While the winter months passed timely, with all their joys and difficulties, Jerry still had the occasional guests over—or rather, guest.

  “Shit, Jerry.” Derek slammed his cup on the table. ”It’s freezing in here!”

  “The cold never bothered me anyway.” Jerry shrugged. “The fire should be roaring soon; give it a moment.”

  “I will, if my teeth stop clattering.”

  It wasn’t the first time Derek visited. He dropped by once every few weeks for a drink, a chat, and to bring Jerry supplies from the village. The forest could provide many things, but tanned leather and alcohol were beyond Jerry’s means.

  Ashman hadn’t visited. He said he was busy, and Jerry believed him.

  “How’s the village?” the necromancer asked after the fire had matured. “It’s been a while since I visited.”

  Derek huddled inside a pack of blankets, shivering. The ice glints in his beard were only just melting; it still impressed Jerry how prone to cold the man was—as well as everyone in the village. Perhaps being a necromancer also strengthened the body?

  “It’s winter,” Derek replied. “Not much is happening. Everyone stays inside with their families, hoping to last till spring. But there shouldn’t be a problem. How are things here?”

  “Pretty amazing.” Jerry grinned. “We took our time, played in the snow a bit.”

  “Yes, I noticed the snowman that almost matched your tower in height. How did you even make that?”

  “It was a tough week.” Jerry shrugged. This time, he shivered as well. Boney’s slave-driving enthusiasm was only matched by his fervor, and the master had soon become the servant. It really had been a tough week.

  “The wooden statue is also nice,” Derek said, “but you’re weird, you know? If I were you, I’d spend more time worrying about my impending doom and less time capturing my likeness in wood.”

  “Do you mean Jericho? I’m doing what I can.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I’ve built a bunch of new skeletons, ready to fight for our home. I’ve also had the undead practice with weapons; the dead bandits had plenty of swords. As for myself, I feel my powers growing by the day. I can support more than seven undead if I want to, now; it just feels a bit extraneous. We might become too many to properly hang out.”

  Derek barked a laugh.

  “That’s a worry alright,” he muttered, gaze lost in the fireplace. The flames danced and swirled, rising above the crackling wood and reflecting in Derek’s thoughtful irises.

  Jerry noticed.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked. “You seem off.”

  “Well, I…” The hunter hesitated for a moment, his blankets moving up and down with his breath. “I’m just a bit worried, I guess. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Holly, since we’ve been staying inside all winter, and I… Well, she’s off.”

  Jerry raised a brow. “Off?”

  “Off. It’s like her mind is elsewhere. She doesn’t ask me when we’re moving to Milaris anymore, but she still takes care of her dresses. I’ve caught her smiling when looking at them, but it doesn’t make sense; the dresses remind her of the city, where I forbid her to go. It’s suspicious.”

  “Maybe you’re looking too deep into things; it doesn’t sound like anything solid to worry about.”

  “I know my daughter, Jerry.” Derek frowned. “Something is wrong, I can feel it. Maybe it’s that boy she’s been meeting, that’s the only thing I can think of, but I don’t want to— I mean, it’s difficult.”

  Jerry nodded politely and Derek kept going.

  “My wife ran away from home because her parents wanted to control her choices. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me. I trust Holly. I’ve raised her to be a responsible girl, and I don’t want to interfere, but…”

  “But you can’t help worrying,” Jerry completed, and the hunter nodded, almost whimpering.

  “Yes…” he finally admitted, pain in his voice. “I can feel that something is wrong, and I really want to dive in there and solve whatever problem she’s facing, but I don’t want to be that parent. I want to trust her. Even if there is some problem, she will solve it herself, right?”

  He looked up at Jerry, eyes filled with concern. “Right?” he repeated.

  “Mhm.”

  The necromancer nodded, reclining in his heavenly soft chair and sipping from his cup; it was wheat wine, a staple of the traveling merchants. Quite bitter, but it would do. Alcohol was one of the few things allowed to be bitter.

  “As Boney was telling me some time ago,” Jerry said, “everyone has the right to be wrong. There are gray areas, but the point in this case is that we should let children make their own decisions, even if they risk messing up something important. You see, we need to make mistakes if we want to grow. Risking and failing are necessities. Even if you know better, if you don’t allow her to mess up and clean after herself, then you are depriving her of the right to grow. That is not right.”

  “It is not right…” Derek muttered. “But what if she gets in trouble? Like, real trouble? What if the boy she’s meeting, be it John or Georgie or Blake, is secretly an asshole? I can’t let her mess up that bad!”

  “It’s a risk you may have to take.”

  “He could break her heart!”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Hence the risk.”

  “She will be scarred!” Derek banged his fist on the table, his tension getting the better of him. “Sorry,” he apologized, “but I can’t let bad things happen to my daughter! She’s just a child, and the world is a cruel place. She is not ready to walk alone.”

  “And when will she be?”

  Derek hesitated for a moment. “When she learns herbalism and grows up a bit. When she has some experience.”

  “And how will she get that experience if you don’t let her scrape her knees?” Jerry asked. “Right now, she’s in a safe, controlled environment messing with teenage love affairs. What better time to try standing by herself? Would you rather leave her alone in Milaris to experiment with work and money, where the silver tongues will devour her whole and spit out the bones?”

  Derek grumbled, thinking about it. “I guess not,” he finally relented.

  “Then, give her some space now. Let her learn how to be independent and make her own decisions, even if they’re bad at first. In the worst case, her heart will crack a bit, but she’s only sixteen. She’ll have plenty of time to mend it in Milaris. If she messes up later, it might not be fixable.”

  Derek grunted, resembling Axehand. “I guess you’re right,” he said.

  “I said the same things you started with.” The necromancer smiled. “You already trust her and give her space; I merely helped with the doubts.”

  “Yeah. You can be smart when you want to.” Derek sighed, shedding most of his blankets and only keeping one; the windows were shut and the fire strong. “I honestly thought you were off in the head when I first met you.”

  “I am off in the head.” Jerry laughed. “Just in an unusual way. Have I told you about the time I spent fifteen years semi-conscious? My magic is an urge as natural as pissing, and holding it in for such a long time—from eleven to twenty-six years old—really messed up my brain. I barely have any recollections of that period. I was basically sleepwalking. I couldn’t make friends, I failed at anything I tried to do, and even my parents thought I was mentally unfit. My disappointment and self-anger didn’t help things, making me bottle up even harder. By the time I stopped pretending I wasn’t a necromancer, something in my head had gotten burned, or atrophied, or both.”

  “Your life sounds like a nightmare.”

  “It’s alright. Right now, it’s more of a dream.”

  Derek shed his last blanket, revealing the tunic and leather vest that hid underneath. “You’re a good man, Jerry… I hope you survive that Jericho bastard.”

  “Eh.” He shrugged. “If things go south, can I count on you?”

  Derek sobered up real quick. He deliberated his next words heavily before speaking.

  “You’re my friend, Jerry, and I’ll help you as much as I can, but I will not leave my daughter orphaned for a lost cause. My assistance must be limited. Sorry.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured. It’s okay. Maybe he’ll just let me off—and if I die, I die. It’s no big deal.”

  “There it is again,” Derek said. “You being off. That’s exactly it; you treat everything as unimportant. I mean, who can speak of death so casually?”

  “A necromancer.”

  “…That makes sense.”

  Jerry smiled. “Let’s drink, my friend. To Pilpen, which will certainly accept me.”

  “To Pilpen, which might never do.”

  Their cups smashed against each other, sending some liquor to the floor, and they downed the rest.

  “And, Jerry?” Derek said, wiping his mouth. “Thank you. For everything.”

  Jerry smiled brightly. “No problem.”

  ***

  “Sir!” A burly man stood at attention. He was hunched and rough, holding his sword in the distinct way one holds a bonking shovel. A bunch of teeth were missing from his mouth, and, on top of everything else, a look of permanent incomprehension was plastered on his face.

  “At ease, soldier.” Captain Reymond waved a hand, letting the hillbilly breathe again. Tiredness hid behind the captain’s serious face. “Report.”

  “Aye, sir. Tha rivers are beginning ta flow again, sir.”

  “The snow is melting…”

  Captain Reymond placed his helmet under his arm, opening the window to look outside. From the guard tower they currently occupied, he could see far, far away.

  The snow glistened on the mountainsides and stacked on the trees, but it was already lower than it had been all winter. The temperature was rising, and dry patches of land would soon appear. A fox zoomed through the woods as he looked, darting from one branch to the other. Behind everything, the sun shone through the mountain’s crystal-clear air.

  It would have been a beautiful sight if not for the charred remains of a village below them. Leramis, it had been called, and it had been under their protection. Home to a hundred men, women, and children. A scant two days ago, it had been burned to the ground, and they hadn’t been in time to help.

  Exhaustion crept over the captain’s face again, accompanied by smoldering fury. Only the falling snow had delayed his revenge; and now, it was gone. Captain Reymond could stop himself no longer.

  “Men!” he roared, sending seven more Billies hurtling off their beds and rushing to report. One tripped on the stairs, rolling down their entire length, while two more failed to properly tie their shoelaces—the Guard had a proper shoemaker, of course—and had to stop to retry.

  When all eight were finally arrayed in front of him, standing proudly at attention, his heart bled.

  What a sorry lot.

  These people had no business being soldiers, and yet, they could not be excused from their duties. They had enlisted of their own volition, and they would either rise to the task or die. Fortunately for them, Captain Reymond had the skills to keep them alive, if only they listened carefully.

  Hiding his sigh, Reymond raised his hands and put on his helmet, staring at his troops through the eye slit.

  “Prepare everything,” he said, “and rest well. I will be the one to keep watch tonight. We leave at dawn.”

  “Where to, sir?” asked one of them, and Reymond stared straight at him; the man flinched.

  “To get revenge for the people we failed,” he declared loudly. “To fulfill our duties as protectors of the land. To become heroes or die trying. The Wall isn’t the only place we protect, soldiers; we fight for the entire Kingdom of Escarbot!”

  The eight soldiers cheered, each more excited than the last. The possibility of death went completely over their heads. Reymond turned around, once again hiding his sigh. At least, he was experienced in guerilla warfare; these farmers just might survive long enough to be proper soldiers.

  He looked out of the window, his gaze lost in the heart of the mountain forest.

  “Prepare yourselves,” he declared proudly, framed by the cheers of his men, “for, in a few days, Jericho the Green will fall to our blades.”