“Where is he, girl?” he asked the bird. “Where did he go?”
The hawk looked agitated. It swiveled its fierce little head sharply back and forth, fluttering its wings. Aedan gritted his teeth at the pain in his forearm as he felt blood moisten his sleeve. He had lost the trail. He turned his horse, looking down at the ground as he tried to find the tracks again. Suddenly, something came hissing through the air, and he felt what seemed like a sharp, strong blow to his shoulder.
The hawk took wing with a screeching cry as Aedan tumbled from his saddle.
He fell hard on his side and cried out with pain.
He rolled onto his back, clutching at the shaft protruding from the wound. A bolt from a crossbow.
Bandits! He reached for his sword, and it was only then he realized that he had left it behind in the
stables in his rush to get away from Laera and catch up with the prince.
He cursed himself for an idiot and fumbled awkwardly with his left hand for the dagger in his right boot, realizing with a sinking feeling that even his sword would have been an inadequate defense against crossbows.
The dagger would be nearly useless. Still, it was all he had. But even as his fingers closed around the hilt of the dagger in his boot, another crossbow bolt struck the dirt scarcely an inch away from his foot, and he froze. He heard a low, nasty sound that was halfway between a chuckle and an animal growl, and looked up to see four small figures emerge from the brush.
They were no more than about four and a half feet tall, but they were very muscular and lean, armed with short swords, long knives, spears, and crossbows. Each of them wore chain mail, greaves, and peaked, open-faced, spike-topped casques. They carried small, round war shields strapped to their backs, and two of them held spears pointed down at Aedan, while the other two aimed crossbows at him.
All four had sharp, swarthy features; feral, golden yellow eyes with snakelike pupils; dark, coppery skin; flat faces and sloped foreheads.
Their arms were unusually long, and their teeth were sharp and pointed, the canines shaped like fangs. Haelyn help me, Aedan thought. Goblins!
He had never seen a goblin before, but he had heard stories about them, and he knew their small stature did not make them any less dangerous.
They were extremely strong and possessed preternaturally quick reactions, with excellent night vision. They were a seminomadic, warrior culture who used slave
labor extensively, and it was said that they sometimes ate human flesh as a ritual to take the power of their enemies. There were goblin kingdoms spread throughout isolated regions of Ceriha, in the lands of Thurazor, Urga-Zai, Kal Kalathor, the Blood Skull Barony, Markazor, and the Five Peaks. However, Aedan had never dreamed that gob would dare to venture this far south, so dose to Seaharrow.
They were probably part of a raiding party from Thurazor or the Five Peaks. He could not imagine only four of them would have risked such a journey, penetrating so deeply through elven lands to reach Boeruine.
All this flashed through his mind in an instant as he desperately tried to push his fear aside and think clearly, for he knew his survival would depend on what happened in the next few moments.
“Get up, human, if you wish to live,” one of them said, speaking Anuirean in a guttural, heavily accented voice.
Aedan slowly struggled to his knees, wincing with pain, then rose unsteadily to his feet, clutching at the crossbow bolt protruding from his shoulder.
He saw another goblin try to seize his horse, but the stallion reared up and neighed, then bolted from the creature. Run, Windreiver, Aedan thought. Run swiftly back, so they will know at the castle that something has gone amiss.
One of the gob bent and snatched the dagger from Aedan’s boot, and then a spear point in his back prodded him into the trees. As he walked, Aedan tried to ignore the pain in his shoulder. His mind raced feverishly. Had they taken Michael?
They approached the remainder of the party, waiting under the cover of the trees. There were about a
dozen of them, in addition to the four who had captured Aedan. Two of them held Michael between them, gagged, with his hands tied behind his back.
The rest were mounted on large, gray wolves that growled threateningly as Aedan approached. Wolfriders, he thought. That clinched it. A raiding party out of Thurazor.
He realized that if they had meant to kill Michael and him, they would undoubtedly have done so already. What then? Take them as slaves?
Hold them for ransom? The latter seemed a likely possibility. He and Michael were obviously not peasants, so the goblins must have naturally assumed they were nobility from Seaharrow. If the creatures planned to hold them for ransom, at least he and Michael had a chance of getting out of this alive. So long as they didn’t know who Michael was.
“Listen,” Aedan said to his captors, “if you mean us any harm, then know that my father will pay handsomely for the safe return of my little brother and me.”
One of the goblins chuckled as he sat astride his wolf. His laughter was an ugly, rasping sound.
“Brothers, is it?” he said with a sneer. “Funny, I seem to recall that the emperor had only one son.”
Aedan tried to keep his alarm from showing-They knew! But perhaps there was a chance he could still convince them otherwise. He glanced at Michael, who apparently didn’t even know enough to be afraid.
Instead, he looked angry-furious, in factand was making noises into his gag, which fortunately were completely unintelligible.
“The emperor?” said Aedan, trying
