Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  “But that wouldn’t mean anything to someone who wasn’t from the valley,” Madison said, pointing out a flaw in her logic. “They wouldn’t know or believe that K’yer Utane was real, would they? I know Burke said that they had worked together before, but that doesn’t mean people go around broadcasting who they are when they hire people like those guys. No, it has to have another purpose.”

  Warren shifted back and forth on his feet unsteadily. “I can’t be certain, but I’m going to offer the least likely explanation as the solution . . .”

  Madison raised an eyebrow. “You think they were actually from K’yer Utane.”

  Warren’s jaw dropped and he heard Shayna gasp from beside him. “How did you . . .?” The bowyer trailed off before turning and continuing on again. “Yes, I think that might actually be the case.”

  “You don’t think it could be from one of the girls?” Madison asked. Warren faltered in his stride, and Madison had to suppress a laugh. “Well, you did say the least likely, not the most obvious. No, you might be right. Burke warned us this might be a possibility. But there’s also a chance that this belongs to either Erin or Alyanna.” He rolled the ring around between his fingers as he examined it, finally slipping it into his pants pocket. He still had one of his own, carefully tucked away, that he had never even put on. “How did you get this?”

  “Well, like I said, I followed that part all the way up here, trailing along behind them the entire way. I was careful not to be seen—I’m certain of that—but one of the guys turned and came back, backtracking their exact route. I tried to lie low and let him slip past me, but I screwed up and made too much noise. He figured out I was there and that I wasn’t friendly, and then it was either kill him or run away and hope for the best. I was too curious as to why that group was doing all the way up here and whether or not they had Erin or Alyanna as a hostage to let him warn them that I was here, so . . . Well, long story short, I picked it off his body.”

  “Hey, look, you don’t have to justify anything to me. These guys are kidnappers, they are slavers, and it sounds like they’re hired thugs and mercenaries to boot. As far as I’m concerned, a quick death and a pile of dirt is too good for them as it is. You don’t have to convince me that you did the right thing or make excuses about it.”

  “Still . . .” Warren’s voice wavered on that one word, and he trailed off. “I don’t think it’s necessarily right to simply kill someone in cold blood. There are laws against that sort of thing throughout the entire world for a reason, right? I mean, even out here, we’re technically governed by someone . . . even if there’s no one around to enforce it.”

  “It’s definitely a moral dilemma,” Madison countered. “And you have a point, to be fair. I guess this world has just taught me to swing first and ask questions later if at all. That seems to be the way most people handle things, and if you’re late on the draw, you’re the one with a dagger in your gut, bleeding out on the ground, and not the other guy.”

  “He’s right,” Shayna said in a quiet voice from behind. “I think we all know the difference between right and wrong . . . He . . . Look at how much trouble it caused him just for helping me. He knew that what they were doing to me was wrong, and he knew that it was wrong that everyone just stood about watching. If it wasn’t for him, Randall likely would have killed me that day. That’s the difference between right and wrong. We know that. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be the one to act first if necessary. What you did killing that guy . . . You have no idea what he was up to. For all we know, he was going to give the kill order for someone else. You may have saved lives, Warren. When bad people are up to something, it’s usually something bad. That’s just how the world works.”

  “I know. I get it,” Warren answered glumly. “It just didn’t sit well with me, that’s all.”

  “It’s good that it doesn’t,” Madison agreed. “There’s a fine line when you should act and when you shouldn’t. As long as you still know the difference between right and wrong, there’s a chance for you to come back even if you cross that line. It’s when you can’t see the line at all, when you refuse to acknowledge that there even is a line, that you get yourself into trouble there’s no coming back from. These people . . . They’ve likely never even heard about there being a line you shouldn’t cross. They were born on the wrong side of it, and they never looked back to see what their other options were.”

  Madison glanced up toward the sky and realized that the sun must be up somewhere in the east. He had lost track of the sun’s position once they entered underneath the thick canopy since he was only ever able to catch fleeting glimpses of it, and the way they were moving, the mountain would soon be blocking the sun again as well. Still, the forest around him had become a good deal brighter while they were traveling and talking, and that was a good sign.

  “You spent the better part of the night following that group after escaping the river right?” Madison asked. When Warren nodded, he said,”If they spent all night traveling, I have a feeling they’re going to bed down for at least the early part of the day. There’s a good chance that I caught sight of them right after they stopped to rest, and it’s unlikely that they would build a campfire if they didn’t plan on being there for a while. Do either of you guys have any idea why they would be up here to begin with?”

  “No,” Warren said, shaking his head. “There’s not a single thing up here as far as I know. I certainly haven’t seen anything worthwhile either.”

  “Ahh . . . They could just be following orders,” Shayna suggested. “Maybe they were supposed to hold the high ground? It’s definitely one of the most defensive zones I’ve seen. It’s protected by the mountain to the east, high cliffs to the north and west, and even the south is elevated above the next-highest tier.”

  “That’s true,” Warren agreed. “There’s only about a hundred feet or so of cliff to the south, but from what I’ve seen so far, there’s only one way up. You’d have to march an army straight up a rough trail to take the uppermost level, and that would be brutal.”

  “So, what are they protecting?” Madison asked. “The more we keep talking about this, the more I’m becoming convinced that they actually might have one of the girls. Or Lord Fox. If you were going to kidnap the heir to a kingdom or the lord, you would keep him somewhere safe and out of the way, right? Stash him away in a place where no one would think to look and that could be easily defended in the event of an attack?”

  “That’s . . . Yeah. Sounds right,” Shayna agreed.

  “I agree as well,” Warren observed. “On another note, I’ve read about forces occupying the high ground during battles so that they could signal to the rest of their forces. They’d split in two and wait until the most opportune moment before attacking. They’d leave a small group as bait in a highly-defensible location, and when someone attacked, they’d flank around with the main bulk of their forces and catch the attackers from behind.”

  “I didn’t realize you studied military tactics,” Madison commented. “You really took it upon yourself to get a wide and varied education, didn’t you?”

  “Well, to be honest, I didn’t,” Warren admitted. “Not intentionally, anyway. It was just a particular battle that I took note of in a history book once.”

  “Ah. Well, you picked up the fundamental theory. That’s what’s important. There’s also the possibility that they’re doing this so that they can simply signal someone else that they’ve completed their task. Depending on where they started from and when they decided to move up here, it might be either a prearranged meeting place or signal location. If you built a big enough bonfire up here on one of the cliff’s edges, I’m willing to be that it would be visible for miles and miles at night. Which . . . That would explain why they made it up to the highest tier and then just set up camp.”

  “Not just the highest tier,” Warren corrected. “They’re on the highest part of the highest tier, backed up against the mountain itself. There’s literal
ly only one way in or out, and they pushed all night to get there. Whatever the reason for it, they were in a hurry.”

  “So, we can assume that they’re on a time table,” Madison concluded.

  “Look, up there,” Warren said in a hushed tone, pointing slightly upward and ahead of them.

  Madison followed his finger and searched the woods for any sign of what Warren might have spotted. The forest around them was somewhat sparser than it had been down below, likely due to the elevation change and harsher conditions, but that only meant that the trees were normally sized when compared to his own standards and what he was used to back home. He had become so accustomed to the impossibly-large trunks that grew far away from one another that it took him a brief moment to find exactly what Warren was pointing at. And then he spied it: About one hundred feet ahead of them, standing in between two trees, there was a single man with his back turned to them.

  “No way,” he muttered in disbelief under his breath. “It can’t be that easy.” He quickly ducked down, grabbing ahold of Shayna and Warren by their respective armors and pulling them down with him. He watched expectantly for several long moments, but the man didn’t even so much as turn around to look in their direction. Once he was convinced that they hadn’t been spotted, Madison whispered, “Do you think he noticed that we were here? He seems pretty oblivious.”

  Warren shook his head to indicate that he didn’t.

  “I’ll get him,” Madison said in a voice that was little more than a murmur.

  “We want him alive, don’t we?” Shayna asked sarcastically from beside him, and before Madison could answer, she had disappeared. The forest was still rather dark in the morning hours with only a little bit of light making its way down from above, and Shayna disappeared from sight almost the instant she moved from his side. He knew that it was a combination of her new black armor and her training, but it was still an eerie sight to watch. She had been there one moment and then was gone the next before he could so much as open his mouth in protest.

  Madison watched the figure expectantly while scanning the surrounding area for any sign of Shayna. He knew that she was more than capable of taking out a single man—he had seen her take down several on different occasions—but he couldn’t help but feel a bit of nervous tension in his gut as he waited in anticipation. She seemed to have fully recovered from the effects of the troll’s poison, but that had only been mere hours ago. If it wasn’t for the dragon lady’s benevolence and healing magic, she’d still be unconscious and on the cusp of death.

  He wasn’t sure if she had used some type of spell to mask her movements or if it was just simple skill, but he never so much as caught sight of her before he saw the man topple over. Madison was moving the moment he saw the dark figure start to go down, and he covered the distance at an alarming rate. When he arrived, however, he realized that he never had anything to worry about. The stranger was face-down on the ground, seemingly unconscious, with Shayna standing next to him.

  “I didn’t do it!” she proclaimed as soon as he and Warren arrived. She looked back at him, wide-eyed and clearly shocked.

  “Do what?” Warren asked looking at her with a bit of confusion and concern.

  “Kill him,” Madison answered.

  “Kill wh—” Warren’s attention was focused on the corpse at Shayna’s feet. Now that they were closer, Madison could tell that the man had been dead for a while. His skin was completely colorless, his eyes and mouth were fixed open, and he had fallen in a stiff, unnatural position. “How did . . .?”

  “I don’t know,” Madison answered, shaking his head. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “Who would leave a body like that? Just propped up for anyone to find?” Shayna asked. “Do you think . . .?” She trailed off as she came to the same conclusion that Madison already had. “Maybe we should—”

  She never finished her sentence. There was a slight rustling of leaves, and a dark figure casually stepped out from behind a tree about thirty feet in front of them. He was clad from head to toe in dark material that made him blend in with the dim light almost as well as Shayna, which was likely why no one had picked up on the fact that he was there until now. But he wasn’t the problem. It was the others who appeared just after he did, each stepping out of the shadows one after another, that was likely going to be an issue.

  “Yeah,” Warren agreed slowly as he watched them materialize from the darkness, a slight tremor in his voice. “I think you’re right. I think we should get out of here.”

  “We’re surrounded . . .” Shayna whispered in a barely-audible voice, twisting her head around in every direction as more and more of the figures appeared around them.

  Madison stretched out his hand and watched as his newly acquired sword appear there in a shimmering of yellow light followed by this armor along his body. He grinned snidely and said, “Then I guess we’ll just have to kill them all.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Tension grew in the air as the words left Madison’s mouth. He couldn’t believe he had said it. Shayna looked like she couldn’t believe he’d said it, and Warren looked like he wished he hadn’t heard it.

  “I don’t think we—”

  Warren started some objection, but the words were lost on Madison as he launched himself forward. Every inch of reason and rationale was telling him that this was a terrible idea. He wanted nothing more than to keep those two safe, and charging head-first into a fight when they were both surrounded and outnumbered was about the worst way that he could possibly think of to do that. He had no idea who these people were or what they were after, but he knew that he couldn’t sit back and negotiate his way out of it. No one set up a trap—which they so clearly had done, using the body as bait—and then let their quarry talk their way out of it. These people were clearly determined to either capture Madison and his friends or see them dead, and he couldn’t stand the thought of either. They weren’t going to let him talk, and they weren’t going to let him walk away. Pushing into the attack gave him a slight edge since it was the last thing anyone would possibly expect, and he knew all too well that victories were often won by the slimmest of margins.

  His muscles came alive as he charged across the distance at a reckless speed. He had been holding back all sorts of nervous, pent-up energy ever since he drank that Rush after fighting the troll, and it was like opening the floodgates now that he was able to let it loose. He hefted his sword in front of him and planted his feet just before he made contact with the black-clad enemy. He thrust his weapon forward in a one-handed attack aimed at waist level and allowed his momentum to carry him forward as he slid the final few steps. Madison’s opponent parried his thrust with one slim one-handed sword that resembled a katana and smoothly stepped to the side.

  Madison shifted his weight onto his opposite foot and turned to face his opponent, bringing his own sword around in a diagonal, two-handed slash aimed across the man’s chest. The other man threw his sword up again, intent on blocking the attack, but Madison had too much power behind his swing this time. The two swords connected in a flurry of sparks, and his opponent’s lighter sword was forced down. His opponent quickly jumped back and out of the way at the last possible moment, and Madison narrowly missed his first opportunity to land a killing blow.

  Undeterred, Madison shifted his weight and took a single step forward, aiming another sword thrust at the man’s ankles. His opponent jumped back and up again, and Madison suddenly shifted his attack. Two men on either side of his original target had begun edging around him as soon as the fight started, and when his ninja-like opponent had dodged out of the way, it put one of them almost directly into Madison’s line of sight. When his first opponent jumped back, Madison turned to the closest man on his left. He planted his feet and dove forward shoulder-first, catching the man off-guard with the sudden change in tactics before he could bring a weapon up defensively. The smaller figure was thrown back against a tree by Madison’s body-check, and Madison quick
ly followed it up with a punch from his off hand across the man’s jaw. There wasn’t much force behind the blow, but it was still enough to bounce the man’s head back against the tree, which resulted in a loud crack. Madison landed a second quick jab, catching him again squarely in the nose and sending the man down to the ground in a crumpled-up heap, before quickly stepping away and turning his attention back to his original opponent. He brought his sword up defensively in front of him with both hands and watched the man to his right out of the corner of his eye as the swordsman began circling around again.

  Madison glanced up over the warrior’s shoulder as he moved into position, and he was able to catch sight of the fight going on behind him. Shayna was bouncing back and forth between two different men, her daggers whirling about as she fought off one blow after another. For all the trouble she had against Randall at K’yer Utane, she was actually a decent fighter when she was faced against evenly matched or lesser opponents. The man in front of her struck out with a single slash using a small, curved one-handed sword, something that looked like a scimitar, and she neatly parried the blow with one dagger and slashed across the man’s midsection with her other. Although well-aimed, her blow was rebuffed by the man’s armor, and before she could attack again, she was forced to defend herself from the other side.

  She nimbly danced back and away from her first target as she turned to face her second opponent, turning away the first clumsy strike from his cudgel with one of her daggers. He apparently hadn’t been able to adjust his aim very well when she suddenly moved, which resulted in a weak and awkward blow that left him overextended and off balance. Shayna took advantage of that fact by stepping into him, shifting her body to the side, and driving home her second dagger into the man’s armpit. Her small blade exited the man as quickly as it entered, and then she spun away and out of Madison’s sight to engage another.