A Killing in the Air - The Further Adventures of Bander

by Randy Nargi

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  THE NORTHWAY STRETCHED FROM LAKETON SOUTH TO THREE RIVERS, SWAIN, AND FINALLY ALL THE WAY WEST TO RUNDLUN, A DISTANCE OF OVER A THOUSAND MILES WHICH WOULD TAKE A MONTH OR MORE OF TRAVEL. It was a well-maintained Imperial caravan road with coaching inns every fifty miles and a dozen or so hamlets and villages along the way. Seventy five miles south of Laketon, the Northway detoured around Hessa Ridge, a long range of rocky hills which ran nearly to Three Rivers. The road then headed back due southwest the rest of the way down to Swain.

  Caravans almost always travelled north on the Imperial road, as it was much cheaper and faster to transport goods by barge down the Meredel, which flowed south from Laketon. The patterns of the wind were usually northeast to southwest for much of the year, further aiding downstream travel. Even if portals weren’t so expensive, they didn’t work for transporting much beyond what a man could carry. That left caravans of wagons drawn by teams of uruses. The same held true for human cargo. The very wealthy took portals, and everyone else travelled by riverboat if they were heading south, or coach or horseback if they were heading north. Very few people walked. Except Bander, who for the past three years wandered the roads and lanes of Harion.

  But this morning he rode; he rode a stolen horse south on the Imperial road through the early morning mist. Alongside him was Faramir Boldfist, also on a stolen horse. And Wegg and Dusk followed in a stolen carriage. 

  Bander was looking for a particular turn in the road which might suit his purpose—and he found it a half hour later. The Northway doglegged around a rock outcropping the size of a cottage. Bander signaled to his team to stop and they maneuvered the carriage so it faced back towards the way they came. Now it looked like the carriage had been traveling to Laketon. But the carriage was only visible once you rounded the corner.

  Faramir Boldfist led the horses off the Northway into the forest and out of sight. Bander conferred with Wegg about various options for positioning the healer in the stately ceaon trees which provided a canopy over the road. They checked their supplies, especially Wegg’s concoctions and the non-lethal crossbow darts. Bander and Faramir Boldfist muscled the carriage off the road and flipped it. They went over the plan for the sixth time. And then once more. And then they waited. Bander was good at waiting.

  Nearly two hours later, the young mage arrived with her escorts.