Chapter 40: Sword
Danny’s eyes widened, genuinely shocked, so shocked he forgot to be scared for a second, forgot about the wolf, forgot about the cliff edge behind him.
What? What is he talking about? I... when did he ask me? He never asked me! He never asked anyone for anything this morning!
He searched his memory frantically, rewinding the last few hours in his head. The thin prisoner had been asleep longest, snoring with his mouth open, frost on his eyelashes. He had woken up last and drunk directly from his own snow melt, scooping it with his dirty hands from a hollow rock. He had not spoken to Danny until the crunching started. He had never asked for water. Never. Not once in the entire morning.
It was a complete invention. A small, mean, easy lie, the kind that is hard to disprove precisely because it’s so small, so petty, so human. A lie about water, not about curses and destiny. Everyone understands water.
The thin prisoner shook his head, putting on a face of deep disappointment, like a father let down by a son, like a leader betrayed by his follower, acting so well that for a second even Danny almost believed him, almost questioned his own memory.
"If that’s the kind of person he is, selfish even with water when we are all dying of thirst, then why should we risk our lives for him? Why should we die for someone who wouldn’t even give a sip to a thirsty man? That’s his character. Cursed or not, he’s selfish. That’s why the curse sticks to him. Because his heart is already cold. The curse found a home."
Danny clenched his fists, his pathetic rock almost slipping from his sweaty palm despite the freezing cold. His whole body was shaking now, not just from cold but from rage, that helpless, choking rage when someone lies about you and people might believe it because the lie is simpler than the truth, because the lie makes a better, neater story.
So that’s why he’s picking me. So that’s his big reason. Not just the curse. Now I’m selfish too. First cursed, then selfish. What’s next? A thief? A murderer? He’ll make me whatever he needs to make me to justify leaving me.
He had been waiting for an excuse, any excuse, any tiny flaw, and when the big lie about the curse wasn’t enough to convince the old man, when the old man saw through the big, clever argument about fate and signs, he invented a smaller, meaner, more human one. A lie about water. Because everyone understands selfishness. Everyone hates selfishness more than curses.
The grey-haired man slowly turned toward him, toward Danny, his face unreadable, carved from old wood and old battles and old losses. His eyes went from the thin prisoner to Danny, studying him, weighing him, not with anger but with something worse — with judgment, with a final decision forming behind his eyes.
Danny froze. His blood turned to ice water in his veins, colder than the snow he was standing in, colder than the wind.
Damn it. He believes him? About the water? He thinks I refused water? After I shared my jerky yesterday? After I pulled his coat over him when he was shivering?
He saw the man’s hand move. Not just tighten around the sword, but move with purpose, with intent, shifting his grip from defensive to ready, from carrying to using, from rest to action.
Whoosh! A sharp hiss of old steel against a worn leather sheath, a sound Danny had heard a hundred times on the road when wolves came, when bandits came, when danger came, but never directed at him, never while looking directly into his eyes.
The sword left its sheath fully, fast, in one smooth, practiced motion that only a real soldier knows, that only years of practice and killing and surviving give you. The sound cut through the cold morning air like a crack of ice breaking on a lake.
Danny’s heart jumped into his throat, hammering so loud he couldn’t hear the forest anymore, couldn’t hear the wind, couldn’t hear the thin prisoner’s triumphant breathing.
The blade gleamed in the pale morning light, not bright and new and heroic, but dull grey with spots of rust and dark old blood that would never wash out no matter how much snow you scrubbed it with, yet still sharp enough to kill, still a sword, still death made into a straight, terrible line that could end everything in one second.
His body instinctively moved backward without his mind telling it to. Pure animal instinct, pure fear, older than thought.
One step back, boots crunching loud in the virgin snow at the edge of the path.
Then another step back, toward the edge of the old imperial path where the mountain dropped away into white nothing, into fog and wind, where a loose stone could mean a hundred-meter fall with no sound at the bottom.
What’s going on? What’s happening? Why is he drawing on me? Why is he looking at me and not him?
The grey-haired man was looking directly at him now, eyes locked onto Danny’s face, sword held low and ready, not high and threatening like in a duel, but low, the way you hold it when you are about to do a grim job, a butcher’s job, a necessary, ugly job that no one wants to do but someone has to do.
Danny’s breathing became heavier, short gasps that hurt his chest, that made white clouds puff fast and panicked in the cold air in front of him, one after another.
Why is he looking at me like that? Like I’m the enemy? Like I’m the wolf? After everything? After I pulled him up too on that cliff? After I shared my fire?
His eyes remained fixed on the sword, unable to look away from the edge that could end him in one swing, that could open his throat before he could even raise his rock to defend himself. He forgot about the wolf in the forest. The wolf was nothing now, a story, a distraction, compared to this, compared to betrayal by the one man who had been kind to him in this whole frozen hell.
For the first time since they had started traveling together, since the old man had shared his jerky without asking, had taught him how to wrap his feet with cloth against frostbite, had called him "kid" instead of "DoD" and had ruffled his hair once by the fire, Danny wondered if the grey-haired man had already made his decision. If the sly tongue had won after all, not with big logic but with that small lie about water.
If the logic of two lives over one cursed, selfish life had finally sounded sensible even to a good man who was tired and cold and scared of dying in the snow with no grave.
Danny took another small step back, his heel hitting a loose stone on the edge of the drop, making it skitter and clatter down the mountain, the sound taking seconds to fade, with no echo coming back. Just gone.
His hand trembled so badly the rock in it clattered against his coat buttons, a pathetic, small sound.
Is he really going to kill me? Here? On this beautiful snowy road? Is he going to cut me down and leave me for the wolf so they can run? Is that how my story ends? Like garbage?
The sword rose slightly, catching more of the pale light, and the grey-haired man’s shadow fell long over Danny, over the snow, covering him completely.