Part 2: The Pursuit
Brithan woke to the smell of smoke. Where was he? What happened? Why did he hurt all over? Brithan picked himself up slowly. Nothing felt broken, but he could tell that his ribs were bruised and there were a couple of places where something burning must have hit him. Looking around Brithan could tell that he was lucky to be alive.
All around him were the smoking remains of what looked to be a small village. Brithan walked slowly through the village. Looking to the left, he saw the burnt remains of what looked to be four bodies. Brithan felt that he should know what had happened.
Continuing on, Brithan walked past what looked to once be a bell tower. Brithan furrowed his eyebrows. Why couldn't he remember what happened? And why did everything seem almost familiar?
Finally he came to the last building in the village. The odd thing about it was that it seemed untouched. Not a single ember had come within ten feet of the building.
Curious, Brithan walked up to the building. Unlike any of the other buildings, this one screamed familiarity at him. Opening the door, Brithan peeked inside. He didn't dare step inside… Whatever had the power to keep the fire away from the building was not something he wanted to mess with.
"BRITHAN!" A voice that Brithan did not recognize called out from behind him. Slowly turning around, he saw a young man barely older than himself running towards him.
"What happened here?" Brithan asked when the young man stopped running. "And how do you know my name?"
The young man gave Brithan a weird look. "Are you ok Brithan? Don't you recognize me? Did you hit your head or something?"
"I… I can't remember." Brithan didn't recognize the man at all. Could he be trusted? He seemed to know who Brithan was.
"It's me, Gabryl, Gwyn's son." Gabryl sighed at Brithan's blank look. "I guess you did hit your head."
"Can you tell me…" Brithan stopped mid sentence as a wave of black washed across his vision.
"Brithan? What's wrong?" Gabryl took a step towards Brithan.
Suddenly, dozens of images flew through his mind. Horses, a young girl, burning houses, angry looking men… Brithan dropped to the ground; the images overwhelming him. Finally the image of a young girl being held on to by one of the angry looking men flashed before his eyes.
"TWYLA!!" Brithan burst into tears as his memories flooded back into his mind.
Eventually the images came to an end. Brithan sat there for a moment collecting his thoughts. Somehow he needed to find out where the Raiders had taken Twyla. He also wanted to find out why they took her in the first place.
"Sooo…." Brithan jumped at Gabryl's voice.
"Oh, sorry Gabryl. I forgot you were there."
Gabryl smiled. "It's ok. It's understandable…" The smile faded from Gabryl's face. "Everyone is gone. They have all either been captured or they are dead. You and I are the only two left."
"What happened to your father?"
Gabryl's silence answered Brithan's question. "I'm so sorry Gabryl.
"I'm ok. We don't have time to cry over the dead. We have to follow the Raiders and save everyone."
Brithan agreed. The two men quickly went over what was needed for the trip. Gabryl left to retrieve the pair of horses he had managed to round up before he had seen Brithan walking through the town.
While Gabryl was off, Brithan went inside of his house to retrieve supplies. The two of them met a half glass later back on the road.
Brithan swung easily up onto the horse that Gabryl offered. Silently the two men started moving along the road. They weren't afraid of losing the trail. The Raiders hadn't been expecting any pursuit and had made no effort to cover up their tracks.
Around two glasses later is when they ran into problems. The Raider tracks split into three ways. Each one going in opposite directions.
The two men got off their horses. "Now what do we do. We can't follow all three." Brithan ignored Gabryl question. Silently, he studied each of the three trails. After a while Brithan straightened.
"We need to follow the road that heads northeast."
"How do you know that?"
"Look at the prints of that one." Brithan pointed to the trail that lead west. "There are only horse tracks in that one. And if you look at the one going east, it's the same thing. Only the trail heading northeast has both horse and human prints.
"Sounds good to me." Both men jumped back onto their horses and followed the northeast trail.
Barely a quarter glass passed before the two men were forced to stop again. From the south, Brithan could hear what seemed to be a small group of horses.
"Gabryl, we need to get off of the trail. There is a group of riders coming up behind us." The two riders quickly took their horses off the road. Hiding behind a small copse of trees, the two men watched as a group of five Raiders came into view.
"Can't believe we lost Kif and Wil in that raid." One of the Raiders said to his companions. "They were our best fighters."
"Forget them. I can't believe they took out Okli. He was a beast. Always carrying around that giant broadsword." A second of the Raiders replied.
"I'm surprised we lost any at all, let alone ten of us. That's almost half of the men we brought." A third raider chipped in.
"Yeah, the boss…" Brithan tried to listen to more but the Raiders had moved passed his range of hearing.
"Brithan lets follow them." The men waited for the Raiders to get a little farther away before the turned their horses back onto the road.
The men followed the Raiders for another two glasses before the Raider party came to a halt in front of them.
"It looks like they are camping for the night." Gabryl said.
"I know." Brithan said. Brithan had already started forming a plan about how they were going to sneak into the main raider camp.
"You've got a plan forming don't you?"
Brithan laughed. "That obvious? Well no point in hiding it from you." Brithan quickly told Gabryl his plan.
"Your crazy, Brith." Gabryl laughed.
A couple of glasses later Brithan set out by himself. It was nearing midnight and the moon was covered by clouds. Brithan slowly made his way over to the Raider camp. He counted five bodies sleeping in their bedrolls.
Stupid not to leave a watch, Brithan thought to himself. He quickly went through the camp and slit the throats of all the Raiders. Normally killing in cold blood would have sickened him, but they had killed some of the villagers and capture the others. Not to mention that his sister was one of them.
Brithan quickly stripped two of the Raiders. They were about the same size as Brithan and Gabryl. Once he was finished, he quickly ran back over to where Gabryl was waiting.
"How did it go?"
"Easy. They didn't even post a guard." Brithan yawned. "But I've got to get some rest before we sneak into the main camp tomorrow. We got an early morning tomorrow."
"Idiots." Gabryl shook his head. "I'll take first watch. You've had a harder night than I have."
"Thanks." It felt like Brithan had barely put his head down when he felt Gabryl shaking him awake.
"Brithan! Wake up. We need to go." Gabryl had already changed into the dead Raiders clothing. He looked a lot different. He had put blood all over his face and body. Other than his grin, he looked like he had been beaten for hours.
"Nice job with the blood… but why didn't you wake me up for my watch shift."
Gabryl smiled. "There wasn't enough night left for two watches. You've only been asleep for two glasses." Had it really taken him that long to get back last night?
"Well… thanks again. Now help me get bloodied up."
A glass later the two men headed towards the main Raider camp.