Douglas Niles - Fistanadantilus Reborn

"I count seven of them," Foryth Teel remarked softly. "Plus the young lady, of course."

And then they were gone, vanishing into the woods at a jogging trot that, Danyal knew, he and his companions would be hard pressed to match for any length of time.

But they had to try. He rose to his feet, ready to dash across the meadow and chase the kidnappers through the woods, when he felt a restraining hand on his arm- one on each arm, actually.

"Wait!" Emilo hissed.

"Indeed. Wouldn't you think they've set someone to watch their trail?" Foryth asked, with what seemed like maddeningly casual curiosity to Danyal.

"Why?" snapped the lad. "He's got what he wants. He'll just-"

"Precisely my question," the historian continued. "What does he want? If we knew that, we'd know what he plans to do about us, among other things."

"Such as whether or not he wants to lure us into an ambush," Emilo added.

Danyal was infuriated at the thought of some cowardly bandit lurking at the forest's edge, but a cool, quiet part of his mind suggested-in a very soft voice-that his companions were right. He looked across the clearing at the opposite grove, estimating that a hundred paces or more of open ground separated that clump of trees from the wedge of forest where the three of them currently held their council of war.

"We could charge across the clearing together," suggested Danyal impulsively, remembering the big knife he wore at his waist.

"Tsk… a nice idea, and appealing to my own sense of bold adventure. But what if there are two, or even three of them?" Foryth demurred.

"Or an archer. It seems to me at least two of the bandits had short bows," Emilo chimed in.

Danyal's frustration welled anew, but again he saw the need for caution. He cast his eyes left, seeing only the sloping and fully exposed incline of the grassy ridge that formed the side of this stream valley; then he looked right, toward the stream that was currently invisible, running within its deep banks.

"The streambed!" he whispered. "Let's stay in the woods until we meet the stream. Then we can follow the channel, hiding below the bank until we get to the other side of the clearing!"

"Splendid idea!" Foryth exclaimed in an enthusiastic whisper.

Emilo was already moving back from the clearing. In moments the three were on their feet, concealed a short distance within the woods as they once more plunged between the trees with all possible haste. Soon they heard the trilling of water before them, and then the stream was there, spilling across its gravel bed some five or six feet below the level of the forest floor. To the left, they could see the waterway cutting its deep channel into the ground in the meadow beyond.

Without hesitation, Danyal led the way down the smooth, muddy bank. Emilo and Foryth came behind him, though the historian stumbled at the base of the bank and splashed to his hands and knees into the stream. Still, he rose to his feet with aplomb and hastened to follow.

Kicking through the shallows at the edge of the flow-age, Danyal had a strong feeling that he was in a tunnel. The lofty trees closed in above the narrow stream so that no more than a small strip of sky was visible. Compared to the dappled shadows of the waters here, the bright, sunlit expanse of the meadow glowed brighter and brighter before them.

And then they were out of the woods, still following the streambed in its course through the meadow. Though the bank was already higher than his head, Dan leaned forward and down with instinctive caution. The shorter Emilo didn't have to worry, while Foryth, the tallest of the trio, ducked with exaggerated care as he splashed along behind.

Heart pounding, Danyal wondered if the bandits would have thought to watch the stream as well as the clearing-or even if he and his companions were correct in their suspicion that one or more of the men had stayed behind. The lad couldn't help worrying that they were wrong, that perhaps all the precautions were a waste of time, allowing Mirabeth to be spirited away while the trio of would-be rescuers tried to sneak up on an empty patch of woods.

The branches of the next grove arced before them, and soon they felt the cool shade of the trees around them again. Danyal still led the way, trembling with a tingling awareness of the need for stealth and of the existence of potentially deadly danger.

The human youth found a niche where the stream-bank had yielded to the pressure of a gnarled root and dropped into a deep notch. With two steps, he was up, slipping through the forest with the wicked knife in his hand. He stayed low, trying to be stealthy, using all the techniques of rabbit-stalking that he had learned over his life. Gliding from one tree to another, he kept the meadow to his left and advanced on the place where the bandits had disappeared into the woods.

He was startled by a sudden waft of odor, an acrid stink of sweat and campfire smoke, and he knew beyond any doubt that an enemy was near. With a gut-wrenching jolt of energy, all his doubts disappeared and he was ready, even eager, for danger. Emilo, also moving soundlessly, joined him behind the trunk of a massive pine while Foryth held back a few paces.

The kender wrinkled his nose, also sensing their enemy ahead. With a finger to his lips, Emilo pointed to himself, and to the right; then he indicated Danyal, and pointed left. The lad nodded, watching his companion draw a dagger almost as long as the weapon Dan had claimed from Zack.

Foryth, meanwhile, had armed himself with a stout stick that was nearly as tall as he was, a club that bulged with a solid knot at one end. He indicated silently that he would come after the two, moving straight ahead.

As Emilo disappeared behind intervening trees, Danyal was startled to realize that his fingers, clenched around the hilt of the knife, were stiff with cramps. He changed hands on the weapon and painfully flexed his reluctant digits. At the same time, he moved forward with extreme care, keeping the blade outthrust and ready.

After a moment, he caught sight of a man-or a man's boots, to be entirely accurate-extending from beneath a tree. Judging by his feet, the bandit was lying on his belly, no doubt looking out over the clearing that extended just beyond his vantage. There was no visible reaction from the lookout, who remained apparently unaware of the stealthy trio.

Dan had no more started to congratulate himself on his luck when he considered, for the first time, the realistic prospect of sticking the sharpened piece of steel that he held in his hand into another person's flesh. Practically speaking, the task should be easy. He was still unobserved; he should be able to fling himself forward and fall on the man's back. One quick stab and the fellow would be killed, wouldn't he?

All at once Danyal felt himself weakening, his guts once again churning with a feeling of despair as he wondered if he could, in fact, just murder this man in cold blood. But if he didn't, how were they ever going to rescue Mirabeth? "Ssst!"

A harsh, clearly audible whisper split the woods, and Danyal all but groaned, certain that one of his companions had given them away. Still, he shrank back into his own concealment, surprised to see that the man under the tree was wriggling backward with no indication of extreme alarm. Finally the bandit rose to his haunches, turning his face away from Danyal as he replied with similar furtiveness. "Yeah? What is it?"

Only then did Dan see the second bandit, a mustachioed bowmen called Kal. The fellow crept up to his compatriot and gestured into the field. "Any sign of 'em?"

"Nah." The reply was curt and disgusted.

"Me neither. They haven't tried to come along the ridge, or I woulda seen 'em for sure."

"D'you think we should head back to Loreloch, or at least meet Red at the bridge?"