"Set the kettle—this one will feed us for a week," a man laughed as he tightened the rope around the boy's wrists.
"You're joking," another said. "We don't have a pot big enough. Maybe stew the legs separate."
"Legs first," a third voice suggested. "The head goes for Marcus. Sell it to the scholars if we're lucky."
"Not today," I whispered, and the string of my crossbow twanged.
"Who—" the first voice choked off as a bolt buried through his throat and he pitched forward into the dirt, the kettle sloshing and spitting steam.
"Hold the boy!" a broad man barked. He shoved the bound child with the back of his hand. The boy hit the ground and looked up with eyes too old for six years.
"Lucas!" I said nothing more. I nocked a second bolt with my teeth and, while they scrambled, I fired again.
One man screamed and dropped his knife. The bolt tore through his shoulder and out the back; he became a heap of limbs. A big one, the leader, roared and lunged toward the fire pit. I was running before he hit the ash.
"Who the hell—" the leader spat. He was big and smelled like old meat and river rot. He swung a torch. I sidestepped, drove my shoulder into his ribs, and his torch dropped between us, flaring.
"Get the boy!" he ordered, blood already dark across his lip.
"Get him and die," I said, and closed
