Swoop stopped, and Painter and Wren came up next to him.
“When we get close, you boys stay behind me,” Swoop said. “Ten feet or so. Until we know what he’s up to.”
“Can we just guh, go around him?” Painter asked.
Swoop shook his head. “I don’t want him behind us. Not until I’m sure. Maybe even after I’m sure.”
“OK,” Wren said. “Be careful, Swoop.”
“Yep.”
They closed the final distance to the man on the bridge, and Swoop motioned with his hand for the boys to stop while he continued on. Wren and Painter held their place. Swoop advanced towards the man, but stopped about fifteen feet back from him. The man’s head was bowed, and he did not stir as they approached.
“Sir,” Swoop said. “Everything OK here?”
The man didn’t move.
“Sir?” Swoop said again, and then a little smile appeared on the man’s lips.
“All is well,” he said. “Forgive me, it has been long since anyone has called me ‘sir’.”
Swoop swayed on his feet, and Wren saw him widen his stance. Something definitely wasn’t right.
“Tough neighborhood,” Swoop said. “Plannin’ on stayin’ long?”
“Not long.”
For an old man sitting alone in the snow in the middle of dangerous ground, he seemed completely at peace. It frightened Wren terribly.
“You headed across the bridge, or did you come from that way?”
“I had planned to cross. Now, I wait.”
“Waitin’ for…?”
The old man raised his head then, as if he was looking at Swoop. “You.”
Swoop’s head lowered a little, and his shoulders came up, like he was getting ready for something to happen.
“Well,” Swoop said. “Here we are.”
“There are stories in the west,” the old man said. “Stories of a king in a great eastern city, who raises the dead.”
Painter looked at Wren.
“Raises, and enslaves,” the old man continued. “You know this city.”
“I know a city,” Swoop said. “Don’t know any king like you say.”
“Yet you travel with him.”
The old man’s words filled Wren with dread, but there was something curious to them, something in the way he spoke, the way he formed the words, that pricked at Wren’s mind.
“Look, fella, I don’t know where you get your news, but I can tell you it’s bad. And if you’re thinkin’ about makin’ trouble, I got nothin’ for you but worse.”
“The king should be expecting me.”
“Morningside has no king,” Wren called as he came forward. He walked closer, but stopped a couple of steps behind Swoop. “But I am its governor. Or was. But I’ve never made a slave of anyone, and I don’t think I was expecting you.”
“You should be.”
It was a mild correction, the old man reemphasizing what he had already said, as if he had been misunderstood. His face was still turned towards Swoop.
“Could you tell me your name, sir?” Wren asked.
“Today,” the old man answered, “I am Justice.”
It happened so fast, Wren couldn’t really tell who moved first. Swoop knocked Wren backwards and brought his weapon up in a flash, but the old man was a blur. Wren fell. There was a clash of metal, and Swoop was thrown violently backwards. He crashed into the snow and skidded backwards on his back.
Somehow the old man was standing where Swoop had been moments before, as if he’d teleported. He stood sideways with his left shoulder towards Swoop, front leg bent and the other locked straight behind. A sword had materialized in his hands, though Wren had not seen him draw it. This he held vertically, close to his body.
Swoop sat up, momentarily dazed. He held up his weapon, but it was useless now. The old man had sheared the end of it off, just ahead of where Swoop usually gripped the front. It didn’t seem like the old man had cut Swoop at all, though, only knocked him down with his charge. Still, Wren couldn’t believe how far the old man’s attack had thrown Swoop. Swoop was a good eight feet back from where he’d started. Which meant there was now no one between Wren and the old man.
The old man turned his face towards Wren. “You,” the old man said.
But that was his only word before something streaked past Wren from behind. The old man spun just in time to avoid the impact, but the Thing that had pounced at him redirected and was on him in an instant. The two exchanged a lightning fast barrage of blows and then separated for a moment, long enough for Wren to identify the Thing.
Mama.
Wren wanted to call out to her, but fear seized him – fear of fatally distracting her. They stood facing one another, Mama panting for breath, and the old man called Justice still as a stone. The snow swirled gently around and between them, crackling softly as it met the frozen ground.