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By Root 1344 0

doesn’t lose consciousness and crawls over to her baby, wrapping her arms protectively around it. In a vain attempt at escape she attempts to crawl away. When the wagon comes, one of the men pulls the baby out of her arms. James can hear the woman’s scream as she tries to hang onto her child. The man strikes her across the face with his fist and rips the baby from her arms. With the mother’s pleas falling on deaf ears, the man returns to the wagon and hands the baby to someone inside. He then returns to the wailing woman, and dragging her by the hair, takes her to the rear of the slave line trailing behind the wagon. There she is stripped and put in line with the others.

“James!” Miko says as he pulls on his arm insistently, “we have to get out of here!”

Shaking his head, James says, “No.” He turns his head to look at Miko and says, “You don’t have to stay.” Turning back toward the oncoming horsemen, he reaches inside his pouch and grabs several of the stones he collected and holds them in his left hand. He then takes one in his right and starts walking toward the horsemen.

“Crap!” he hears Miko say behind him as the boy follows him into battle.

One of the horsemen is fast approaching a man who is carrying a bundle on his back. The man looks back and sees the horseman almost upon him. Tossing the bundle aside, he breaks into a run. The horseman closes with him and raises his club to bludgeon the man to the ground. Suddenly, something strikes him in the chest, going through the leather armor he’s wearing and blasting out the back. He looks at his chest for a moment in disbelief before toppling off his horse, hitting the ground dead.

Another horseman sees his partner fall and cries out alerting the other riders. He hooks his club to the saddle then draws his sword as he pauses, looking around for whoever it was that killed his partner. Seeing James standing defiant when everyone else is fleeing, he kicks his horse and charges straight at him, sword raised to cut him in half.

James cocks his arm and lets fly another stone, striking the charging rider through the forehead and blasting out the back of his head. Like a limp rag doll, the rider falls from his horse.

“Miko,” James says over his shoulder while indicating the horses of the fallen riders, “grab the horses, we’ll need them. Also search the dead riders for valuables or any papers.” Not looking to see whether or not Miko is doing what was asked of him, his attention remains focused on the four riders racing toward him, swords raised.

James concentrates and then lets the magic flow.

Crumph!

The ground under two of the charging riders erupts, throwing debris, horses and riders into the air.

James turns to the remaining two riders who are almost upon him and throws another stone, catching one in the chest, creating a hole as it passes through. James jumps to one side, rolling on the ground when the remaining rider strikes down at him with his sword. He feels its passing as it comes within inches.

The rider turns and tries to trample him with his horse’s hooves as he lies there on the ground.

James rolls out of the way quickly and then tries to stand up when one of the horse’s hooves clips him in the side of the head, knocking him down, causing the world to spin wildly.

He rolls on his back and sees a blurry horseman with sword raised, ready to finish him off. Sure that his time has come, James is surprised when two other blurry shapes jump up and grab the rider, pulling him off the horse.

Another blurry shape comes over and asks, “James? You okay?”

“Yeah,” he replies as he sits up, recognizing Miko’s voice. “The horse clipped me in the head. Be okay in a few minutes, I hope.”

“Thank you!” a woman cries as she kneels down, putting her arms around James and giving him a big hug.

As his vision begins to clear and becomes steady, he sees many people around him, all trying to express their gratitude. That’s when he realizes they were the people fleeing the oncoming slavers. Miko is standing there with two horses, smiling broadly.

The two riders who had been