“What in the heavens was that?” Halthak said.
“I have no idea,” Amric replied with a shake of his head. “But it was no more than a few minutes up the road, very near the cave.”
“An evoker’s magic, from the sharp report,” Bellimar said. “Though as to its purpose, I cannot say.”
Amric was silent for a moment, looking into the darkness. When he spoke, his voice had become cold and resolute. “It lies in our path. I mean to investigate it.”
Syth stared at him. “Do murderous lights hold some newfound fascination for you, after the Fount? Are you a moth, to be drawn so to the flame?”
The swordsman turned wintry grey eyes upon him. “I lost the trail of our missing friends at Stronghold,” he said. “If fortune is so kind as to offer me a pointer back onto that trail, I’ll not take the risk of circling wide around the sign.”
“You would assume that everything is now a possible sign from the fates?” Syth demanded. “How can you pursue every strange occurrence in this land gone mad?”
“One at a time,” Amric replied.
The thief threw up his hands in exasperation, then grabbed for the reins once again as the dun gelding shifted in a move that looked suspiciously like it was trying to shrug him out of the saddle.
“But you are correct, Syth,” the warrior continued in a mild tone. “It could be dangerous, and perhaps it would be wiser for you to remain here.”
Syth ground his teeth, eyes narrowed in an icy glare. “I’ll not have it said I took the coward’s route,” he gritted. “I will be at your shoulder, if I can keep this useless mountain of horse flesh pointed in the right direction.”
Amric chuckled and turned to Valkarr. The Sil’ath still looked gaunt and tired, but pushed himself stiffly upright to sit tall on the horse, his chin lifted.
“I know you wish to ride with us on this, my friend, but you have not yet regained your strength. I need you to stay with these two and keep them safe while you all follow at a short distance. Be ready, for as much as I would hate to lose time to a retreat or detour, it may prove necessary.”
The Sil’ath sighed and nodded. With a curt nod to Bellimar and Halthak, Amric wheeled his bay and kicked it into a gallop. Behind him, amid a shower of muttered curses, he heard Syth’s mount follow.
Minutes later, they slowed as they neared the location from which the burst of light had emanated. All seemed quiet, the only movement being the short scrub grasses of the foothills swaying under the hoary light of the stars. Amric’s eyes picked out the winding trail leading up to the cave, and he was guiding his mount off the road and toward that narrow path when a sound further up the main road drew their attention. They cantered ahead and found the source. It was a riderless black horse, a glossy patch of ink against the night, giving a subdued cough and stamping its feet as it backed away from them. Amric studied the trembling animal, taking in the rolling white eyes and the froth of sweat on its coat. It had seen strenuous activity, and quite recently. He scanned about for the rider, but found no sign.
Then another sound drifted to them from ahead and north of the broad road: a muffled scream, almost lost to distance.
Amric spurred his mount to a gallop, leaning low over the bay’s muscular neck. The gelding was somewhat tired from the long day of slow travel picking along the base of the rocky foothills bordering the forest, but given its first chance in many days to open up and race, the eager young animal seized the opportunity. Syth fell behind, bouncing awkwardly in the saddle and spewing a steady litany of blasphemous threats at his mount. Amric strained to pierce the gloom as he rode ahead, for he could not triangulate on the sounds over the clatter of his horse’s hooves, and at last a flurry of movement north of the highway caught his eye.
At first he thought he was looking upon some many-legged beast, scurrying through the long, waving grasses where the foothills gave grudging way to gently rolling plains. As he stared, however, he realized it was a handful of the repulsive black things dressed in rags that had assaulted them in the forest. The source of the indignant cry became evident as well, for the creatures bore a thrashing captive among them. The group was clustered around their prize, running in unison, cleaving through the undulating sea of grass in headlong, rapid strides.
With a jerk of the reins, the warrior sent his horse leaping from the road. The creatures were fast, moving at the kind of unflagging dead run which a mortal man could not endure for long. All the same, they could not hope to match a fast steed.
As he closed the gap, one of his swords slid gleaming into his hand, and he knotted the reins in his other fist as he leaned from the saddle. He overtook them on a small, rolling rise, sweeping by in a thunderous cloud, and his blade sang in the night air. The rearmost creature pitched forward to the sward, its head bumping along the ground without it for several yards. Another fell with one of its legs shorn almost clean through.
The remaining monstrosities reacted with astonishing speed. The pair in the lead swerved away from the threat, while the one now at the rear of the entourage broke free of the pack to sprint after him. Amric steered his mount wide, outdistancing his pursuer and circling back toward those still fleeing with their hostage.
His bay gelding suddenly reared as something rose before them. It was the one he had injured, dragging its useless leg behind it as it skittered rapidly through the grasses on its remaining crooked limbs like some huge, hideous spider. It gathered and hurled itself at him in an impossible bound, and he lashed out in a vicious cut that sent the grimacing head spinning away into the night even as its limp body crashed into the horse. He dragged on the reins, bringing the terrified bay under control, and surged forward once more just as the creature chasing him tore through a curtain of waving green stalks mere yards behind him. He peered over his shoulder as the fiend pounded after him in untiring pursuit. A tall, bulky shape loomed behind it, and he almost shouted in fierce exultation when the creature suddenly vanished, ridden down from behind by Syth’s blue dun. He did not see the thing rise again, and he hoped that iron-shod hooves had found its skull.
The remaining pair whirled to face them, dumping their burden to the ground where it rolled to an unceremonious halt, still writhing. Amric sprang from the saddle, and his other sword was in hand before his boots touched earth. Scant moments later, a gust of wind flattened the grasses around him, and Syth was at his shoulder.
“Aim for the heads,” Amric said.
“I will aim for whatever I please,” Syth retorted.
Amric grinned, and they leapt to meet their charging foes.
Afterward, Syth prodded with a metal-clad finger at the still form of one of the creatures as Amric wiped his swords clean. The things did not bleed, exactly, but instead left behind a clear, slimy, foul-smelling film on the blades that left him as eager to remove it from the metal as he was to avoid any unnecessary contact between it and his flesh.
“What manner of creature are they?” Syth asked as his lip curled in disgust.
“I do not know, but they seemed once again intent on seizing rather than slaying,” Amric mused. “I wonder to what strange destination they were bearing their captured prey.”
He gazed in the direction they had been headed, but to his knowledge nothing lay in that southern region for countless miles except rolling hills of prairie.
The thief rose to his feet with a lop-sided grin. “It seems to discover that, we had only to belay our interference for a time and follow them instead. Doubtless this poor fellow could have bided a while longer as we satisfied our curiosity, no?”