out onto the bridge, he walks until he’s reached about mid-span then stops. Turning to face one side, he leans his forearms on the rail and waits.
“He’s on the bridge,” James tells them. He scrolls the image around the area to see if he can discover anyone approaching.
Aleya comes over and looks at the image in the mirror. “He’s awfully exposed there,” she says worriedly. “One arrow and it’s all over.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” says Brother Willim.
“Yes,” mumbles James, “let’s.” Scrolling the image further, he suddenly sees half a dozen men moving down a path that runs along the edge of the water toward the bridge. “Might have something here,” he announces. The others move in close to watch.
The path the six men are on comes to a forking. Either they can continue on the path which continues straight, or take the other path that crosses another of the bridges over the water to the other side. The men come to a stop for a moment. Then three of the men move to take the path over the bridge. Once on the other side they quickly leave the path and split up. They then begin making their way through the park toward the bridge upon which Jiron is waiting. Two of the three remaining men also leave the path on their side of the water and work their way toward where Jiron waits.
Stig says, “They’re surrounding him.”
“We can’t just sit here!” exclaims Aleya. “He needs us.”
Shaking his head, James says, “Not yet.”
“What do you mean not yet?” asks Aleya. “They are surrounding him! We can’t just sit and wait for them to kill him.”
“We aren’t even sure they mean him any harm yet,” offers Brother Willim. “If we move prematurely, it may spoil whatever chance Jiron has of finding out what he needs to know.”
“But…” she begins then trails off when she realizes the rest are willing to wait. Moving closer to James, she watches the events unfolding in the mirror. The five men that have moved off the path are making a circuitous route around to the far side of the bridge. Not directly, rather moving back and forth like they are hunting for someone.
“Could they be looking to see if he’s brought someone else?” Reilin asks.
Nodding, James says, “That’s entirely possible.” The man who had remained on the path remains at the spot where the group split up, as if he’s waiting for something. Returning the image to the men among the trees, he sees them coming to meet on the opposite sides of the river further downstream from the bridge. They pause there for but a moment before returning along almost the exact same route they took the first time.
Once they’ve come back to the man on the path, they confer for a moment then the five men move back into the trees. Before they disappear into the shadows, James sees two of them remove crossbows they had hidden beneath their cloaks. The sixth man begins walking quickly toward the bridge where Jiron waits.
Aleya gasps when she sees the crossbows but the others tell her they have to wait.
Jiron has grown impatient. It must be past the time already and still no one has made any attempt to contact him. He starts to think that perhaps there is another Red Lantern Bridge in this city and that he’s at the wrong one. Making up his mind to wait for a count of a hundred heartbeats, then if the man still hasn’t made an appearance, he’ll leave.
At sixty-six heartbeats, the trod of someone upon the cobblestones is heard coming toward the bridge. Jiron turns his eyes to the sound and can see the silhouette of a man passing through the light from one of the lampposts. As the man enters the last lighted area before the bridge, Jiron can make out some of his features.
He’s definitely a man of the Empire, there can be no doubt of that. Other than that, it’s hard to determine anything else about him. Turning onto the bridge, the man comes forward and stops six feet from Jiron.
“Are you the one whom I was to meet here?” Jiron asks.
“I am,” the man replies.
Pulling forth the necklace, Jiron says, “I am interested in knowing where you came by this.” He holds it up so the heart with two diamonds is clearly visible.
The man’s eyes betray the anger he’s keeping in check. “Is this why you wanted to meet with me?” he asks.
“Yes,” replies Jiron. “It’s of the utmost importance that I know where you got it.”
“Then what you told Ohan was…” he says, his words trialing off.
“A ruse,” finishes Jiron. “Yes, I’m sorry about that. But I desperately need to talk to you.”
The man’s face turns red in anger. “We are finished here,” he says and abruptly turns around to walk away.
Jiron moves forward and places his hand on the man’s shoulder. “I need to know where you got this!” he insists.
From out of the trees, a crossbow bolt flies and embeds itself in the bridge’s railing not two inches from where Jiron stands. “Let go or the next one won’t miss,” the man says.
Jiron glances to the direction from which the bolt was fired but the light from the lanterns at either end of the footbridge prevents him from seeing very far into the darkness. He releases the man’s shoulder and takes a step backward. The man then continues his way to the end of the bridge.
“Did you see that?” asks Aleya. “They shot a crossbow bolt at him.” She looks to James who in turn glances to Scar.
“Go get him and bring him back here,” he says and then returns his attention to the mirror. As the others except Miko and Brother Willim rush to Jiron’s aid, he keeps the bridge’s image in the mirror. Jiron stands there with his arms slightly out from his body as he watches the man walk away. James was sure the bolt was more of a warning than anything else. Otherwise the two men with crossbows would have both fired.
Before the man moves out of the light at the end of the bridge, he sees Jiron moving his arms. It takes him but a moment to realize that he’s signaling him to follow the man with his mirror.
“I don’t think this went well,” he says to Miko. Scrolling the image, he follows the man as he moves down the cobblestone path. Once he’s far enough away to be out of visual sight of the bridge, the five other men that had accompanied him to the park appear and leave with him.
Brother Willim and Miko sit on either side of him as together they watch the six men move through the park. James wants to know what happened to Jiron but doesn’t dare take the image off the man for fear of losing him. He half expected Jiron to launch an attack on the man but after several minutes go by, he returns to the deserted open air eatery with the others.
“You got him?” he asks when he sees James still watching the mirror.
James nods his head in reply, never taking his eyes off the man. “What did you find out?” he asks.
“He definitely knows something,” he explains. “But once he learned that what I told Ohan at the Order of the Scarlet Sword wasn’t entirely accurate, he left.”
“I don’t know if the others told you yet or not,” James says, “but there were five others with him stationed out in the trees surrounding the bridge.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured something like that when the bolt hit the bridge,” he replies.
James motions him over and Miko gets up from his seat to allow Jiron a closer view of the mirror. Scar and Potbelly resume their positions by the road to keep an eye on anyone passing by. However at this hour of the night, the number of people on the streets is dwindling rapidly.
They continue watching the men work their way through town. At one point, three of the men depart and head off on another side street. At the next intersection, another one leaves as well. The remaining man stays with him the remainder of the way until he arrives at a very nice townhouse. Four stories tall, the building is quite impressive.
The two men climb the three steps to the door where the man reaches in his cloak and removes a key. Placing it in the lock, he opens the door and enters. The other man follows him in and closes it behind them.
James cancels the spell and sits back. He rubs his neck as it grew stiff from bending over the mirror for so long. “Glad that’s over,” he says. Casting a look to where Jiron sits next to him he asks, “I suppose it wasn’t just idle curiosity that prompted you to have me follow him was it?”
Jiron shakes his head. “No.”
“You intend to go after him?” he asks.
