by Tom Skerlets
* * *
“No! Don’t let me go, I beg ya!” Bryn squealed like a baby. It was somewhat understandable for a man hanging from the bridge, about fifteen feet above the river, held only by one leg, with the arm of an Ahlea warrior girl.
Looking at this scene, and still vividly remembering a similar event in the pub, Tenen thought that her new partner might be trying to make her first task as fun as possible. Stories of heroic feats of this blond warrior girl were often retold in Ahlean warrior school. She knew all about how Dlora had to join the war immediately after the end of warrior training and how she was crossing from one warrior rank to another, faster than most warriors before her. In these stories, Dlora was presented as a charismatic, bold and a bit sassy warrior girl. Such notions developed in Tenen a great respect for this woman, but this kind of joy in the humiliation of criminals and creating a comic situation, she did not expect.
“Spit it out! Where is your cousin and what kind of business he deals with lately? Or, prepare to dive!”
“Okay, okay! Just put me back on the bridge!”
And Bryn spat it out. When Dlora dropped him on the dusty road, he stayed on the ground and told his story.
“So it was like this. Dlenn, my cousin, mentioned me a few weeks ago that he met someone with a higher rank. From the very palace, he said! I did not believe him. It sounded too incredible.”
“Why?”
“Well, it was like... a person approached him in the middle of a night in the pitch dark, all in disguise and hooded, spoke to him softly, in a whisper. Told him where she was from, he could tell by her speech that the person belonged to the high society. Offered him a job.”
Ahleas looked at each other. Darkest forebodings began to show true.
“He told me no more after I accused him of lying. But then in the next days, he started acting strange, nervous. And this morning I saw him loading things on the horse, along with two more guys. I approached him to ask where he got a horse; he didn’t have it before, and he yelled at me, told me I was a fool for not believing him. And how I could've earned a lot in a job that he got. I mean, how was I to know? With him, you never know, when he tells lies more often than the truth…”
“Okay, okay! What happened next?”
“Well, then he calmed down and said goodbye to me. Told me for some time he will no longer be in the city, that he needed to move as far away from here.”
“And? Where would it be for him, as far away from here?”
“I do not know.”
“Would you still like to go into the river?”
“For Rheyn he went.”
Bryn thus ended his story. With Dlora’s permission, he ran from the bridge on which, after this episode, he did not dare to set foot again for a long time.
Girls knew they had to act quickly.
“They left this morning. That means they have about an eight-hour advantage,” Tenen said.
“We'll have to go immediately and chase the horses as hard as they can go. Hoping that those three do not expect to have already been discovered.”
“What about their client? Who could that be? And what are his motives? What plans does he have with the statuette?”
“Based on the information that this primitive provided us, we can’t draw any conclusions. The three fugitives have all the answers.”
