Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [89]
Instinctively the lad halted and crouched. Joined by his two companions, he squirmed forward to get a look without revealing himself to view.
A shout sounded from the far side of the clearing, and they saw Kelryn Darewind holing the still-squirming figure of Mirabeth in one hand. With the other, he waved, and one by one his men came into view, scrambling up the bank of the low streambed to rejoin their captain at the edge of the woods.
“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