by C.S. Fanning
minute and then turned without answering and went to wake the others. Aeden was confused by her reaction. He should have been exhausted himself but though he had hardly rested since the beginning of this journey he felt strangely energetic. Fianna had leaned against him on the log with almost imperceptible slowness, and it had been some moments before he realized she had gone to sleep. It hardly seemed useful for both to keep watch, so he had let her rest while he watched the plain.
It took only minutes to rouse the others and make ready for the hike across the plain. As he woke Teagan, he extended his hand helping her to her feet and steadying her with his free hand upon her shoulder. Though clearly still exhausted she flashed him a dazzling smile before bending to retrieve her pack. He was convinced then that perhaps Fianna might well have a point about her.
As they began the dreary march Fianna rode close, and with a bitter expression on her face she leaned down to whisper “nice work lover boy” before riding ahead.
Aeden didn’t understand why but those words irritated him more than any other thing Fianna had ever done or said. He didn’t have long to brood however, as no more than a few hundred long strides out onto the open plain they heard the hooves of galloping horses pounding toward them from out of the woods.
Whirling around Aeden saw three horsemen breaking from the woods. They had been spotted, that was certain. The riders were far better equipped than the would-be assassins in Bretharc and Aeden knew he and his companions were at a serious disadvantage. Gathering Teagan and Riordan behind him with Faolan and Quinn on either flank, Aeden drew his sword. The engraved blade was aglow like soft moonlight in the darkness.
The closest of the three riders was only yards away when he pitched sideways out of his saddle, crashing to the earth with an arrow piercing his shoulder. As he fell his mount bolted in the opposite direction. The remaining riders’ charge was disrupted as they swerved aside, one to avoid the startled horse and the other to avoid his own horse trampling his fallen comrade.
With a speed and certainty of movement that seemed to come from beyond him, Aeden sprang over the fallen man and struck at the careening rider in a sweeping arc aiming for the man’s midsection. As the glowing blade completed its arc, Aeden was dumbstruck; how could he have missed? The blade had not even slowed, not had he felt any resistance. Having expected the drag of his blade through its target to slow him, he had swung harder than he could control, and the weight of his blade added too much to his own momentum and he lost his balance, hurling him to the ground.
Even as he fell Aeden was twisting. His leap had left his friends exposed and failing to strike down the horseman he had afforded his enemy the chance to claim the lives of one or more of his friends. As he rolled onto his back, struggling to rise, the rider was making a strangely sickening noise and appeared to be sliding from the saddle in a most peculiar fashion. In the growing darkness it took Aeden a moment to realize that what he witnessed was the man’s torso falling away from his lower extremities. Aeden had cleaved him completely in two with the blade. He looked at his sword incredulously and the first thing he noticed was that it appeared to have become longer and thinner.
In the chaos of the attack Aeden had lost sight of the remaining rider but Fianna was shouting from his left. With her broken ribs, riding fast was too painful to manage and the last rider was quickly outdistancing her. Aeden understood that if the man escaped it would mean that in hours, perhaps less, their enemies would be upon them in mass, and any hope of their ruse working would be lost. Whistling a tune he’d learned working with the ponies he calmed himself and willed the horse whose rider he had killed to come to him. He had hoped to calm the horse enough to approach it before the rider was too far away for him to catch, but evidently the beast was well trained and turning, came straight to him at the sound of his whistle. Aeden didn’t have time to appreciate his good fortune, so he pushed the former rider’s lower half from the simple saddle and then vaulted into the bloody saddle himself. He couldn’t think of anything besides stopping the fleeing horsemen and in an instant he was racing back across the plain toward the fleeing rider. The last thing he heard as he rode away from his friends was the sound of one of them retching.
With almost no encouragement the powerful horse sped away and it seemed to only take a few strides to pass Fianna and the big roan. “I will deal with him, get back to the others!” he shouted as he raced away into the gloom. He was gaining on the rider, but if he didn’t catch him very soon he would have to slow the gallant steed or risk a fall on the uneven ground.
He was perhaps three lengths behind the rider when the man turned, noticing his pursuit for the first time, and realizing he was not making good on his escape. Veering toward the line of trees he ran his horse toward the inky blackness of the forest, perhaps thinking his pursuer would not risk such a foolhardy chase. Clearly he did not know who was pursuing him. Aeden had but a moment to decide, ultimately guiding his horse to pursue the man wherever he might go.
Aeden drew in the reins, bringing his horse to a stuttering halt at the very edge of the woods. It was madness to ride into the utter blackness of the forest at a gallop. He was confused; why would the man risk his life in such an insane venture? Before he had time to contemplate the reasons for his opponents madness he realized that he had no trouble seeing into the normally dark forest, and looking up he saw that the sword he still carried overhead was glowing brightly giving the forest around him a glow that was sufficient for him to see well into the cover of the trees; the sword shown with a soft white fire that glowed like a full moon in his hand.
He might have spent untold minutes starring at the phantom light of the sword were it not for the sound of a branch snapping and the grunt of the man struck hard by the force of his own foolish choice. Aeden listened for a few seconds. He could still hear the gentle clap of the horse’s hooves as it sauntered around just inside the forest, but no sound came from the rider.
Holding the sword before him like a torch, Aeden urged his mount into the forest at a walk. He had gone only a few yards when his adversary’s horse trotted out of the gloom, seeking the comfort of being near one of its own kind. Checking carefully around him he took the horses reins and then dismounted, tying both of the horses to a low hanging limb before moving forward in the direction the horse had come from. Only a few yards ahead he came upon the man lying on his back. The man was bent in a grotesque angle. His face was virtually unrecognizable as such, and the cause was blatantly apparent. A freshly shattered limb, as big as Aeden’s upper arm, lay across the broken body.
The scene was unsettling, especially by the light of the glowing blade, but the past couple of days had changed Aeden. He quickly searched the body, finding a small sack of gold and silver coins hidden in the man’s tunic. The man had been no more than a hand taller than Aeden, so Aeden stripped the leather jerkin from the body as well as the greaves, putting them on. He gathered the man’s long sword and the dirk that he carried. The dead man no longer had need of these weapons, but his friends did.
Returning to the horses was more difficult, for the light given off by the sword was rapidly diminishing. By the time he mounted his horse again the light was all but gone. Turning the horse back across the plains he held it to a slow walk as he kept low in the saddle letting the stallion chose his way out of the forest. Though Aeden held the reins, the final rider’s horse followed without hesitation, and soon Aeden began to see the darkness of the dense forest give way to the moonlit expanse of the plain. As they cleared the trees, Aeden urged his horse to a trot, and watched the grasslands sweep by them as he rode.
He almost passed by the place where he had left his friends, and in fact he would have, had not the horse he led not shied away from the body of the man he had cut in half. Reining in the horses, he looked all around for his companions, but they were nowhere to be found. As he scanned about he noticed that the bodies had been st
ripped of armor and weapons. The man that Fianna had shot had the broken shaft of a second arrow protruding from the socket of what had once been his left eye. Apparently Fianna had finished what the first shaft and subsequent fall had not. There was no sign of his companions as far as he could see upon the plain now, but the hills loomed close and he had to assume that they had continued on expecting him to follow if he could. Riding as fast as he dared, in the moonlight Aeden set off after his friends. He’d been gone a half hour at most, so they couldn’t have gone too far. At best they had two horses, and must have moved quickly to get out of sight of the open plain. Catching them should be simple on horseback.
In no time at all he was rounding the first of the low foothills. It was the best place for them to enter into the highlands; for once around it they could travel the valleys between the hills to remain hidden from sight. He was just rounding the bend under a rocky promontory when two figures stepped out into his path from behind a stone. Reining in sharply he reached for his sword reflexively. Before his hand could reach the pommel he heard the twang of