Esteban woke to the sound of an axe.
It was steady and light, coming from outside: a strike, a short pause, another strike. He rose from the narrow bed in the upstairs room and found Riko still asleep on the floor, wrapped in his blanket with his face to the wall. He crept down the stairs on the balls of his feet and opened the door.
The morning was cold. Fog was creeping up from the lip of the valley. In the front yard, Diego stood before a fallen tree trunk, splitting firewood with one hand.
It was not the bandaged arm that was slowing him down. It was the way he stood. He set each piece on the stump with his good hand, then lifted the axe with his wounded arm only halfway, and let it drop. Every lift cost him something. It showed in his shoulder, and in his jaw.
"Good morning," said Esteban.
"Morning." He did not turn around. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"The mattress needs re-stuffing. Nobody sleeps on it."
"It was fine."
"Fine." He split a piece and it fell open in two clean halves. "I won't talk much. I'm trying to finish before the sun gets strong."
"Shall I help?"
"No."
"I can carry."
"I don't need it."
"Your arm is hurting you."
"A little."
"Then let me take the axe."
Diego finally stopped and looked up. There was more exhaustion in his eyes than anger. He studied Esteban for a long moment, then the wood, then the axe.
"Do you know how to chop?"
"I'm a woodcutter."
"I know you said so. I'm asking whether you know how."
"Yes."
Diego held out the axe without a word.
The weight suited his grip. Lighter than he was used to, but he settled into it quickly. He set a piece on the trunk, raised the axe, and paused.
*Strength: 6.*
The screen whispered from the back of his mind. His hands still remembered the old weight, but his body had learned another. If he swung with everything he had, the trunk and the axe would both fly apart.
He eased off.
The blade dropped softly, bit into the wood, and split it with a clean, dry sound.
"Like that," said Diego.
"What?"
"Nothing." He shrugged. "You chop like someone who knows where to strike."
"That's how woodcutters work."
"Not all of them." He picked up the split piece and tossed it on the pile. "I've seen plenty. Some raise the axe as if they mean to kill the tree."
"There's no point in that."
"No point."
They worked together for half an hour. Diego stacked, Esteban split, and the pile grew. When Riko finally came out, rubbing his face and looking confused, he found two piles: one neatly stacked, the other just beginning.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"This wasn't work for two," said Diego.
"I need work. If I don't work, I'll steal something."
"Is that a joke?"
"A little."
"Fine." He pointed to an empty shed. "There's rope in there. It needs to be strung between two trunks. I want laundry to hang on it."
"So I'm to string a rope?"
"If you can."
Riko muttered something under his breath and went to the shed.
The morning passed in work. Esteban split wood while Diego gave short instructions: "Shorter than that," "Not that way," "Put the wet logs over there." He didn't explain much, but every instruction was correct, and the man had his own way of ordering everything, even a woodpile.
Two hours later, Esteban realized he hadn't thought about anything else the whole time. Not about Lacura, nor the Star, nor the warm face that had appeared on the blue screen. Only wood, an axe, and a steady rhythm.
It was the first morning like that in weeks.
When Esteban finished the pile, he lifted it onto his shoulders and carried it toward the back of the house, where Diego kept his firewood in a small wooden shed. He wasn't trying to see anything. But the path led through the back orchard.
The orchard was small: dozens of carefully pruned apple trees, rows of vegetables, and a gentle slope leading down to a single lonely pine at its end.
Beneath the pine was a grave.
Esteban set the firewood down on the ground.
It was not large. A neat mound of earth, edged with small white river stones, and at its head a wooden board driven upright, carved with a knife in uneven but legible letters:
LEWIS
And beneath it, in smaller letters:
*my brother.*
Around it, on the soil, lay dried wildflowers, yellow and purple, arranged with care, and the grass around them had been cut short. Someone tended this place every day. This story is hosted at g.com.
He reached out before he could think, and touched the board with his fingertips.
The new skill came to him, faint and weak.
It was not words. It was a heavy, old feeling: dry oak, carved with care, unmoved for years, carrying in its fibers only one thing: stubbornness.
He felt the board standing straight because someone kept setting it upright whenever it leaned.
"That was my little brother."
He turned.
Diego stood a few paces behind him with a wooden cup of water. He was not angry. His face was calm, like a man saying something he says every day.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
"It's fine." He held out the cup. "Drink. I came to tell you breakfast is ready."
"Thank you."
"I'll show you." Diego walked a few steps until he stood before the grave. "This is Lewis. He was thirty-six."
They sat down on two flat stones at the edge of the orchard. Riko joined them after stringing the rope, and helped himself to an apple from the tree with Diego's permission.
"I'll tell you, because it's the question you're going to ask. I'd rather answer once." Diego looked at the ground. "Lewis was fifteen years younger than me. My father remarried, and Lewis came along. We didn't grow up together. When my father died, Lewis was thirteen, and I'd left home long before. I took him in and raised him."
"And you were..." Esteban began.
"A soldier, then a mercenary, then something similar. I don't like to talk about the details. But I was good at it. When Lewis grew up, he married and settled in a small town in the north. He had two daughters."
"And what happened?"
"The Great Disappearance."
A short silence fell.
"He was out in the field that day. He came back and found the house empty. His wife and daughters weren't there. And the stew was still on the fire." Diego lifted his shoulders. "He came to me a week later. I didn't know he was coming. I found him standing at my door, not speaking."
"And he stayed with you?" asked Riko.
"He stayed. Two years. He didn't ask for anything. He ate a little, slept a little, and sat for hours by the window. After two years I told him we were moving somewhere else, because he couldn't bear the town anymore, and we came here."
"And here..."
"Here he died."
Nobody moved.
"About a year after we came. I had work. I was guarding a caravan for three months, because money was running short. I told him I'd be back. He said, 'All right.' That was all." He swallowed. "I came back and found him in his bed. For days. He wasn't sick. There was no wound on him. Only very thin. He hadn't eaten in a long time."
"From grief?" Riko asked quietly.
"That's how it looks." Diego shook his head. "I don't know another word for it."
"I'm sorry," said Esteban.
"Thank you."
"And you blame yourself."
"Of course." He said it simply. "I knew he was sad. But I thought it was sadness that would pass. Everyone was sad in those years, and everyone carried on. I didn't know a man could die just because he couldn't move past it. If I'd been here, I'd have made him eat. I'd have sat with him. I don't know. Something I would have done."
"You couldn't have known."
"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. "That's what I tell myself. But I wasn't here. That's the truth of it."
"That's why you won't sell the house," said Riko after a while.
"Yes. He's buried here."
"You could move him."
"No. I buried him with my own hands, under this tree, and it was the last thing I could do for him. I won't dig him up and move him again because men came asking for gold."
"And they won't leave him alone if they buy the house."
"They won't leave him. They'll dig up the whole land looking for the vein. They won't notice a grave. People like that don't notice."
"So that's the reason."
"That's the first reason."
"And the second?"
Diego seemed not to expect the question. He looked at Esteban, then shook his head.
"I once thought about leaving everything. Going to some distant city and living there. No house, no grave, no men like these." He paused. "I would have felt better, probably."
"What stopped you?"
"I walked for two days, then turned back." He frowned. "I had a feeling I was leaving him a second time. The first time I was absent, and I don't want to be absent again."
"Is that all?"
"That's all." He scratched his chin. "It's not a good reason. But it's mine."
No one commented. Riko took a bite of his apple, looked at the ground, and seemed to be thinking of something far away.
After breakfast, Esteban couldn't let it go.
He went to Riko, who was stringing the rope between two trunks beside the shed, and sat on a nearby rock.
"Do you think he's telling the truth?"
"About what?"
"That he only comes once a week."
"I don't know." Riko wrapped the rope around the trunk and pulled it tight. "But the blood in the yard was from yesterday. That's not a week."
"Maybe he's hiding something."
"Or downplaying it."
"That too."
"I'll ask him."
"No." Riko shook his head. "If you ask him now, he'll say he doesn't need help. Let's watch first."
"And when will they come?"
"I don't know. But he's wounded, and he'll fight them despite it. And I don't like watching him fight."
"Nor do I."
Something in Esteban's eyes hardened in a way it hadn't before.
At the edge of his vision, the screen rose quietly:
New side quest: Protect Diego's House
*Someone you don't know needs you, and hasn't asked.*
Reward: ???
Status: In progress
He kept it open for a few seconds, then dismissed it.
"Did you see something?" Riko asked.
"No."
"You're staring at the air."
"I know."
At lunch, Esteban finally asked Diego directly: How many of them were there?
"Between eight and twelve. It changes each time."
"From which direction do they come?"
"The eastern road. Always. And they arrive just before sunrise."
"And their leader?"
"He doesn't come every time. Twice so far." Diego didn't speak of it with anger, but like a man counting a cart's load. "A big man. He doesn't feel the blows you land on him. Or he pretends not to."
"Have you fought him?"
"Twice."
"And what happened?"
"I came out with a dislocated shoulder, and he walked away laughing." He shrugged. "That's why I don't like seeing him."
Esteban said nothing more, but he memorized every word.
That evening, after dinner, Diego said he would sleep downstairs by the door as usual, and the two of them climbed to the upper room.
Riko stretched out on the floor in his blanket, and Esteban sat on the edge of the bed, watching the rain through the small window.
"When will they come next?" Riko asked quietly.
"He said the day after tomorrow."
"Probably."
"Yes."
"So that gives us one day."
"Yes."
"Do you want us to leave tomorrow?"
"No."
"I know." The young man laughed briefly. "I was testing you."
"And what would you have done if I'd said yes?"
"I'd have called you a fool, and then stayed."
Silence fell.
"Do you think he'd fight us if we tried to help him by force?" Riko asked.
"Yes."
"Then we help him without him knowing."
"How?"
"I don't know yet." He scratched his head. "But I'm a thief. I understand getting in and out of houses. If I knew where they'd come from, I could find a way."
"We'll look at the approaches tomorrow."
"And I'll fix the back door."
"Which door?"
"The one that doesn't close properly. I noticed it this morning." He pulled the blanket around himself. "A man can't defend a house with a door that won't shut."
Esteban smiled, and said nothing.
Then he blew out the small candle. From the floor below came the sound of a chair shifting slightly on the wooden boards, then silence. Diego had settled in his place by the door, sword across his knees, eyes open in the dark.
Outside, in the rain, the lone pine swayed gently in the wind, and at its foot the wooden board stood upright, bearing a single name that no one had spoken aloud in years except its owner.