by David Pauly
'My Lord,' said Hardacil, 'perhaps we should send back for reinforcements.'
'I do not abandon men under my command,' said Daerahil, loudly enough for the whole troop to hear him. 'Nor do I delay when my soldiers are in need of speedy succor. We ride at double time!"
After another fifteen minutes, they reached a point at which the signs of a scuffle were visible in the mud along one side of the road. Daerahil dismounted and searched along the verge until he found a chain-mail shirt that had been torn asunder. It was covered with blood.
A general search ensued. But nothing more was found, and soon enough the encroaching night put an end to the hunt.
'We will find nothing more this day,' said Daerahil, and bid his men back into their saddles. 'We will return to camp and come back in greater force tomorrow. There is no other recourse.'
They had not gone far when Daerahil experienced a sudden and unmistakable feeling of being watched. He whirled around in his saddle, and as he did so seemed to hear a high-pitched whisper on the wind, like words in an unknown tongue. A cold shiver ran down his spine, and he felt a feral hunger pluck at his soul. Yet there was nothing in the deepening gloom and mist.
It took Daerahil a moment to realize just how accurate that perception had been, for with a start he realized that he had indeed seen nothing where something was supposed to be. The soldier riding point was gone, missing from his saddle, with his horse still trotting along with complete lack of concern. Calling to the rest of his men, Daerahil exchanged looks of wonder with Hardacil, for the soldier had literally vanished into the thickening mist and night without a sound. Daerahil reined in his mount and turned to go back, but Hardacil stopped him.
'No, Lord,' he said. 'Whoever it is that is stalking us—for that seems to be what is happening—clearly wants us to stop and go back for our missing men. That way it can take us one by one. There is safety in numbers; let us return swiftly to camp. There is nothing more we can do tonight.'
'Are you saying that you credit the rumors of strange creatures haunting this stretch of the forest?'
'Rumors, my Lord?' asked Hardacil. 'Could rumors have taken one of our guardsmen five yards in front of us without noise and without disturbing the horse he was riding upon? I think not, Lord. We must retire.'
'Do you think me a coward?' demanded Daerahil in a hissing whisper. 'Afraid to face the unknown?'
'No, Lord. No man thinks that. Yet it would be brave but foolish to place yourself and your remaining men at risk from whatever is out there. Wait for the morning, Lord. Tonight we are the hunted. Tomorrow, in daylight, we shall be the hunters.'
Acknowledging the logic in this statement and conceding that they would have little chance of finding wounded or unconscious men by torchlight, Daerahil ordered the men to continue back to camp.
#
Back at camp, the tale rapidly spread of the Haunted Road claiming more victims. Demanding that the rumors cease, Daerahil stated clearly, 'The men sent out earlier have gotten lost. The missing point guard may have had a fit and simply fallen off his horse. Tomorrow we will find our missing men, and they will pay for their intransigence. In the meantime, double the amount of guards posted through the night.'
Little was heard during the night and all the men and horses seemed accounted for in the morning, but when a bedroll was uncovered at breakfast, the form of a sleeping soldier was revealed to be nothing more than leaves and bracken left in his place. 'Perhaps he deserted,' thought Daerahil, 'perhaps not, but the men must think that this is the truth, or I may lose control over the situation.'
Later that morning, Daerahil and his men rode back to the place where the rider had disappeared the night before. As they drew near, Daerahil noticed a round object swinging back and forth at the end of a rope some five feet above the stones of the road. The rope was fixed to a branch at least forty feet high. The first soldier to reach the object slumped over in his saddle, throwing his breakfast violently over the shoulder of his horse.
Cursing, Daerahil spurred his horse forward and, nudging the soldier's horse aside, saw that the object was a common helmet. He reached out to steady it, then recoiled in shock as the helmet spun, bringing the face plate into view.
The head of the missing soldier stared back at him—or, no, not stared, exactly, for the man's eyes had been gouged from their sockets. Tears of blood streaked the pale face, whose expression was one of utter horror. A crude rune Daerahil did not recognize had been drawn in blood upon the forehead.
Daerahil had Hardacil remove the head for proper burial while the soldiers dismounted to look for the body of their comrade. Two hours later, Daerahil called a halt to the fruitless search. Once the men had reassembled, two more soldiers were found to be missing.
Muttering under his breath, Daerahil ordered the men to proceed to the location where the missing horses had been found. There another search yielded nothing at all; only the whisper of the wind in the branches and watery sunlight spilling down through the leaves. There was nothing to do but return to camp.
Not wanting to spend another night on this section of the road, Daerahil had the men pack up the camp and quick march to a more suitable location just west of the island of Innis Mallow. They made camp that night in a fortified circle. Outside the perimeter, Daerahil heard the same eerie whispering he had heard the night before. This time, Hardacil and some of the other men caught it, too, but none could make out the words—if words they were—and nothing could be seen save a thick mist that rolled in from between the trees, carrying a wintry chill that their fires did little to dispel. Daerahil had to keep himself from shivering. 'It's the cold and the damp,' he said to himself, 'nothing more.' But in his heart, he knew that there was reason indeed to fear the Haunted Road.
-The End of Book One-Assassins-
Book 2-Conspiracy-available on Amazon.com
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Dedication
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE: ARRIVAL
CHAPTER TWO: IN PARADISIUM
CHAPTER THREE: FAMILY
CHAPTER FOUR: RANDOM CONVERGENCE
CHAPTER FIVE: ANATOMY OF A PLOT
CHAPTER SIX: DAERAHIL
CHAPTER SEVEN: CONFRONTATION
CHAPTER EIGHT: AFTER THE ORDEAL
CHAPTER NINE: DWARVES
CHAPTER TEN: ELVES
CHAPTER ELEVEN: UNDERCURRENTS
CHAPTER TWELVE: WARNINGS
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SOULLESS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE TRIAL
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: EXILE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: SHADOWS OF SHADOWS
