inconveniences now, until we reach Marshal-Tulkren.”

Thomas stopped the wagon briefly and let Jesse take the driver’s seat, not bothering to tie his horse to the wagon.

For a time they drove together in silence, Jesse’s horse keeping pace beside them before moving into the woods and out of sight.

“Don’t worry about her, Thomas. She’ll be fine,” his Jesse responded, just as Thomas was about to warn him of her disappearance. “She’s been through these woods before.”

“I’ve noticed she’s a bit… unusual,” Thomas said, “For a horse,” he added after a moment.

“Is she?” Jesse chuckled. “She’s that, I guess. I’ve grown accustomed to her ways over the years.”

Thomas slumped against the bench, eyes growing heavy again as the pines bobbed up and down past him. “Those shots last night,” he mumbled, “the fire, that thunder... what kind of bullets do that?”

Jesse reached into his crimson vest, pulling out two pouches, one brown, one red, and tipped two bullets into Thomas’ palm. Thomas turned them in the midday light: one bore a crimson flame etched beside a rune on the brass tip, the other held a scythe that seemed to drink the sunlight, beside a series of three smaller runes.

“Wilem's gunsmith gave me those the day before yesterday, after I brought him... well I brought him a dirty scarf. And closure to a painful memory.” Jesse said, voice low. “My services are mostly dangerous and rarely free. And remuneration is based on the value my clients place on those services. They often pay with things more valuable than gold.” He took the bullets back, pocketed them, eyes on the road.

“That ghost you spoke of,” Thomas pressed, voice fading with a stifled yawn, “who is she?” Jesse’s jaw tightened, just for a moment.
“Mordred,” he said, flat and cold.

The name settled with finality, and Thomas felt there was nothing to be gained by asking further. Jesse pulled the silver flask from his coat, took a swig, and tucked it away.

“Rest now, son,” he said, voice softer. “You've got a ways yet till Marshal-Tulkren.”

Thomas’s eyes fluttered, and he drifted off, the wagon’s creak lulling him into fitful sleep.

Hours slipped by, the sun beginning its slow descent as the mules plodded on, and foam began to fleck their flanks. Thomas stirred once, Jesse’s steady hand at the reins gone as he tried to suppress a deep cough. Several more coughs came as the day dwindled, before they seemed to stop for good.

Jesse hummed a low tune, one Thomas swore he’d heard in Wilem’s taverns, and gently urged the mules forward a little further. Soon the pines thinned, the road widened into open scrub, then grassy hills. Sleep lurked at the edge of Thomas’ mind and he urged it away. When the wagon creaked over a final rise, Marshal-Tulkren’s spires rose under a pink-gold sunset and a vast horizon spread out behind the city, hills gently sloping to the sea beyond. The open sky blazed with hues that drowned all memory of the forest’s tight gloom.

Just as the gates came into view, Jesse reined the mules to a stop and handed the leather straps back to Thomas. "You'll need to take them the rest of the way, Mr. Danvers," he said and reached over to grab the pommel of Daisy's saddle. Thomas startled at her sudden appearance, and bit back a yelp - wondering how long she'd been beside them without his noticing. "I've to settle my payment with Mr. Martin and be about some personal business," finished Jesse.

The tracker trotted a little way ahead, and Thomas, bleary eyed and weary, heard Jesse mutter a soft melody to himself. A shimmer rippled across his coat, like a gentle breeze Thomas couldn’t feel, and then the mud-stained folds hung sharper, as though cut for a gentleman’s promenade.

When the pale man turned his ebony mare to face the caravan, he smiled and tipped his hat, and the change was undeniable. The dark coat, crimson vest, black hat, pale chiseled face - all the same, and yet not the same at all. Gone was the ghostly tracker who had hunted Kingswood forest. In his place sat a refined caballero.

Thomas blinked the grit from his eyes, but the mules chose that moment to surge forward, eager for straw and oats promised by the sight of the city gate. The wagon jolted, snatching the vision away. When he looked again he saw only the tracker, a silent cowboy, watching patiently as wagons rolled by, leaving his mind crowded with questions he couldn't ask.

As his wagon passed south through the open gate of Marshal-Tulkren, Thomas shook his head and tried to turn his thoughts towards home and the letter he needed to send to his father. Behind him, a voice began singing, faintly, over the hooves and creaking wagon wheels before the walls of the city swallowed the sound.