Turning away from the grisly sight, he says, “It’s one of the men from the inn.”
Instant recognition comes to Jiron who points over to the burnt corpse and before he can say anything, James adds, “That’s the other one.”
“Then they were in it together from the start?” he asks.
“It looks that way,” he says and then begins making his way to the others where they lay on the ground, making sure they’re alright. He finds them all asleep but unresponsive just as Jiron had said.
“We got a bigger problem,” he tells him.
“What?” Jiron asks.
Turning to face him, he pulls down the collar of his shirt and says, “They took the medallion.”
Jiron gasps in shock. This is the first time he’s ever seen him without it. “What are you going to do?”
“Get it back,” he says.
“They’re going to be long gone by the time the others are ready for travel,” he states.
“Be that as it may, I have to retrieve it,” he asserts. No longer seeing the need to maintain the barrier, he returns to where the crystal lies on the ground and picks it up. Holding it in his hand he says “Cancel” and it disappears. He rewraps it in the cloth and then gathers the other crystals, putting them all in one of his pockets.
When the barrier goes down, Jiron moves and collects the two horses which are still tied to a nearby tree. They must have belonged to the two dead men. Bringing them closer he secures them nearby and then starts a fire in the now cold fire pit.
Over the course of the next several hours the others begin to regain consciousness. When they find out what happened they’re all set to go and extract their vengeance upon them. The last one to come out of it is Miko, probably because he had eaten the most of the drugged or poisoned stew than the others.
During this time, it has been determined that Kerrin and Gayle proceeded further into the pass rather than return to Feld. The ruts created by the wagon are still visible in the mud and they head further up the pass.
Once they have a light meal, James announces that he and Jiron are going to take the two horses and follow them.
“But what about the rest of us?” Dave asks.
“You will have to follow as best you can on foot,” he explains.
“But…” he begins to protest then falls silent, giving in to the inevitable.
“Fifer,” he says, “I want you to be in charge until our return.”
“You got it,” he says.
Coming close to him and whispering so only he can hear he says, “Don’t let anyone kill Dave.”
Smiling, he gives him a nod.
He and Jiron mount the horses and then he turns to the others. “With any luck, we’ll be back soon. If by the time you’ve reached the next town and we haven’t returned, find an inn and stay there until we do.”
“But we haven’t any coins,” Fifer says. “They took all I have.” Glancing to the others, he gets answering nods saying their coins are gone as well.
Moving to the horses, James rummages through the packs still attached there. Not finding anything of value, he goes to the two corpses. He finds two sacks of coins, one on each. One of the sacks is burned badly from when the older man had been torched by James’ spell so he transfers the coins from it to the other.
“Hopefully this should be enough,” he says as he hands it over to Fifer.
“But what about you?” he asks as he takes the offered pouch.
“We’ll get by I’m sure,” he replies. Then with a nod to Jiron they return to the horses and mount.
“Good luck,” Miko says as they turn to follow the road up the mountain.
“You too,” he replies. As he kicks his horse to move, he can hear Dave mumble, “I knew it was a bad idea to let them come with us.” Ignoring the remark, he breaks into a gallop and has soon left the others behind.
They don’t get far before they find the wagon sitting abandoned in the middle of the road. “What happened?” Jiron asks.
“Perhaps they heard or saw what happened back at the camp and decided to beat a hasty retreat,” suggests James.
“I was hoping they would still be on the slow moving wagon,” says Jiron.
“Me too,” he replies. A cursory look shows very little to have been left behind when the wagon was abandoned. They get moving again and quickly leave the wagon behind. The tracks of all their stolen horses leave a clear trail for them to follow. As long as the sun stays out they should have no trouble in following them.
After riding in silence for awhile, Jiron asks, “Do you suppose the bandits we were warned about might still be in the area?”
James chuckles at that and says, “Jiron, the people who told us about the bandits, were the bandits.”
“Oh yeah, right,” he says a little embarrassed.
“But in the mood I am right now, no bandit better hope to cross our path,” he says in all seriousness.
Jiron gives him a nod and they continue to ride on throughout the rest of the afternoon. Whether they are catching them or not is hard to tell as neither of them are experienced trackers. One thing’s for sure though, Kerrin and Gayle have a good head start with lots of fresh horses to change off with to better maintain their speed.
When night finally comes James decides to stop and rest. They’re both still feeling the effects of the drug used on them and are in need of some rest. Building a fire and eating what little food they find on the horses, they make camp and take turns standing watch throughout the night.
The following morning they’re up early and on the road before the sun crests the mountaintops. Riding hard, they continue to follow the road as it meanders through the mountains until finally reaching the summit. It’s not a sharp summit but a gradual one and they’re unable to look very far down the other side.
An hour after cresting the summit they come across what appears to be the camp Kerrin and Gayle used the previous night. A fire pit and mounds of fresh horse manure show that they were there. Off to the left of the road lies a lake which is the source of the river they’ve been following.
“May not be very much further behind them,” Jiron says.
“We have been riding hard,” agrees James. “Let’s take a moment and find out.”
Dismounting, he goes over to a free standing pool of water near the side of the road. Kneeling down, he concentrates on Kerrin and an image appears of him and Gayle riding fast trailing a line of horses behind them. The image shows them to still be in the mountains, the road they’re on winding among the hills and trees.
Expanding the image, it’s hard for him to determine just where or how far away they are. “At least they’re still on the run and haven’t met up with anyone,” announces Jiron.
“That’s fortunate,” adds James as he cancels the spell. Getting to his feet, he mounts and they continue down the mountain. The wind here in the upper elevation bites with cold as it whips at them. They huddle more into their jackets as they race down the road.
James is feeling fortunate there hasn’t been any snow falling yet here in the higher elevations. Though the clouds above have thinned somewhat, they still exhibit the inherent threat of more rain or snow. As cold as the air feels he wouldn’t be surprised to see snow begin to fall. Of course the temperature is worsened by their speed, the wind chill making it feel worse than it probably is.
As they continue speeding down the mountain they come to a rocky area where the trees start to thin. This section of the pass looks to have been obliterated by a mammoth rockslide some time in the recent past. A way through has been cleared to enable traffic to continue across, large boulders dot the area. The slide couldn’t have happened recently as bushes and small trees have begun to grow among the rubble.
James’ horse becomes skittish as they enter the boulder strewn section of the pass. “Easy boy,” he says, patting its neck in an attempt to calm it down.
“What’s wrong?” Jiron asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “Something’s got my horse spooked.”
Jiron signals to come to a halt as he scans the area. His horse has begun to exhibit nervousness too.
“Think there’s a problem?” James asks.
“Maybe,” he replies as he continues scanning the boulders. “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.” After searching for another minute he adds, “Would be a good place for an ambush though.”
“I was thinking that too,” says James. Up ahead of them the road winds its way through large piles of boulders which could very easily hide raiders of one kind or another.
