The Price of Honor | Part Four

Tucked beneath a rock on the edges of New Ashen, near the abandoned cathedral a tattered, nearly burnt letter sits in an empty pew.

"Mother,

I wish I had never joined the men of the Outlook.

A family of travelers came through the checkpoint today, just a normal family. Two parents, and a boy no older than my cousin Bram. They were barren of supplies, no cart, and carried nothing beyond blankets for the boy and a hunting bow with few arrows left. Said something terrible had moved through their homestead the night prior and they were fleeing to the east with their sights on New Ashen.

The captain looked them over, he said deserters from the lands taxes weren’t allowed passage.

He ordered us to send them back from whence they came.

The young boy cried and clung to his mother when we turned them toward the woods again. I can still hear the wails over the wind.

Some of the men wouldn’t meet each other’s eyes afterward. A silence has overtaken the camp.

- Theo"