3 October 561 (A.D.)
Myrddin Wyllt flung himself upright, trying desperately to remember where he was and why he was being attacked. He crouched to strike as his opponent rolled away, with animal fear still screaming inside for him to flee instead, and realized that his opponent was already dead.
Or at least had chosen a highly inadvisable prone, motionless fighting stance. Myrddin paused, tremblingly tense, as heightened senses flooded him with details.
First, flight would have been a better response than fight. His opponent was far larger, better dressed, better armed, and, though Myrddin would never have admitted this to anyone else, much handsomer than he, in a generically rugged, jutting-chin sort of way. And second, he was nobility. Not a fashion he had ever seen, but far too well-dressed for a commoner. This scared him almost as much as the initial shock.
Third, he couldn't remember actually having struck his opponent. Fourth, his left foot was colder than his right, the left being without a sock. Fifth, it was nighttime, and he was in the hollow beneath a low hanging great Elm branch, where he had been fitfully, subliminally sleeping in the cold Autumn night. And sixth, that his selected weapon was in fact a turnip he had been half-heartedly nibbling before drifting off to sleep.
Yes, all things considered, flight would have been the better option, had he not at the outset struck such a decidedly lethal blow.
He had not, in fact, been the one to slay this person. Flight began to look highly desirable once again. Myrddin Wyllt hastily gathered his few posessions. One lute, worn. Cloak, not currently worn, but it was bloody cold tonight, so it was about to become so. Burlap sack of holding, except now that he was holding it, the lute and his cloak, he could no longer put on his boots, worn. He sat down, trembling, and fumbled in the dark for his other sock.
A shooting star sailed low, far too low, overhead and to the East, lighting the Enchanted Forest bluely and casting menacing, razor shadows Westward. While this was immensely helpful for finding his sock, he had to admit that it also cast a pallor on his decision to travel the Enchanted Forest. Not that he had had many choices about that when fleeing the village at Cator Court.
Now fully, if hastily, equipped for flight, Myrddin turned and surveyed his surroundings. Angry shouting to the East, and he thought he saw faint flashes of green. Westward, then! But his recently deceased visitor had been travelling South when he tripped over Myrddin, so the threat was probably not all concentrated Eastward.
He turned to run, and stopped short. To loot or not to loot? But, he was a lutist by trade, and for what was a sack if not for sacking? And more grimly, he remembered the hunger pains that had gotten him into so much trouble in Cator Court. Certainly, his poor fingering of the lute had played a part, and the farmer's daughter hadn't helped. Looting practice it would be, then, but quickly.
First, the weapon. A baton? Was he a sheriff? It was metal, but short and thin, and finely carved.
No time for questions, into the bag it goes. And he wore a scarf over his face! A bandit? No time! Water skin. No rations. The boots looked amazing! Tough as ox-hide, almost to the knee. He sorely hated to leave them, but had no time to remove them from their owner. No money at all, and no jewelry. Wait, an odd sash across his shoulder held six pear-sized metal ornaments. A badge of office? A liability, but he took it anyway. He cursed, then ran, and as he ran, he realized - the victim had had no visible wounds.
The cold, damp air burned in Myrddin's heaving lungs as he alternately leapt and tripped over roots and hedges. He flagged, looking for concealment. But then there was movement in a tree perhaps 20 meters to the right, in his peripheral vision. Green lightning leapt from the tree and crashed into the ground just ahead of him. He stifled a shriek and plunged on.
When he could run no more, he flung himself behind a stone and under a gorse bush. To his horror, he realized it was a standing stone. At least he was outside the ring. He squirmed away from the stone, then froze when he saw a flash of purple-black.
A Lady had appeared in the ring - from nowhere! - facing away from him. And... clad in men's trousers. She began to move in a practiced way. Myrddin began to weep silently from terror. Her arms extended, she twisted at the hips, back and forth. She held a baton like the one... no! It was a wand! He shut his eyes in horror, awaiting the curse... and saw the flash anyway through his clenched eyelids.
"How many did you get?" A man's voice.
"Five."
Myrddin opened his eyes to see the new voice. A lord had appeared in the ring, dressed as the lady was, and as Myrddin's visitor had been. He swept the wand in his right hand in front of him, arm extended, across his chest, and held it there with his left, so that the wand pointed at Myrddin, who cringed. But the newcomer only looked toward the lady.
"Lies. There's no way you killed more than three. They got me before I even saw them."
"You will learn."
Were they... stretching? The movements were practiced, but seemed casual. This did little to relieve his terror, but he listened more carefully. Their speech was intelligible but... strange.
Another flash of purple that made his retinas ache, and another. There were four... souls? Two Lords and two Ladies, beautifully built, tall and muscular. They spoke casually of slaughter - and of being slaughtered. Surely they were faeries. Or demons. Or worse? He tried not to guess.
"Again into the breach, Scylla?"
"I am ready. Liroy?"
The one she looked at made no answer, but leapt into the air, shrieking like a beast. He shouted "Confringo!" as he flung his arm toward a perfectly innocent alder sapling, which burst into flames. Then again at a boulder just outside the clearing. Myrddin screamed as the rock exploded, but was drowned in the noise of vaporizing granite.
The others looked at each other and Liroy, sighed, and ran after him out of the clearing and Eastward.
