Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale - Colin McComb

mind. He caught my arm, draped it over my shoulder, and carried the blazing staff before us to
my hidden shelter.
The last thing I remember of that night is Crosh’s whine, his teeth on my sleeve as he
pulled on me, the snow driving into my face, hissing in the staff's blaze, and the realization that
we were going to die on the mountainside. And then a black well opened under me, and I fell into
it.
When I came to in the morning, I discovered a well-made splint on my ankle, logs on the fire, and
the smell of porridge cooking. I sat up and fire shot up my leg, and I groaned. Toren turned from
the fire, his red-rimmed eyes telling me that he hadn’t slept all night. But something was wrong,
and with a sudden shock, I remembered that we were in my cave.
None of the workbenches had been disturbed, but he had opened my caches in search of
something. I could explain this, I thought… and then I remembered that I had set my crook
aflame, and there was no denying what I was.
He saw me stir, and said, “Good thing you had some sturdy wood here, so that I could
make the splint. It was a clean break, so if you keep off it, you should be healed by the time the
snows melt.”
“By the time the snows melt? That’ll be weeks.”
“You are lucky to be alive,” he said, with steel in his voice, “so were I in your position, I
would not complain about a little enforced inactivity.”
“Were I in your position,” I replied, “I wouldn’t have tried to play goddamned hero. I
wouldn’t have gone out into the storm after those sheep in the first place!”
“They were my responsibility to keep, and I let them go. I failed, and I tried to repair my
mistake,” he said, color rising to his cheeks.
“Toren, they were just sheep! They’ll be a hard loss, sure, but they were lost when you
left the mountain. No getting them back. You understand? Sometimes you have to let go.” He
opened his mouth to reply, and I cut him off. “What’s more, in addition to the hardship of losing
those animals, in addition to my dead sheep, Inger’s dead, too, my ankle’s bust, and you don’t
have nearly the skill to handle the whole flock, not with a single dog, not with a pack of dogs,
because you’re too goddamned proud to give up a sheep. I’d think that a military man,” and I said
these words with my temper rising behind the pain in my ankle, the uneducated cadences of the
Colin McComb Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale
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