He soon polished off the food. Vol had always been a big eater, as one would guess from a youth his size, and the food that he'd procured from the fur trader was nowhere near enough to fill him. By the end of the day, he expected that he'd run out of it. Twenty-four miles to Nookhaven, or so the System said. Through the snowy forests, that wasn't really a distance that he could hope to cover in just a single day, though he figured he might as well try it.
Quiet as the morning forest was, with the animals hibernating, and only the occasional winter bird up to make the call, Vol heard the approach of footprints long before he saw the men that they belonged to.
He was on his feet in a moment, almost spilling his drink on himself. He made sure that he was positioned near his axe – he'd left it in his shelter, near the entrance, near his hand should he need it during the night.
From the sounds of it, there were at least three people in the party, and they were heading right towards him. Why? He looked at his fire, and saw the smoke rising off the wet wood. He cursed. But why would they be coming for him, he'd done nothing wrong, had he?
He thought back to the fur trader, hanging upside down from the bottom of the tree as his head bled out. Okay – he might have killed a man. But these men, they had no reason to suspect that he had. That was just another dead man among many.
He calmed himself at the thought. Appearing agitated would only get him into trouble. When the men stepped into the clearing, all they saw was a tall youth, standing, drinking his morning drink, as he watched the world around them.
There were four of them, it turned out, their blue tunics obvious over the top of their furs. There was a sigil on it, the sigil of a black duck. He thought he recognized it, but he wasn't sure. Whoever that sigil belonged to, it was clear that these were Earl's men – or at least someone of near importance. No one else would have their underlings forecasting their colours so prominently.
All of them were bearded, one with a beard that was bright auburn. A big man, but then all Yarmdon men were. There was an axe at his hip, and chainmail under one layer of furs, but on top of another. The red-haired man stepped in ahead of the rest, with a swagger to him, he was clearly their leader.
He spared Vol a nod as he approached, his confidence unbroken. Soon there were four men crowding around Vol's fire, with the other three standing back from the main man. They weren't outwardly hostile, but there was a coolness there, like a stone wall. It was the mask of suspicion.
"Morning there lad, you by yourself?" That was the first thing the ginger-haired man asked him, as he took a look around the encampment, noting Vol's shelter, and then his clothes, and his backpack. He spent a particularly long time eyeing Vol's boots and his trousers. The youth had to stifle a curse as he realized that he was still covered in blood.
"I am, that shelter's too small for two," Vol pointed out.
The man chuckled at that, but it was a chuckle without humour, a walking on the conversational knife's edge. "Oh aye, for a big ox like you, I'll bet it is."
The man must have noticed Vol's tension. He saw the axe that Vol had shifted so that it was just within reach of his hand, should anything go astray. He moved to placate him, or at least, that's what it seemed like, from his choice of words.
"Oh, aye, rude of us. Don't blame you for being a bit on edge. Just woken up, and you've got strangers in your encampment. I wouldn't worry son – these here, they're the earl's colours. We wouldn't do anything to stain his reputation. We're just out here with questions, you see. We saw a few tracks yesterday, tracks that we were thinking mighty strange for a town where all were meant to be dead. And then look and see! Right at dawn, a lovely bit of smoke drifting into the sky so close to our own camp. It would have been a waste not to stop and chat."
"A chat, is it?" Vol asked levelly, looking from the red-haired man to his comrades behind him. They each had hard looks on their bearded faces. Their hands were not far away from the axes and swords that hung at their hips.
"Just a chat," the red-haired man agreed. "Just hoping you could sort some things through for us. You were there when Oliver took the town, weren't ya?"
A steady and pointed question, a question that wasn't really looking for an answer – the man already knew. He said it more to test, and more to jostle.
Vol grunted. He was never the best at situations like this. He didn't like the intrigue, the word games. If there was a problem with admitting the truth, he didn't see it straight away, and if there had been a better way about it by lying, the answer didn't come quickly enough for him either.
"I was," he said at last, calmly.
The red-haired man's smile widened. "I thought so! Didn't I tell you fellas? We already knew that, of course, from the tracks. Tracks leading out, but no tracks leading in. With the snows… Oh well, we just reckoned it to be rather strange. Now tell me, how is it that you're alive? We saw what Oliver did. Women and children in there, butchered. We've found a dozen corpses surrounding the town as well, from those that tried to escape, and were run down."
"But you, you didn't even try to escape, did ya? You were there, in the town, all along? Funny what odd stories the snow can tell you, ain't it? How could it be, in a burning town, a lad of your size managed to escape Oliver's soldiers and the fires that they set?"