Bird in the Night
The village of Dale turns into a hub of activity in the days following the soldier's crushing defeat in their square and a center of operation for the rebellion where they begin the task of getting organized properly. There are always people moving about and the days are long and full of hard work.
They all know they will have to leave the village behind at some point in the near future and they have to move towards the Capital where they will most likely need to have a final confrontation with the King and his soldiers. They are all guilty of treason now and there is no turning back to their previous, simple lives unless they kill the King and replace his rule.
For the time being however, it is a good place to stay while they come up with a proper plan.
They send out riders to all the neighboring towns to spread the news about their uprising and success against the soldiers and people from neighboring villages come to travelling to Dale, seeking out the rebels and wanting to join their cause. They come from villages that have already had a visit and stand without resources before winter and some from villages yet untouched.
There are days when people arrive from destroyed towns, telling horrible tales of burning homes and murdered people where they barely escaped with their lives intact.
Those days are hard on them all, but it also reminds them all why what they are choosing to fight and the fires in their hearts burn just a little bit brighter pushing them all to work harder.
They spend the days organizing weapons, food and other supplies they will need and Torleif tasks the chieftains from the different villages with finding out what useful skills the villagers have and supply them with weapons, various tasks and responsibilities that most suites their existing knowledge. Torleif puts his experience from his days as soldier to good use and begins training them in the most basic us of weapons and military tactics to prepare them all for fights ahead.
Matthias sighs heavily as he turns around on his bed for what feels like the hundredth time tonight. His entire body aches after yet another one of Torleif's brutal training sessions, and no matter which position he takes, there is always a bruise complaining about the treatment. He knows it is important to train and he understands why Torleif pushes them so hard, but it does not make his battered body hurt any less after the countless times somebody struck him with a blunted sword or knocked him to the ground over the course of the day.
It does not help either that his bed is no more than a thin layer of straw on the floor covered with a coarse sheet. The village of Dale is in no way big enough to have spare room or beds for the sudden influx of inhabitants and the houses thy have are growing more and more cramped with each passing day. Matthias ended up sharing a room with Berwald and Tino in one of the farmhouses on the outer edge of Dale. The room is more of a loft really with a low ceiling he has knocked his head into on countless occasions already, but they are luckier than most others that have to sleep on a living room floor or in a large, open barn with multiple others like most of the latest arrivals.
He knows he is one of the luckier ones, but Matthias feels quite jealous of Tino who is fast asleep on the one alcove available in the loft and looking very comfortable on the much softer mattress. Berwald for some reason, Matthias has his suspicions why, insisted that the youngest one of them should have the bed and insisted the two of them could take the floor. Sleep has eluded him for hours now, and the floor seems to grow even more uncomfortable with each passing minute along with his increasing annoyance for Berwald's flair for chivalry at his expense.
He sighs as he rolls over to his back and stares at the ceiling where he begins counting planks, then nails, hoping that will help lull him to sleep but to no avail. The many sounds of night seem louder than usual and he feels overly aware of every single noise, letting them wash over him with lack of better things to do.
There is the soft, steady breathing from Berwald and Tino, with the occasional rustle of fabric when one of them shift around. Somewhere else in the house, somebody is snoring loud enough to resonate through the entire building and make the walls vibrate. Matthias pities those that must sleep in the same room as that person without even a single wall to dampen that sound. There is the quick tapping of tiny feet moving over him as a mouse makes its way around within the roof and walls searching for a late-night snack.
He has heard these same sounds every night for the past few weeks, they should be calming by now, but this night they are nothing but aggravating. Then a new sound draws his attention, an insistent tapping against the window and he groans in annoyance. That is exactly what he needs to keep him up the rest of the night, a branch knocking against the glass because of the wind, and then his brain catches up and he is wide-awake in an instant.
There should not be any wind strong enough to disturb the trees at all. Not here. The Witchwall keep the village isolated from the winds and Matthias cannot come up with a single explanation for why the sudden tapping on the window. He rolls over to face the window, lifting himself up on his elbows to see better, wishing he had a weapon.
He is not sure what he expected to see, but a small, blue bird is certainly not it and his first thought are those of annoyance, until he realizes the damned bird is familiar, very familiar. He cannot help himself then. His mouth drops open in surprise as he stares at the creature, almost expecting it to vanish in a puff of smoke as a figment of his imagination.
The bird is not impressed by his flailing around and somehow manages to look annoyed as it tilts his head to the side and stares at him expectantly. Then it insistently taps its beak against the glass a few more times and flies off out of sight.
Losing sight of the bird finally shakes Matthias out of his surprise and he scrambles to his feet. He rushes over to the window, weaving between the creakiest floorboards and only barely avoids stepping on Berwald in the process so he can peer outside.
On the ground below the window stands Lukas.
He is wearing a heavy, blue cloak that obscures most of his face, but there is no doubt in Matthias' mind that it is him. He has never before met anyone else with that kind of careless confidence and superior attitude. He does not make any gestures for Matthias to come down to join him, rather he makes a curious tilt of his head much like the blue bird in his window as he stares up with dark expectant eyes further strengthening Matthias' theories that they are one and the same.
Matthias nods to indicate that he will come as soon as he can, but as he turns around back to the room, he realizes that getting out quietly will be no easy feat. His shoes are on the opposite side of the room, by the hatch leading downstairs to the rest of the house, but he does not want to take that route out considering the number of people sleeping on the floors downstairs. He still need his shoes though and creeps over the floor as he can, and every single creek he makes on the floorboards sound ten times louder than normal. He freezes in his tracks from any sound or movement from either Berwald or Tino thinking that this time they will wake up and catch him sneaking out.
Of course the window has to creak louder in complaint than the floorboards ever did, but fortune is with him and the other two keep on sleeping and he swings his feet over the ledge and close the window most of the way behind himself.
It is a bit far down to the ground from the second floor, but Matthias lowers himself to hang from the ledge before he steels himself for the last drop and lets go.
The impact is hard and he tumbles to the ground, rolling once before he manages to get his feet back under himself and stand up. He brushes dirt of his clothes and looks around for Lukas who has not moved in inch. He is about to open his mouth for a greeting, but Lukas makes a quick signal for him to remain quiet and Matthias shuts his mouth so quickly his teeth clack together.
"Not here," Lukas whispers and turns away from the farm house. "There are too many people around. We should go somewhere else, follow me."
Matthias struggles to keep his questions to himself when there are so many he wants answered. He wants to know who Lukas is just beyond a name and he wants to know about the magic he obviously possesses, but he manages to keep his mouth shut as Lukas swiftly weaves his way through the streets. He seems to follow the narrowest alleys between the houses, where the pale light from the moon cannot reach them and seems to blend in perfectly with the shadows. On the way, he makes signals for Matthias to stop occasionally, presumably because there are guards nearby and he waits for them to be at a safe distance before he allows them to move again. Matthias never even sees any of them, but he trusts Lukas' instincts far more than his own when it comes to stealth.
The nights have grown steadily colder over the past few weeks and Matthias regrets his eagerness to get outside and talk to Lukas, forgetting to dress appropriately for the weather in the process. He shivers as the wind ignores the presence of his shirt and pants, biting at his skin and making his teeth rattle together as they walk.
He is immensely relieved when Lukas finally slows his pace and looks around suspiciously.
Matthias looks around, squinting against the darkness, but finally recognizes the village square from the damage caused by the rocks during the attack.
The villagers have done some work to clear the area, but that mostly includes the smaller rocks and debris so they would have a semi-functioning road through the main part of town. The larger boulders were too heavy and buried themselves too deep to remove with ease and the villagers agreed to leave them for now. Several of the houses closest to the hill were more or less considered a lost cause after rocks smashed down one or more walls and the village lacked the resources to fix it before winter and they had much greater things to worry about.
Lukas opens a door to one of the abandoned houses and makes his way inside.
Matthias follows, needing to duck underneath a broken beam on his way inside. "Can we talk now?" he asks impatiently as he shuts the rickety door behind himself.
Lukas keeps ignoring him and moves through the house with a determination. He draws the curtains shut, blocking out the last remaining traces of moonlight. Matthias mostly just sees a shadow move across the floor and hears a few quietly spoken words and then suddenly Lukas is holding up a lit lantern. He places it carefully on a wobbly table and throws back the heavy hood of his cloak, finally revealing his face proper. "We should be safe enough to talk here, just keep your voice low."
Matthias barely resists the urge to reach out and touch Lukas to make sure beyond any doubt that he is real while mentally cycling through his list of questions trying to figure out which one to ask first. "Can you just tell me who you are?" he finally settles on, desperate to learn more.
"Not yet," Lukas says firmly, leaving no room for discussion. "Maybe one day you will be ready, but that is not today."
"How can you possible say that?" Matthias snaps back a little bit sharper than first intended, frustration bleeding through his words. "You show up out of nowhere and expect me to trust you and your information when you clearly don't trust me in return. It is not really fair, is it?"
"My goal was never to be fair," Lukas replies calmly. "If it will make you feel any better, I can promise to tell you more about myself the next time we meet and maybe answer some of your questions. I know it is not what you want to hear, but that is all I can offer."
Matthias huffs loudly in disappointment, crossing his arms over his chest, still not happy. "Then tell me what you wanted to say then. You are the one that sought me out, not the other way around."
Lukas nods curtly. "Firstly I wanted to congratulate you on your no less than astonishing victory here. I never expected it would be quite so spectacular and very clever use of your surroundings. Secondly, I came to give you this. He reaches for something in the folds of his cloak and returns with a roll of paper, held together by a piece of string, offering it to Matthias.
Impatient and curious both, Matthias tears off the string to look at the papers.
He is confused at first by the sight, not really understanding what he is looking at. He brings the paper closer to the lantern and the soft glow it emits and sucks in a sharp breath of air when he realizes he is staring at a rough sketch of himself.
He never owned a proper mirror, but he has seen his own reflection enough to know that it is definitely him on that piece of paper. Someone put a lot of effort in to catch his likeness, the broad shoulders from years of manual labor and the features that often make people tell him he looks exactly like his father. Then there is the hair that was a constant annoyance to his mother, too long to be practical yet too short to tie back, wild and untamable just like her son she would say. The only think in the sketch he does not recognize himself in, is the expression. He looks cold and angry and the sight unsettles him.
His eyes moves from the sketch and further down the page to the several neat lines of writing below it. He has no clue what it says, but the symbol at the very bottom, he can easily recognize as the king's official seal. A mighty oak tree with a crown floating above the canopy.
Matthias lets his eyes roam over the text a few more times before he gathers the courage to ask: "What does it say?" He can feel his face burning at the shame of admitting he does not know how to read, even though there are very few famers that ever get the chance to learn. It makes him feel like he is just another dumb outskirt nobody and he cannot understand why somebody like Lukas would bother spending time on someone him.
Lukas narrows his eyes and then realization dawns on him and his expressions softens marginally. "The king has offered a very large sum of money to anyone that can bring him your head, preferably separated from the rest of your body and ready to set atop a spike outside the capital walls."
"Why me?" Matthias asks and he winces at how his voice breaks. His guts are attempting a revolt of their own, threatening to reacquaint him with his dinner as he realizes any chance of a normal life outside the rebellion is officially over as the entire Kingdom might recognize him by look alone after this. "I'm nobody," he says, not sure who is trying to convince. "If the King wants any specific rebel dead it should be Torleif. He is the leader and a much larger threat than me."
"Do not sell yourself short," Lukas replies flatly. "You have far more importance than you think and the rebellion would not have come this far without you. To the King it does not matter who you are, he wants all of you dead, every single rebel. This poster has your face because one of the soldiers that attacked Griven returned to the Capital and gave a description, but there is no name to follow and as I said, nor does he care for one."
Matthias knows which soldier gave the description. He remembers the face all too clearly and the call of 'you can run, but you cannot hide.' It is almost like he can still smell the smoke of the burning village and hear the echoes of screaming people and the cold laughter from the soldier as he turned to run. The sudden flash of memories sends a shiver down his back and makes his blood run cold.
Lukas makes a gentle sound that draws Matthias back out of his thoughts. "You have to be very careful now," he says. "With this price on your head, there is a chance somebody will want to betray you and sell you out to the king. The money would be enough to secure a whole family the chance of a new life anywhere in the kingdom or outside it. If the king does get his hands on you it will only be a question of time before he will get the others as well and this whole rebellion will be over."
"What should I do?" Matthias whispers.
"You will have to inspire loyalty," Lukas says firmly as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. "You have to show to everybody that there is a real chance of winning and that it is the only way of survival and there is nothing to gain from turning you in for the promise of coin. The soldiers are becoming increasingly violent with each passing day and people everywhere hate them, but they will not stand up and fight for themselves without the right motivation. If they give the soldiers what they want, they will have to start anew with nothing, but at least they will be alive. If they chose to fight it is either victory or death and death is not the most efficient selling point now is it?"
"Does this inspirational speech also come with instructions on how I am to achieve all of this?" Matthias asks dryly. "I'm just a farmer, not a military mastermind."
"How you go about defeating the king's army is not up for me to decide," Lukas replies lightly and casually leans against one of the walls still untouched by destruction. "You will have to figure that out on your own, but I can tell you where you can find one group of the King's main forces.
Matthias' mouth falls open, uselessly moving around words he cannot even begin to formulate in his mind. He does not even have the slightest idea of where to even begin and how to feel about it. He should be grateful for any information, but the circumstances are too suspicious and he is insulted at how casually Lukas treats the situation, seeming to think that Matthias can easily decide what steps the rebels should take.
Lukas seems to take his silence as a sign to continue and takes a deep breath, preparing to further his point. "If you know where the soldiers are, that will save you all weeks of marching aimlessly around which is something you do not have the resources for. If you run too low on food, people will lose hope, then they will begin to doubt the leadership first and soon everybody will be out for themselves. Hunger is always the bigger enemy and faced with it, people will no longer care about the greater good. The rebellion will fail and it will be civil war between the outskirt villages as people turn against each other to survive." Lukas takes another breath. "The soldiers out there have supplies to last them for weeks on the road, supplies you desperately need."
Silence follows Lukas' words and Matthias sees the logic behind them even though it is a grim one.
The rebels are burning quickly through the supplies that they have available. The village of Dale was certainly not prepared to triple in number overnight and with new refugees joining up every single day the stores are dwindling faster than any of them would like. Even with strict rationing, the food left will last them for another month at most and Matthias makes up his mind quickly after that.
"Where can I find this army?" he asks with a sense of renewed determination.
Lukas' lips twitch up in a grim smile. "They are moving through the north as we speak," he says simply, clearly expecting that exact reaction from Matthias. "They are going systematically from village to village, taking whatever they can so they can bring it back to the capital. After word of the rebellion spread they became more violent in their ways, killing people at the slightest sign of disobedience."
"And you know this how?" Matthias asks.
"I have seen it," Lukas replies grimly as his expression darkens.
Matthias accepts that as good enough of an answer. He is not brave enough to question the sudden turn in attitude just from one simple question. He struggles to come up with something to say to break the tension, but then hears the sound of heavy footsteps moving somewhere on the outside.
Lukas looks alert in an instant, head tilting as if he is working to pinpoint the exact location. "The guards are heading this way," he whispers urgently. "I need to leave." He moves silent like a shadow across the room and extinguishes the flickering light from the lantern, bathing the room in darkness.
Matthias cannot see anything but the faint light from the cracks in the walls and one shattered window, he would not even see his own hands if he held them before his eyes.
"You never saw me," Lukas whispers sharply in his ear and Matthias shudders at the rush of hot breath over the sensitive skin of his ear. He never even noticed Lukas move and can only assume he is good as gone already. He does after all have a habit of disappearing into thin air.
Matthias can hear the guards drawing closer and for a short second he considers hiding, but knows that without any light he is likely to knock over something and draw their attention even faster. He wracks for a good excuse for being in an abandoned building in the middle of the night when he should be back at the loft asleep. He is not even dressed for being outside and with a crumpled wanted poster of himself in one hand.
He tucks the poster into the lining of his pants as if that will make him less suspicious, barely holding back a hysterical laughter as he tears a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. The footsteps are drawing closer, the guards must be heading into the main square and then he finally has an idea. More like half of one and he has no idea whether or not he can pull it off. There is not like he has the time to come up with something better and he tears of his boots and tosses them towards the furthest corner of the room, praying it does not make too much noise.
The rhythm of the footsteps change into a run, and there is a sudden crash as the door slams open and Matthias finds himself blinded as two torches bathe the room in a light that is absolutely blinding after the previous darkens darkness.
It is surprisingly easy to fake scared and confused as he blinks owlishly at the sudden light, trying to shield his eyes with one hand only to glimpse the shape of three guards by the doorway, each of them holding a weapon lifted and ready to strike but then frozen. "What?" he says weakly, cowering slightly.
"Matthias?" he hears one of them say and hears the rustle of fabric an metal as at least one of them sheathes their weapon. "What the hell are you doing here?" His voice is high pitched from surprise and he even stumbles over his words.
Matthias looks around the room, pretending to take in the details of the room. He shivers as one of the guards move further into the room and a breeze makes its way past the now open door. When he was talking with Lukas, he forgot all about the cold, but now it returns with a vengeance. He looks down at himself, pretending to be surprised at his own state of dress. "I think I might have been sleepwalking?" he says hesitantly and looks down as he wiggles his bare toes in the dirt over the cold floorboards.
The guards follow his gaze and some of the tension seem to leave them when they notice his feet. Nobody in their right mind would go out in this sort of weather without proper clothing and especially not without shoes. Matthias scratches at the back of his neck, putting on his most convincing sheepish smile while scratching at the back of his neck. They should let him go easily enough. In the last few weeks, most have come to know him as one of Torleif's inner circle and so he is certainly no stranger to them.
One of the guards still does not look entirely convinced. "I could have sword I heard voices coming from here," he says, but he does lower his sword even though his gaze roams across the rooms as if he expects to find more people tucked away in the shadows.
"Guess I must have talked in my sleep as well then," Matthias says. "I had just had the craziest dream before you barged in and woke me up. It was all so real."
One of the other guards sighs deeply and scratches at his own head in thought, looking as if he is not entirely sure what to think. "Well, I guess we better get you back to where you're supposed to be. You should not be lurking about alone at night, especially not without clothes. Torleif will not be merciful during training if you get sick from walking around in the middle of night."
Matthias makes a grimace. "I know," he says and crosses his arm, the longer they stand there, the colder he feels and it is just a matter of seconds until his teeth will begin chattering as well. "He might even be meaner thinking that he can teach me a lesson, but I can promise I did not chose to sleepwalk here and I would also like to get back to my bed where I won't freeze to death."
The guard nods and takes off his cloak, offering it up to Matthias. "You can have that until we get you back, lets go." He turns towards the door, ready to head out. The other two lift their torches higher to light up the room a little bit more for one last check, but they appear to find nothing out of order and gestures for Matthias to follow the first guard out and they take up the back, closing the door behind them.
Matthias breathes a silent sigh of relief as he makes the way back to the farmhouse, surrounded by guards and in bare feet, feeling as if he dodged an arrow. Lukas got away and the guards do not appear to suspicious even if they do not know what to think. Now all he has to do is get his boots back before Tino and Berwald gets up in the morning and before anyone else can find them tucked away in that building, but more importantly, he has to find a way to convince Torleif that they need to march north to find the King's army.
He already knows the morning ahead will be long and difficult and the lack of sleep will certainly not help.