Chapter 5.3

In the years I lived with Dark Moon Squad I killed twenty-seven men; by their standards that number was low, but that two-digit number weighed heavily on my mind. I'm ashamed to say that I became quite good at taking lives, I learnt to kill quickly and efficiently without making a sound with a knife, gun and my bare hands, despite the difference in size. Although, I would never use a gun to kill, I was told quite early on that even though Rickon taught me how to use a gun, there were would only be one bullet in that cylinder- and that would only ever be used on myself. Each of the men carried guns at their hip, but never did I see them use them use it.

That night when we stopped for a couple of hours rest, Rickon handed me a gun; the weight of it made my hands sink a couple of inches before I steadied myself. I was immediately reminded of the time I killed Louis Grey, but this gun was different, the barrel was longer and thinner and the grip heavier.

"This is yours now. But don't you think of using this on me, you will only ever be given one bullet, and if you manage to kill me with that, these men," he forced me to look at each of the squad in turn; one was cooking over a small fire, while others were sharpening their knives or marvelling over the haul they'd managed to scavenge off the dead that day, "they will hunt you down and kill you like an animal." He produces a single bronzish bullet and held it up for me to see before flipping open the cylinder and sliding it inside. He gave the cylinder a spin before flicking back into place. I took it from him, and struggled to adjust the holster strap, but guns weren't meant to be used by children and the holster hung loosely around my shoulders.

"I don't know how you've managed to survive this long, but you're one of us now. Betray us and we will kill you." They were the first words I received off him with any feeling at all, which surprised me given a few hours earlier he'd used me as human bait and purposefully threw me down a cliff.

Later that night I had a chance to fully inspect it; it was an enemy's gun he must have taken from the last patrol we encountered earlier that day. Unlike Rickons gun which was an automatic, this gun was an old revolver with a long barrel and a wooden grip holder. At the bottom of the grip was a moon with three small daggers below it carved freshly into the wood. It was the symbol of the Dark Moon Squad- I'd seen it tattooed on each of the men in various places. It was strangely appropriate- an enemy gun taken from the dead, and a new brand crudely carved over its history. If felt symbolic, like me, it had been taken from its home and forced to live and serve a new life with a stranger.