The Star of Morcyth_ Book Five of the Morcyth Saga - Brian S. Pratt [147]
“Calm down,” Jiron says as he leads him out of the building. “He’s not here now.”
On their way to find James, they run across Fifer and Qyrll who join them. Jiron gives them a brief rundown of what happened as they continue moving toward where James and Dave are hunting. Jorry and Uther are nowhere in sight.
When they reach the area, he calls out “James!”
From an upper window of a nearby building, they hear a “What?”
Looking up, they see James peering down at them. “Miko saw something!”
“It was a miner!” he hollers. “I think he was dead.”
“I’ll be right down,” he says and then ducks back inside. A moment later, he and Dave leave the building and join them in the street. Coming to Miko he asks, “What happened?”
He relates to him his encounter with the dead miner, as now he’s sure that’s what it was. “He was reaching for me and I panicked,” he concludes. “I slammed the door closed as I fled into the panty. When it opened again, Jiron was standing there and the miner was gone.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t them playing another joke on you?” he asks.
When Miko shakes his head no, he says, “Take me there.”
Together they hurry along back to the building where the dead miner had been encountered. When they approach, James says, “You all stay here, Miko you come with me.” With Miko right beside him, he goes up to the open door leading into the kitchen and stops before entering.
“Now,” he says as he turns to Miko, “just where did this miner appear?”
Pointing to the spot, he replies, “Right there.”
Entering through the door, James comes to the spot and examines the floor carefully. If the miner had left footprints they were obliterated by Jiron and Miko walking over them when they left. He stands there a moment with his eyes closed but fails to pick up anything such as coldness or a sense of danger, things he heard always accompanies the supernatural.
Turning back to Miko he says, “Whatever it was, there’s nothing here now.”
“I tell you I saw it,” insists Miko defensively.
“I’m not saying you imagined it,” James tells him. “I’m just saying there’s nothing here now.”
With a tremor of fear in his voice, he asks, “What are we to do?”
“Let’s go have lunch while I think on it,” he says. “After that we’ll see.”
“Alright.”
They leave the house and rejoin the others. “There’s nothing there now,” he says when he draws near. “Let’s go back to the horses and have lunch. I want to comb this area after we eat.” The idea of searching a mine is forgotten after Miko’s encounter with the miner.
Moving down the street toward where they left the horses, Qyrll moves next to Miko and asks, “What did it look like?”
Qyrll seems to have a rather keen interest in this sort of thing and practically grills Miko about the subtle details. By the time they’ve returned to the horses, he brings his questioning to a close, for the moment satisfied he’s learned all there is.
Jorry and Uther have returned in the meantime and are filled in on what just happened.
They remove the food for their meal from their horses and take it inside a nearby inn where they sit at a table near a window. James sits there in silence while he eats, the others talking quietly among themselves.
Suddenly from outside, they hear the horses neighing and then see them racing away down the street. “The ghost!” cries out Miko as they all race out of the inn into the street. Weapons at the ready, they find the street deserted except for their fleeing horses.
“Fifer, Miko, you two go after the horses,” James says. As they race down the street after them, he says to the others, “Fan out and see if you can find anything. Dave, you stay with me.”
Qyrll returns his sword to its scabbard as he moves out quickly, Jiron right behind him. Jorry and Uther go down a side street. James motions for Dave to follow