Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [92]
CHAPTER 32
Lorloch Second Palast, Reapember 374 AC The trio found the bandit named Red snoring loudly on the soft bank beside the next bridge. The man didn’t stir as Danyal, Emilo, and Foryth Teel approached to within a few feet. When the breeze shifted, the companions caught the scent of brandy and quickly guessed why the heavyset swordsman slumbered so soundly.
“We should just kill him, shouldn’t we?” asked Danyal, cursing his own reluctance as he looked at the defenseless man. He told himself that if it had been Zack or Kelryn, he would have had no trouble making a lethal thrust. Whether that was true or not, he couldn’t say, but he knew that he could never stick the cruel knife into this drunken man.
“Er…” Foryth was also clearly hesitant. “Perhaps we should just ignore him and go on by. He may never even know that we’ve been past here.” The historian pointed along the road that extended beyond the far side of the bridge. “Loreloch is that way, according to my map. Why don’t we just move on?”
“Seems risky to leave him here,” Emilo suggested. “Though I really don’t know about stuff like that. Still, we don’t want him coming along behind us.”
Danyal was about to argue further when they heard a clatter of stones behind them. Whirling, he saw the shape of a large black horse coming forward at a fast trot.
“Nightmare!” he cried, irrationally delighted by the appearance of the great horse. At the same time, Red stirred with a snort. Sitting up, the man blinked at the plunging animal as the mare swept toward the bridge. The three companions dropped behind the bank on the far side of the road as the bandit staggered to his knees, gaping in astonishment.
“By the gods, it’s the demon horse!” Red shouted, lurching to his feet.
The horse pounded closer, looming black and large as she thundered toward the bridge. The great hooves smashed on the roadway, and Dan felt each thud reverberate through the ground.
Red spun around, apparently without even noticing the three figures on the other side of the road. With a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder, the man took off running.
Nightmare thundered onto the small bridge, snorting contemptuously at the trio of companions. Danyal scrambled to his feet in a rush and made a lunge for the horse’s halter, but before he had taken two steps, the animal sprang into a gallop and bolted away, the sound of the hoofbeats soon fading in the distance.
“Where did she come from?” Dan asked, staring after the horse in frustration. He felt a bleak sense of abandonment, made even more painful by the thought of Mirabeth’s captivity. He had no doubt that the lass would have been able to bring the mare to an easy halt.
“Her timing was good.” Emilo made the more practical observation.
Foryth Teel was looking at the map in his book again. “And it seems that Red is running away from Loreloch. I don’t suppose he’ll be in a hurry to go home after abandoning his post.”
“And Nightmare’s going toward Loreloch. Maybe we’ll catch up to her,” Dan said, without a lot of hope.
They settled upon the direction, following the vague map in the book that only the historian seemed able to comprehend. With grim determination, the trio of would-be rescuers set out across the mountainside, staying uphill from the rutted mountain road. Alert to danger, they tried to move swiftly without exposing themselves unnecessarily to observation.
Now the three of them actually presented a rough approximation of a fierce and dangerous band. Danyal still had the big knife, and he had taken the short bow and a quiver of arrows from the man he had stabbed. He had been no slouch at shooting rabbits in the woods around Waterton, and he felt quite certain that he could deliver an arrow with accuracy at a far more dangerous target.
Foryth Teel had claimed the short sword from the bandit who no longer had need of such practical tools. Slinging the weapon at his waist, he had at first tripped over the scabbard frequently. By the second day, however, he had at least learned to walk with the blade handy,