enough to avoid the unseen rope, but confusion reigned as the forward riders turned their horses aside and the following riders smashed into them. While it might have been expected that several riders would fall from their saddles during such a collision, no one could mistake the sound of a bowstring singing as those riders fell.
“Bowmen towards the sea,” shouted one of the Dark Riders. “Dismount and take cover!”
One of the Dark Riders dismissed the orders and charged towards where he thought the bowmen must be hiding. A black shape hiding behind a bush near the cliff’s edge hurled a Lanoirian Star, which struck the rider’s forehead. The horse continued to carry the dead rider and plunged off the cliff striking the rocks below.
Garth took stock of his situation. Two of the lead riders were down and unmoving. Two were down, but writhing in pain. Three had fallen to arrows and one had charged over the cliff. That left two healthy Dark Riders trying to kill him and two who would regain their wits and functionality all too soon. Garth strained to see the two healthy riders, but the fool who had charged had distracted him and now they were well hidden. Garth crawled slowly along the edge of the cliff towards the two fallen riders who had hit the rope. He caught a momentary glance of one of the healthy riders doing the same, but heading for the point. He froze for a second to make sure that the other man had not spotted him and then continued on.
Garth reached the last bush before the northern path where his rope had helped even the odds. The two wounded men lay curled in fetal positions holding their faces and howling in pain. Garth knew he had to find the last healthy man before risking exposure of himself in the open to finish these two wounded men. Laying a Lanoirian Star in the dirt before him, Garth stole a glance behind him to see if the point man had decided to come back this way. Satisfied that he had a few moments to complete his task, Garth reached into a long narrow pouch and extracted a long tube and two slender myric quills. The myric quills were poisonous and taken from an animal that inhabited marshlands. Their use as a weapon was pioneered by the Targan Rangers, a group of elite soldiers in Targa before the Collapse, but most bandits and mercenaries shunned their use because obtaining the quills often led to the death of the gatherer. The poison in the quills was so strong that it produced instant death and many a gatherer failed on their first attempt.
Garth fed a quill into the long blow tube and raised it to his lips. Steadily, he sighted on the farthest man and blew. He reloaded the tube as quickly as he could because he knew that the cut off of the man’s screams would bring his enemy running towards him. Garth sent the second dart into the closest man and shoved the tube into its pouch as he lifted the Lanoirian Star he had placed in the dirt with his other hand. The two remaining Dark Riders were charging his position, one from the point behind him and the other from across the clearing by the south path. Had Garth been visible, arrows would be coming his way instead of charging men. Garth leaped to his feet and hurled the Lanoirian Star at the man coming from the point. Even as he watched the man clutching his bleeding throat as he tumbled off the cliff, Garth pulled his large sinuous sword from the scabbard on his back. Holding his great sword with both hands, Garth twirled just in time to slice through the last Dark Rider’s midsection.
Garth ran to the four dead men by the rope and cut off two of their scabbards before wiping his blade clean on one of the dead men and sheathing it. He grabbed the two Dark Rider swords and ran down the path to the North.
Arik and Tedi heard the shouts and screams from above and hurried on. Tedi continuously turned his head to look behind himself for any signs that the men were getting closer. He never caught sight of the men, but he gasped when he saw the Dark Rider and horse plummet over the cliff to the rocks below. The boys had just made it to shore when another Dark Rider bounced off the side of the cliff and landed on his back in front of them, a Lanoirian Star buried in his throat. The boys leaped over the body and continued running though their legs felt like they were about to give up.
Trying to run through the undergrowth was almost as difficult as running through the water and both boys were getting very tired. As they broke through the bushes to the path that paralleled the seacoast, they both came to an abrupt halt. The bandit from Lorgo stood directly in front of them holding the reins to three horses in one hand and two sheathed swords in the other. “Why am I not surprised that it is you two who are causing so much fuss?” chuckled Garth.
The two boys looked at each other and started slowly backing up. “Let me guess,” Tedi spat, “you expect us to believe that you aren’t one of the Dark Riders who are chasing us. We give you our weapons and you escort us back to their camp so they can torture us before killing us.”
Garth just smiled and tossed the two sheathed swords at their feet. “I would hardly welcome your company, fisherboy, but Kalina thinks you are worthy of rescuing from the Dark Riders. You can have the swords and two of their horses to do with what you want. If you come with me, I can offer you safety. If not, then take the horses and get going where you will, but make your mind up now because I am not waiting. I’ve killed ten of them up on the plateau, but there are ten more coming as we speak, as well as a witch, and I am getting tired of killing men for the sake of boys.” Garth stepped forward and shoved the reins of two of the horses towards the boys. Arik stepped forward and grabbed the reins. Garth twirled and mounted his horse as soon as Arik had taken the reins.
The sounds of men shouting behind them indicated that the Dark Riders pursuing them had found the body that had fallen from above. “Time’s up, fisherboy,” Garth whispered. “Follow or flee, I head west.” Garth took off heading for the coastal highway.
Arik and Tedi exchanged glances and quickly picked up the swords and mounted their new horses. “I don’t suppose being hung as horse thieves is any worse than being killed for no reason at all,” Arik remarked as he turned his horse westward.
“Surely you don’t believe his story,” Tedi quipped as he turned to follow. “You don’t really think one man could have killed ten Dark Riders by himself? And who is this Kalina?”
Arik sighed as he followed the path that the bandit had made through the bushes. “I don’t know if he did it by himself,” stated Arik, “but I have no doubt that the Dark Riders died up there on the plateau. These scabbards have been cut off somebody’s body and there was blood on the blade that cut them. These horses didn’t just wander in from the road and the Dark Riders who were supposed to be coming over the top of the plateau never made it. Think what you want, but I am inclined to follow this bandit, at least until I learn more of what is going on.”
“I think he is one of them and that this Kalina whom he is taking us to is the witch who held us on the docks in Lorgo,” Tedi declared.
“Well, my father said that this man was a killer,” argued Arik. “He certainly just had the chance to kill us without anyone finding out and he didn’t. That means, to me, that we can trust him to some degree. I don’t mean to trust him very far, but right now we need a safe place to hide and figure out what is going on. I don’t know of any other solution, Tedi.”
The boys soon came to the coastal highway and crossed over it. A short way into the woods they came to a small clearing with the bandit and two horses standing in it. One horse was the one the bandit had left the battle on. The other was a large, beautiful black stallion. “I had to stop and get my own horse,” explained Garth. “If you boys have decided to accept our safety, just continue heading west. I will follow and make sure that no Dark Riders are tracking us.”
Arik simply nodded and continued across the clearing and westward.
Klarg was studying the placement of the bodies and the method by which each was killed when Wolinda reached the plateau. “What happened here?” she demanded.
“It would appear that our little boys had some help this evening,” Klarg explained. “Several very skilled assassins, if you ask me.”
“Why assassins and not mercenaries?” inquired Wolinda.
“The weapons and methods used, Mistress,” Klarg answered. “Perhaps several mercenaries and one assassin. That is possible. Lanoirian Stars are used by some very skilled mercenaries, but myric quills are used only by highly skilled assassins. They are extremely dangerous to use. A single prick while loading one will lead to instant death. No mercenary would risk ending his career with such a dubious weapon.”
“Are you sure that they were here to help the boys?” Wolinda asked.
“No,” replied Klarg, “I am not. The rope was meant to create a killing ground and allow for a slaughter
