Paul Thompson - Firstborn

Court intrigue was foreign to him. Who was Teralind really? What was she concealing? Who was the “friend” Ulvissen referred to? Could it be the traitor of which Speaker Sithel had spoken that night at dinner?

Tamanier hurried away. He had to tell someone, and Sithas’s room was nearby. The courtier was already feeling slightly relieved; certainly the prince would know what to do.

The humans were breaking camp and getting ready to return to their ship. They worked with haste, and it was clear to Kith-Kanan that they wanted nothing more than to be away from such an accursed place. While they worked, Voltorno went to the elf prince. He had his men pry the stake out of the ground, then he grabbed Kith-Kanan’s shackles and dragged him to the edge of the clearing.

“You out there! Woman and boy! I have your friend here! If any more of my men are so much as scratched, I’ll make your royal friend suffer for it. I’ll give him something more than a scar on his cheek. How do you think he’d look without an arm, a hand, or a leg? Do you hear me?”

The only answer was the soft sighing of wind in the still bare branches.

“We’re ready to go, master,” said one of the humans.

“Then get moving, dolt.” Voltorno was losing his air of confidence. Despite his aching limbs and the stinging sword cut on his cheek, Kith-Kanan was pleased. The angrier Voltorno got, the greater advantage Anaya and Mackeli would have.

The raiders marched down the path single file, with Kith-Kanan leading. Voltorno gave the prince over to one of his men and moved out ahead as the band left the path and entered the woods.

They snaked silently through the forest. In spite of their master’s assurances, the men adopted a crouching walk, swinging their loaded bows slowly from side to side. Their fear was palpable, like a foul odor.

As they reached the old, deep forest, the trees got larger and farther apart. The raiders moved more quickly, using the trail they’d made on their way to the clearing. Occasionally Voltorno scanned the high tree branches, alert to any ambush from above. This added greatly to the alarm of his men. They started glancing up frequently, stumbling and bumping into each other.

Disgusted, Voltorno turned on them. “You make more noise than a pen of squealing pigs!” he hissed.

“And you don’t breathe correctly either,” Kith-Kanan put in.

Voltorno gave him a venomous glance and turned to resume the march. Just then, a loud cracking sound filled the air. The men stood, paralyzed, trying to find the source of the noise. A tree branch broke off a nearby oak and dropped to the ground ahead. The men started laughing with relief.

Behind them, a figure popped up out of the leaves and aimed a stolen crossbow at the back of the last man in line. The quarrel loosed, the dark figure slipped silently back into the bed of leaves. The wounded man made a gurgling sound, staggered forward a few steps, and collapsed.

“It’s Favius! He’s been shot!”

“Mind your front! Look for your target before you shoot!” Voltorno barked. The six men remaining formed a ring with Kith-Kanan in the center. Voltorno walked slowly around the ring, staring hard at the empty woods. There was nothing and no one to be seen.

He halted when he noticed one of his men holding an empty bow. “Meldren,” he said glacially, “why is your bow not loaded?”

The man named Meldren looked at his weapon in surprise. “I must have triggered it off,” he muttered.

“Yes, into Favius’s back!”

“No, master! Favius was behind me!”

“Don’t lie to me!” Fiercely Voltorno struck the man with the flat of his sword. Meldren dropped his crossbow and fell to the ground. None of the other men offered to help him or supported his story.

Voltorno picked up the man’s crossbow and handed it to another of his company. “Meldren will walk in the rear,” he ordered. “With any luck, the witch will kill him next.”

The raiders relieved the dead man of his weapons and gear and moved on. The wretched Meldren, with only a short sword for defense, brought up the rear.

The trail they followed led them down a draw, between a pair of giant oaks. Voltorno went down on one knee and held up his hand to halt the group. He studied the ground and then looked ahead.

“This has the look of a trap,” he said with a wise air. “We’ll not go through the draw. Four of you men go along the right edge. The rest follow me on the left.”

The draw was a V-shaped ditch, twenty feet wide and eight feet deep at its lowest point. Four men crept along the right rim of the gully while Voltorno, Kith-Kanan, and two others walked along the left. As the half-human circled around, he clucked his tongue triumphantly.

“See?” he said. Leaning against an oak on the left was a thick log, poised to roll down into the draw if anyone disturbed the web of vines attached to it. This web extended down into the draw and covered the ground there. The men on the right came around their oak. Voltorno waved to them. The lead man waved back-and the ground beneath him gave way.

The “ground” they’d been standing on was nothing but a large log, covered loosely with dirt and leaves. Held in place by slender windfall limbs, the log collapsed under the men’s weight. With shouts and cries for help, the four tumbled into the gully.

“No!” Voltorno shouted.

The men received only bruises and cuts from falling the eight feet into the ravine, but they rolled onto the mat of vines that was the trigger for the six-foot-thick log poised on the left bank. The vines snapped taut, the log rolled down, and the men were crushed beneath it. Voltorno, Kith-Kanan, and the remaining two raiders could only stand by and watch as this occurred.

Suddenly there was a whirring sound and a thump. One of the two humans dropped, a crossbow quarrel in his back. The last human gave a shriek. He flung down his weapon and ran off into the woods, screaming without letup. Voltorno shouted for him to come back, but the hysterical raider disappeared into the trees.

“It appears you’re on your own, Voltorno,” Kith-Kanan said triumphantly.

The half-human seized the prince and held him in front of his body like a shield. “I’ll kill him, witch!” he screamed into the trees. He turned from side to side, searching madly for Anaya or Mackeli. “I swear I will kill him!”

“You won’t live that long,” a voice uttered behind him.

In shock, the half-human whirled. Anaya, still painted sooty black, stood nonchalantly before him, just out of sword’s reach. Mackeli was behind her, his bow poised. Taking advantage of his captor’s obvious shock at seeing these two foes so close by, Kith-Kanan wrenched himself from Voltorno’s grasp and jumped away from him.

“Shoot her!” Voltorno cried dazedly. “Shoot her, men!”

Remembering belatedly that he had no one left to command, the half-human lunged at Anaya. Mackeli started to react, but the keeper shouted, “No, he’s mine!”

Despite his wife’s shouted claim, Kith-Kanan slogged forward under the burden of his chains. The prince was certain that Anaya didn’t have a chance against a fine duelist like Voltorno. Her agility was drastically reduced, and the only weapon she carried was her flint knife.

The half-human thrust at her twice, then a third time. She dodged, adequately but without her old preternatural grace. He cut and slashed the air, and as Anaya scampered aside, the Ergothian blade bit into a tree. She ducked under Voltorno’s reach and jabbed at his stomach. The half-human brought the sword’s hilt down on her head. With a grunt of pain, Anaya sprawled on her face.

“Shoot!” Kith-Kanan cried. As Mackeli’s finger closed on the trigger bar, Anaya rolled away from Voltorno’s killing strike and repeated her warning to her friends.