Chapter 9 – Blood on the Road
864 Words
The dawn broke red.
It was the kind of morning that looked wounded—where the sun rose through a haze of smoke and mist, staining the road with a hue that could only be mistaken for blood. Elias rode in silence, his cloak tattered by travel, his dagger sheathed but ready. The forest had thinned, giving way to a stretch of open road winding between barren hills. The air smelled of damp earth and iron.
He had not seen another soul for days, but solitude was an old companion now. Each hoofbeat echoed like a heartbeat against the emptiness.
Then came the crows.
They scattered suddenly from the roadside trees, shrieking, black wings cutting through the pale morning. Elias slowed his horse. The stillness that followed felt wrong—too sudden, too heavy. A twig snapped somewhere ahead.
“Easy,” he whispered to his mount.
A voice answered, rough and mocking.
“Easy, aye—wouldn’t want to startle the fine traveler before we lighten his load.”
Four men emerged from the brush. Their faces were masked with dirt and desperation. One held a rusted sword, another a bow. Bandits—driven by hunger more than cruelty, Elias guessed. But desperation could be deadlier than malice.
He dismounted slowly, keeping his hands visible.
“I’ve little worth stealing,” he said calmly. “Just a tired horse and an older man.”
The tallest of the bandits stepped forward, grin sharp as broken glass.
“We’ll take both.”
Elias’s eyes flicked to the sword at the man’s hip. He could end this quickly. A single move. A clean strike. But the memory of the bard’s words haunted him still: Every man who hunts sorrow becomes its prey.
Killing was easy. Mercy was harder.
He drew his dagger only half from its sheath, letting the silver catch the red dawn light—a warning, not a threat. “You don’t want this fight.”
The archer laughed, nocking an arrow. “A hunter preaching peace? What are you, a priest now?”
“I’ve seen enough death to know it feeds nothing,” Elias replied.
The leader snarled. “You talk too much.”
He lunged.
Elias sidestepped with trained precision, his dagger flashing to parry the swing. The clash rang sharp in the cold air. The bandit stumbled; Elias could have struck the killing blow—but instead, he twisted the man’s wrist and sent the sword flying into the dirt.
“Leave,” Elias said, voice low, steady. “Take your men and go.”
The others hesitated, but hunger and pride made fools of them. The archer’s arrow whistled—Elias dropped, rolled, and the shaft hissed past his ear. In the same breath, he hurled his dagger—not to kill, but to pin the man’s sleeve to a tree. The archer froze, eyes wide with disbelief.
The last two charged together. Elias met them barehanded, the first blow catching him across the jaw. Pain flared, grounding him, centering him. He moved like water after that—fluid, inevitable. A knee to the gut, a fist to the throat, and both were down, groaning in the mud.
When it was over, the road was silent again except for the sound of labored breathing. Elias retrieved his dagger, wiping it clean on his cloak.
The leader glared up at him, blood on his lip. “Why didn’t you finish it?”
“Because you’re not my enemy,” Elias said softly. “Not yet.”
The man spat in the dirt. “Mercy won’t save you out here.”
Elias sheathed his dagger. “Maybe not. But it saves what’s left of me.”
He turned to leave, mounting his horse. But the leader called out again—this time not in mockery, but confusion.
“Who are you?”
Elias looked back once, the light catching his weary face.
“Just another soul trying to make peace with his ghosts.”
He rode on, the sound of hooves fading into the mist. Behind him, the bandits watched in silence, the red dawn washing over them like guilt.
By midday, the blood-colored sky had softened to gold. Elias stopped by a stream to wash his hands. The water ran cold and clear, but when he looked down, for a moment, he thought he saw crimson swirling there—memory staining reflection. He blinked, and it was gone.
Still, the question lingered in his mind: how many times could he choose mercy before mercy broke him?
A faint wind stirred the grass. He could almost hear a woman’s whisper carried with it—a voice distant but familiar.
Mira…
He pressed a hand to his chest, where her name still echoed like a wound refusing to close.
The road stretched ahead again, endless and uncertain. Somewhere beyond the hills, beyond the forest that haunted every horizon, waited the witch whose sorrow called to him like the pull of the tide.
And so he rode on, the ghost of blood still glinting in the sun, a reminder of the battle within him—the one no blade could ever win.
- Writer
