The Missing

In the early hours of the morning, Roy was fast asleep in his warm bed, dreaming that after taking on a griffin, a higher vampire, and an Elder Vampire all by himself, he came face-to-face with a hook-nosed, balding Mirror Merchant.

A sudden, urgent pounding at the door woke him.

"Susie, Old Mol, it's an emergency! Open up, quick!" Roy scrambled out of bed, drenched in cold sweat. His parents stood at the door holding candles, while across from them stood Butcher Fletcher, a burly man who looked terrified as he explained in a trembling voice.

The night wind gusting in through the open door jolted him fully awake.

What could have made that foul-mouthed butcher lose his composure like this? An answer flashed through Roy's mind.

"Uncle Fletcher, has something happened to Brandon?" He threw on his thin linen shirt and went over to his parents.

In the candlelight, the butcher's eyes were bloodshot and his lips cracked. He looked like a cat on a hot tin roof, anxious and haggard.

"That brat..." Fletcher lowered his head. The hand clutching his torch and his beard trembled. "He's missing. He didn't come home tonight."

"Have you checked Mindy's house? Could Brandon be sleeping over at the home of one of the boys he plays with?"

Roy took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice calm. "What about the Old Captain Tavern? He goes there sometimes, too."

"No one!" Fletcher shook his head. "I've searched everywhere and asked everyone! Nobody in the village has seen him since noon. The brat may be mischievous, but he's never stayed out this late."

"Don't panic, Uncle Fletcher. Think carefully—where else might he have gone? We'll help you look for him!"

"You stay home and get some rest," Old Mol said, holding Roy by the shoulder. "Susie and I will go help!"

"Dad, don't forget what I've been doing for the past month. I've seen more blood than most people see in their entire lives. It's only nighttime—I'm not scared." Roy met his parents' eyes with a steady gaze and squeezed their hands. "Trust me. I'll be careful."

Old Mol and Susie exchanged a glance, sighed, and nodded.

Over the past month, they had felt their son changing more and more. Roy was no longer timid and withdrawn. He had his own ideas, and once he'd made up his mind, there was no way their temperaments could talk him out of it.

They all hurried out of the yard.

Fletcher squeezed his hand. "Thank you, son."

Feeling the strength of the man's grip, Roy nodded. He had seen how Fletcher had looked after him over the past month, so he couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

Little Snot was Fletcher's whole world. How heartbroken would he be if he lost his child?

Roy knew the pain of losing a loved one. He couldn't bear to see Fletcher suffer it.

Every house in the village was lit up. Not far behind Fletcher stood One-Eyed Jack, the blacksmith Pusig, the night watchman Thompson, and three honest-looking villagers. Each carried a torch; some had steel swords at their waists, while others held hoes or pitchforks. They were well prepared.

"That's all? Didn't the village chief arrange for everyone to search together?" Roy felt a little disappointed.

"Alas..." One-Eyed Jack tugged at his beard and sighed. "The older you get, the more afraid of dying you become. They say it's dangerous out in the wild at night, and they'll only send people to search in the morning. It wasn't easy to get this many together. We'd better hurry. By tomorrow, even Skellig's salted fish will have gone rotten..."

"Boss, don't be such a downer!" Pusig glanced at the butcher and tried to reassure him, keeping his cool. "Little Brandon probably just got lost somewhere outside the village. He's a clever kid. Goddess Melitele will protect him."

But everyone there knew what it meant for someone to go missing in a tiny village surrounded by wilderness, with hardly a soul around. No one wanted to say the truth aloud.

A chill ran through Roy. He suddenly remembered how cruelly he'd treated Brandon that morning.

If something had happened to Brandon, Roy would bear some responsibility!

"No. We have to find him."

"We'll split into two groups and watch out for each other... We'll search east and west of the village. Don't go too far, and if you don't find anything, come straight back." As the night watchman spoke, he assigned Roy, the blacksmith Pusig, One-Eyed Jack, and Butcher Fletcher to his group. Susie and Old Mol would search the west with the three villagers.

"Dad, Susie, don't worry about me. The blacksmith will look out for me, so I'll be fine. You two be careful, too!" Seeing that his son's group was better equipped, the two nodded.

In order—the blacksmith, the butcher, Roy, the tavern owner, and the night watchman—the five of them each carried a torch and stepped into the darkness beyond the village.

No one knew what dangers might be lurking in the dark. One thing was certain: the wilderness around Xiabosada was full of savage dogs, wolf packs, and other nasty creatures.

The autumn nights in Aedirn were especially cold, with the temperature close to freezing. Roy couldn't help shivering.

The full moon hung high in the night sky, casting down its pure white light. Strange cries drifted faintly from all around, sounding like insects—or perhaps something else.

In the moonlight, golden wheat swayed gently in the night breeze. Tender green hops flowers nodded too, releasing a faint, bitter scent, but there was no response.

They began by searching the fields near Kaye, calling Brandon's name over and over.

Even with their torches and the moonlight, their vision was severely limited. Most of them could only make out objects about ten chi away.

But that was true only for ordinary people. Roy was surprised to find that his vision was hardly worse than it had been during the day. He could clearly see objects as far as thirty chi away.

He realized that the improvement in his eyesight was thanks to his six points in Perception. He hadn't wasted them.

An hour passed. The five of them searched all the farmland around Kaye Village but found no trace of Brandon. Their faces grew more and more tense as they knew that the longer it took, the less likely they were to find the boy.

Old Jack had been watching everyone's expressions. Now he stopped and asked again, "We won't get anywhere blundering around like this. Fletcher, think carefully. Where might the boy have gone?"

The butcher crouched down in anguish and buried his head in his hands. "The brat's always going on about becoming a bard in a big city, but he's never even left this backwater called Kaye. The farthest he ever goes is the little river by the village to fish, and he never goes far."

"I haven't kept my promise to take him to see Fangerburg and Oxenfurt."

Roy heard this and sighed inwardly. After a moment, a thought came to him.

"Uncle Fletcher, where is your wife—Brandon's mother—buried?"

Fletcher's expression darkened. "Anna died of whooping cough three years ago. She's buried..."

"The cemetery!" The butcher suddenly sprang to his feet, his voice full of excitement. "Anna was buried in the cemetery east of the village. What if the brat went there? I used to take him to visit her every so often, though it's been a few months since we last went."

"What are we waiting for? To the cemetery!"

The place where Kaye's dead were buried lay about three li east of the village. A narrow path, overgrown with grass and shrubs, connected the two. The group ran along it through the night, torches in hand.

Roy ran behind the grown men, gasping for breath. Sweat soon beaded on his forehead. His stamina was a little worse than an adult's, but he couldn't ask a father worried about his child to slow down, so he gritted his teeth and kept going.

Old Jack was struggling, too. He was getting on in years, drank more than his share, and was not in the best shape.

After they had covered about a li, Roy's left eyelid suddenly twitched. A sense of danger rose in him for no apparent reason, and he shouted, "Look out!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, several eerie green lights flashed through the dense, pitch-black bushes around them.

No—pairs of eyes like will-o'-the-wisps.

Amid a commotion and a low, muffled growl, several terrifying wolf-shaped shadows blocked their path beneath the moonlight.