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Moving quickly, he races down side streets and ducks into buildings only to end up finding nothing. By the time Fifer and Miko return with the horses, they’ve all returned to the inn.

“Nothing,” Jiron says to James when they return. Jorry and Uther have likewise turned up nothing.

“What spooked them?” Fifer asks.

“Ghosts, that’s what,” replies Miko. Ever since his encounter with the miner, he’s been constantly on the lookout, head turning this way and that.

“I think we all need to be extra cautious from this point,” James says. “We still need to find what we came here to find.”

After securing the horses again, they return to the inn and finish their meal. Once over, they head back to the place where Miko saw the miner to start the afternoon’s search from there. “If any of you see anything out of the ordinary, call for me right away,” James tells them.

“You can count on that,” Miko assures him. Jiron just grins at his enthusiasm at carrying out that command.

“I still want us to meet back here every hour until dusk,” he tells them and then they head out to continue their searching.

Miko’s miner and the action of the horses have them all spooked, including James. He wouldn’t let the others know but he’s actually quite worried about the whole thing. Back in his world, these things wouldn’t bother him nearly as much. But here where gods are active and magic works, who knows what could happen.

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, several of them think they may have seen the miner out of the corner of their eyes, moving across a window of a nearby building. But each time after they called for James, a closer look revealed nothing.

When the sun at last hits the top of the western peaks, they call it a day and return to the same place they made camp the night before. While the rest get the camp set up and a fire going, James takes Dave and sees if he can’t bag something for dinner. Their store of rations is dwindling and he doesn’t want to run out before doing something about it.

Shortly after the camp disappears behind them in the trees, movement from up ahead catches his eye. Moving forward, they make their way through the trees until they see a deer-like animal standing still ahead of them. Its head swivels from side to side as if it’s trying to find something.

“He may have caught our scent,” Dave suggests in a barely heard whisper.

“I think you may be right,” replies James just as quietly. Removing a stone from his pocket he slowly gets into position and then cocks his arm back. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he aims for the deer and releases the magic as he throws the stone.

The deer must have noticed his movement, for at the last second it jumps away. Its hindquarters are thrust to the side when the stone catches it off center, ripping a chunk out.

Dave jumps up and races after the deer, knife in hand. It isn’t dead, only injured. James rushes after.

The deer, though faltering in its stride due to its injury, still manages to lead them on a merry chase before finally collapsing from loss of blood and exhaustion. Dave comes up on it first having moved ahead of James during the chase. The deer raises its head off the ground as he approaches, it tries to get to its feet to run away but is too week and stumbles back to the ground.

Reaching its side, Dave strikes out with his knife across its throat and ends its misery. The strike sends a splatter of blood droplets across his face. When James reaches him, he looks a gruesome sight with his face covered in blood as well as part of his clothing.

Dave turns at his approach and says, “Let’s get this back to camp.”

“Right,” agrees James. “Then maybe you need to wash up a little.”

Looking down at himself a moment, he then glances to his friend with a grin and asks, “I am a mess aren’t I?”

“Oh yeah,” affirms James. He takes the hindquarters and Dave takes the fore, together they raise the animal off the ground and that’s when James comes to the realization that he doesn’t know