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“We got a bigger problem,” he tells him.

“What?” Jiron asks.

Turning to face him, he pulls down the collar of his shirt and says, “They took the medallion.”

Jiron gasps in shock. This is the first time he’s ever seen him without it. “What are you going to do?”

“Get it back,” he says.

“They’re going to be long gone by the time the others are ready for travel,” he states.

“Be that as it may, I have to retrieve it,” he asserts. No longer seeing the need to maintain the barrier, he returns to where the crystal lies on the ground and picks it up. Holding it in his hand he says “Cancel” and it disappears. He rewraps it in the cloth and then gathers the other crystals, putting them all in one of his pockets.

When the barrier goes down, Jiron moves and collects the two horses which are still tied to a nearby tree. They must have belonged to the two dead men. Bringing them closer he secures them nearby and then starts a fire in the now cold fire pit.

Over the course of the next several hours the others begin to regain consciousness. When they find out what happened they’re all set to go and extract their vengeance upon them. The last one to come out of it is Miko, probably because he had eaten the most of the drugged or poisoned stew than the others.

During this time, it has been determined that Kerrin and Gayle proceeded further into the pass rather than return to Feld. The ruts created by the wagon are still visible in the mud and they head further up the pass.

Once they have a light meal, James announces that he and Jiron are going to take the two horses and follow them.

“But what about the rest of us?” Dave asks.

“You will have to follow as best you can on foot,” he explains.

“But…” he begins to protest then falls silent, giving in to the inevitable.

“Fifer,” he says, “I want you to be in charge until our return.”

“You got it,” he says.

Coming close to him and whispering so only he can hear he says, “Don’t let anyone kill Dave.”

Smiling, he gives him a nod.

He and Jiron mount the horses and then he turns to the others. “With any luck, we’ll be back soon. If by the time you’ve reached the next town and we haven’t returned, find an inn and stay there until we do.”

“But we haven’t any coins,” Fifer says. “They took all I have.” Glancing to the others, he gets answering nods saying their coins are gone as well.

Moving to the horses, James rummages through the packs still attached there. Not finding anything of value, he goes to the two corpses. He finds two sacks of coins, one on each. One of the sacks is burned badly from when the older man had been torched by James’ spell so he transfers the coins from it to the other.

“Hopefully this should be enough,” he says as he hands it over to Fifer.

“But what about you?” he asks as he takes the offered pouch.

“We’ll get by I’m sure,” he replies. Then with a nod to Jiron they return to the horses and mount.

“Good luck,” Miko says as they turn to follow the road up the mountain.

“You too,” he replies. As he kicks his horse to move, he can hear Dave mumble, “I knew it was a bad idea to let them come with us.” Ignoring the remark, he breaks into a gallop and has soon left the others behind.

They don’t get far before they find the wagon sitting abandoned in the middle of the road. “What happened?” Jiron asks.

“Perhaps they heard or saw what happened back at the camp and decided to beat a hasty retreat,” suggests James.

“I was hoping they would still be on the slow moving wagon,” says Jiron.

“Me too,” he replies. A cursory look shows very little to have been left behind when the wagon was abandoned. They get moving again and quickly leave the wagon behind. The tracks of all their stolen horses leave a clear trail for them to follow. As long as the sun stays out they should have no trouble in following them.

After riding in silence for awhile, Jiron asks, “Do you suppose the bandits we were warned about might still be in the area?”

James chuckles at that and says, “Jiron, the people who told us about the bandits, were