Rose|Thorn Chapter One by Brian Malone

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He screwed the little pink tip of his tongue into the corner of his mouth and with all his strength he flung the stone. It skipped once, twice, through the angle, and with a thud stopped dead-plunk into the water.

At first Finn thought he had hit a branch—but it did not sound like rock on wood. It sounded softer. Curious, he climbed the bank and walked a bit upstream, squinting at the shadow under the tree trunk. Something dark floated in the water. Shar came to his side. He stood and walked toward the base of the tree, looking at the shadow on the water. Suddenly he stopped, wide-eyed. Shar growled lowly.

The stone had dislodged something caught against the far side of the trunk. As Finn watched, it slowly turned in the eddy. From where he stood near the base of the tree Finn could see now clearly the hand and arm of a man face down in the river. Then the eddy turned the body and slowly the man's back came into view. The shafts of two arrows protruded from between the man's shoulder blades.

Finn ran to find his father.

Every tree, every bush hid an assassin. Finn felt them drawing their bows and aiming their arrows at his back as he ran. His shoulders twitched, from a prickling between his shoulder blades, just in the spot where the assassins were aiming. The plain silk of his tunic would not be proof against the poisoned arrow. Finn flung his eyes left and right and left, pumping his legs and arms faster, harder. His heart pounded, drowning out the signals that the assassins whistled to each other. He crashed through the forest ever faster until his lungs would burst at his next step.

Ahead suddenly there was sunlight through the trees. Finn thrust his body toward the light, crashing without care through the brush and into the open. He chanced a quick glance behind. The assassins had not followed, he was safe! As he turned his head back a strong hand clamped over his mouth, a powerful arm arrested his flight, pulling him backward into a man's chest.

2.

Mathis Stonebow stood with dirt-crusted hands on his hips, surveying a small field of turnips and carrots, just harvested. He turned a critical eye at the sky. The harvest had not been to his liking; though these plants had come in nicely enough, they had not grown as well as could be. This field lay on the edge of the farm, far from the river, and the crop could not be irrigated. Around the field grew a tight hedge of shrub-like trees to screen the wind, but water was the problem. He would talk to the village elders about calling for more rain next year but, still, he wondered why the old rites had not worked so well this season.

Mumbling about the vagaries of the weather, Mathis reached for his hayfork. The day before, with the farm wagon, he had dropped a rick of hay in every field. Now he would spread it to rot slowly under the winter snows. But a crashing sounded behind him, as if an animal were running panicked through the woods. He stepped calmly into the shadow of the hedge.