“I am an able fighter,” protested Netura. “I am sure that we can repel any attackers.”
“We will do our best to defeat our enemies,” nodded Hira, “but I still want you to get word back to Lord Marak if anything goes wrong. It is important. Vow that you will carry that word if we are attacked.”
Netura rode silently for several minutes before finally nodding. “I vow to carry word of any attack to Lord Marak’s ears,” declared Netura.
“You’re a good lad, Netura,” smiled Hira. “Go and find us that secure location to camp for the night. Daylight is fast escaping us.”
Hira frowned as he watched Netura ride off. He knew that his orders had been like a slap across Netura’s face. No Torak soldier willingly walked away from a fight while his friends were in danger, but Hira knew that Netura had the best chance of evading an enemy if the need arose. The lad had a natural stealth to his movements, and the squad leader had promised the Lord Marshal that this caravan would not disappear without a clue as to why.
Squad Leader Hira pushed the thoughts from his mind as he watched Netura disappear around a bend in the road. He turned and let his eyes roam over the small caravan and the escorting soldiers. He smiled inwardly as he made eye contact with each member of his squad. They were all good lads, he thought to himself as he turned his attention to the road ahead. He tried to smile as he scanned the road ahead, but the feeling of doom clung to him, as it never had before.
Twenty minutes later, Hira knew that the feeling was genuine. The caravan had just rounded a bend in the road when he detected movement off to one side. The squad leader’s fingers instantly moved in what appeared to be a random fashion. The entire squad of Torak soldier became instantly alert as the squad members recognized their leader’s signal. Hands went automatically to hilts, and the soldiers nonchalantly maneuvered their horses alongside the wagons on the opposite side of the disturbance.
Suddenly, flaming arrows soared towards the caravan from both sides of the road. The Torak soldiers dismounted and drew their swords as the wagon drivers whipped the horses to speed them away from the attack. It was a move designed to take the prize away from the bandits while allowing the soldiers to counterattack. In normal circumstances, it would have worked well, but Hira instantly understood that he had been defeated. He jumped out of the way of the speeding wagons as they tried to escape.
“Take cover,” Hira shouted. “They do not want the cargo. They want to destroy it.”
Hira dove into a small gully that ran alongside the road. Some of the other squad members also dove for the gully, but most had already committed themselves to the fight by charging into the forest.
“Bows and throwing knives,” shouted Hira. “They have no intention of coming to us. They plan to finish us off from the safety of the trees.”
Hira turned and saw the three wagons of ripe grain engulfed in flames. The drivers’ bodies littered the road. The horses ran frantically to escape the fires that were steadily devouring the wagons behind them. He turned his attention to the far side of the road where several of his squad had disappeared. He nocked an arrow to his bow and sought a target.
“I can’t see a thing,” snarled one of the Torak soldiers in the gully. “They are just gray shapes moving from tree to tree. No clan colors that I can see.”
“Must be gray bandits,” called another Torak warrior just before an arrow pierced his neck.
“These are not gray bandits,” snarled Hira. “Bandits want to be paid for their work. They don’t intentionally destroy a caravan. Besides, these men have worked together for a long time. You can tell by the lack of orders for the attack. Not a word has been heard since before the attack started. No, lads, we are facing a clan that doesn’t want to show its colors.”
“There will be no surrendering then,” spat one of the Torak soldiers. “The cowards will want to kill us all.”
“Certainly not,” Hira agreed as he slid behind a large rock in the gully. “Their task is to destroy any trace of us before some traveler stumbles upon this fight. We only need to hold out for a while men. Keep them nervous with your arrows.”
Even as Hira spoke, he heard the screams of his dying men. The attackers tried lobbing arrows high into the air to pierce the men in the gully without risking their own lives.
“These bandits are cowards,” shouted a Torak soldier. Why don’t they come out of the woods and finish us?”
The soldier’s words died in a gurgle as an arrow pierced his head. An eerie silence fell over the battlefield, and Hira realized that he was the only Torak soldier left alive. That was when he heard the first words spoken by the attackers.
“Is that it then?” one of the bandits asked.
“Shut up,” growled another voice.
Hira’s mind whirled around the question of why the bandits were acting so cowardly. They were good archers; the results of the ambush had proved that. Judging from the number of arrows that flew in the initial volley, Hira knew that there were at least two squads involved in the attack. Probably more. So why weren’t they coming out of the forest to kill the survivors? If they wanted the caravan to disappear, they would need to clean up the attack site before someone stumbled across it. That should require a certain amount of haste on the part of the bandits, yet they remained hidden in the forest. Hira nocked another arrow to his bow and peered across the road for a target.
“They cannot afford to have one of their own slain,” Hira mumbled under his breath. “They would have a hard time explaining the death to others on the estate they are from. That means that their task is hidden from even their own families.”
Nodding to himself, Hira let his arrow fly into the forest even though he had no target to aim at.
“I must keep them engaged until a friendly squad of soldiers happens down this road,” Hira said to himself.
Several arrows flew from the forest in answer to his, and Hira sheltered his head behind the large rock. At least two of the arrows hit the rock protecting him, verifying his evaluation of the skill of the bandit archers. The squad leader’s eyes rose to watch the darkening of the sky as he wondered what the odds were of an army coming along the road. The road to Chantise was a fairly busy road, but Khadorans did not care much for night travel. Most trips were planned to end before sunset.
Hira thought about his own plans to stop for the night, and he frowned when he remembered Netura. The Torak soldier would be returning at any moment, the squad leader realized. Suddenly, he knew why the bandits were waiting patiently. They must have seen Netura ride on ahead, and they wanted him eliminated. Hira’s head swiveled to look down the road. His eyes scanned the dimness of dusk as he searched for any sign of Netura. A lump formed in his throat when he saw Netura crawling slowly along the gully towards him.
Hira frowned and waved his arms towards Netura. He signaled the Torak soldier with his fingers and ordered him to retreat. Netura signaled back that he would circle around behind the bandits and distract them so that Hira could escape. Hira shook his head vigorously and repeated his order to retreat, but he knew that Netura would ignore his commands. Hira frantically sought a solution that would carry the word back to Lord Marak.
“Who are you?” Hira shouted to the bandits. “What do you want?”
Silence was the only answer that Hira received. He had not expected an answer, but he needed to draw attention away from Netura.
“I am the only one left,” shouted Hira. “Will you accept my surrender?”
Hira already knew the answer to that question, but he wanted Netura to understand it as well. Silence hung in the air. Hira shot a glance towards Netura and saw the lad still approaching. Netura was still far enough away to escape if only he would. Once again Hira used his fingers to demand that Netura retreat. The Torak soldier ignored him.