Chapter 4: Sunset Melody

Author's Notes: For my older readers: This is an edited/re-written version of this chapter.

Sarah watched the barbarian boy's frantic flight from Brass Castle's southeast tower from her hiding place in the shadows beneath a stand of trees, not far from the western edge of the great chasm that formed the border between Zexen and the Grasslands. As she considered the events that had just played out in the keep, her thoughts turned to the nature of irony. The boy's interference had been unexpected, but not unwelcome. The attack she had used illusions to stage, the son of Chief Lucia had made real.

She allowed herself a small smile at the thought.

Sarah felt his approach as a prickling of the skin at the back of her neck, well before her companion appeared. She turned to face the deep shadows among the rustling branches behind her, and waited for him to make his presence known.

Shadows stretched and dilated, then tore away as if someone had shed a cloak as black as night. Yuber stepped out of the dark, tipping his low-brimmed black hat at her in a gesture of fake servility. Inhuman hunger swirled about him, setting the runes on Sarah's person to quivering unsympathetically. Sarah shivered as if sharing the runes' reaction. Yuber was chaos personified—more demon than man.

"Having fun?" he asked.

Sarah's mouth twisted in distaste. "I take no pleasure in the task itself. Merely in fulfilling Master Luc's desires."

Yuber licked his lips, revealing sharp canines cresting his gums. Those teeth seemed very befitting a man-shaped demon. "Yes. I'm sure you'd very much like to fulfill your master's desires."

She tensed, but ignored the barb. As much as she loathed working with this vile creature, it was Master Luc's will that she cooperate fully with Yuber. The dark knight was needed for the plan to succeed. Still, she did not have to enjoy it. And she certainly did not have to show courtesy to the man.

"Did you find it?" she asked.

Yuber's smile was a jackal's grin. He reached a black-gloved hand into the pocket of his smart coat and withdraw an object, holding it up in his clenched fist. A crimson glow escaped through the gaps between his fingers. Sarah's breath caught.

"Let me see it," she said.

He made her wait. Slowly, he lowered his hand and unfolded his fingers like a flower blooming. It was all she could do to keep from prying his fingers open to speed up the process. Finally, he reached his hand out to her, and in the palm of that hand lay a brightly shining red rune, still in its crystal shell. She snatched it up and turned it over in her hand, heart pounding.

"Just promise me one thing," Yuber said.

"What?" she asked, distracted.

"I want to be there when you use it. It's going to be beautiful."

Even with his eyes hidden beneath blonde hair and the low-brimmed hat, sadistic hunger shone clear in Yuber's face as he said the words. Suddenly, every single hair on Sarah's body stood up.

He is needed, she reminded herself. Master Luc needs him.

The canopy of the trees rushed up below Hugo as he motioned Fubar towards a clearing in the woods. Thick branches swayed as if blown by storm winds as the gryphon beat its wings to arrest its descent.

Hugo was slow in dismounting even after Fubar touched down in the mossy clearing. Usually he'd make a game out of hitting the ground with a flip or a spin, carried by the gryphon's momentum, but he was in no mood for acrobatics. He was breathing heavily. His body quivered with exhaustion, his hands and thighs all but seizing up from the effort of clinging to Fubar's back, not to mention the climb he'd made earlier. With all the magic he'd drawn from the Wind Rune thrown on top of it, it was enough to make him want to fall down and go asleep on the spot. He did the next best thing and sat down on the moss, digging his back into Fubar's feathered flank.

Pain throbbed from the wounds in his shoulder and in his side. Trembling with the effort, Hugo awakened the Wind Rune and drew upon its power, twisting his head to watch the flesh knit and reshape around the wound. As always, the healing left tiny scars, and the pain would last for days, but the wound was safe from bleeding or infection.

Voices echoed through the woods, not far from where he sat. He tensed, listening to the voices and trying to tell what they were saying and if they were approaching the clearing or moving away from it. When he heard his name called, Hugo's heart skipped a beat. He stood up on shaky legs.

"I'm here!" he shouted.

Moments later, two figures burst from the bushes that surrounded the clearing. "Hugo! Oh, thank the spirits, lad, you're safe," Sergeant Joe said. Lulu was right on his tailfeathers, half grinning, half laughing at the sight of Hugo.

"You had me worried too," Hugo said, slumping back down against Fubar. "Thought you might have been soldiers, out looking for me."

Lulu threw himself at Hugo and crushed him in a hug that nearly drove the wind from his lungs. "That was amazing!" his friend shouted. "We saw the whole thing!" Lulu bounced onto his feet and mimicked a person leaping from a great height, flailing his arms. His friend's whole body was shaking with laughter.

Sergeant Joe's reaction was a lot more sober. The duck clan warrior eyed him suspiciously. "What have you done, lad?"

Hugo told them the story from start to finish, leaving nothing out. By the time he finished the story up to the point where he leaped from the window to escape the knights, Hugo was out of breath. "So you see," he said, "It really wasn't my fault!"

Lulu had listened to the story with wide eyes and slack jaw. Sergeant Joe had a more calculating look on his face. Both of them were speechless for a while after Hugo finished the story.

"Unbelievable," Sergeant Joe said finally. "It's a story so absurd, it'd get laughed out of a dockside tavern."

"It's got a happy ending, though. Thanks to Fubar. I think he's got a sixth sense for when I'm in danger." Hugo grinned and patted the gryphon's flank affectionately. Fubar lifted his head and peered back at Hugo, ruffled his feathers, and settled back down.

Lulu's laughter turned to a thoughtful frown. "What do we do now? Mom and Chief Lucia will be so mad if we come back without delivering the letter…"

"Don't worry about that," Hugo said. His back protested as he sat up straight. "We're still going to deliver that letter."

"No," Sergeant Joe said emphatically. "We are not going to do anything. You two will return to Karaya immediately, and I will carry the letter to Vinay."

"What?" Hugo blurted out, shooting up onto his feet, his exhaustion forgotten. "This was my task to complete. How can I be a warrior if I just give up when something goes wrong?"

Joe's feathered brow wrinkled with doubt. "It is my task to ensure the safety of the two of you. If I have to send you back to Karaya on the back of the gryphon to get the job done, I will."

"Sergeant, please," Hugo said. "This is my chance to prove myself. I can't go back."

"They'll be looking for you, you know. I certainly hope you weren't foolish enough to give them your name, but even without it, they know your face and general description."

Hugo grinned. "Sure. But where? Only an idiot would be traveling to Vinay if he just tried to kill the captain of the knights."

Sergeant Joe groaned. "That makes you the idiot, lad."

Louis had been carried to Chris's own chambers, and deposited on the bed. His wounds had been cleaned and dressed, and the bed sheets changed. Now Chris sat at her squire's sickbed, watching the boy's chest rise and fall. His face was so pale, if she didn't already know his wounds had been healed, she would have thought he was dying.

Why? The question kept rolling back around in her head. The whole affair was preposterous and frankly baffling. A clansman assassin had penetrated the defenses of the keep and made his way to the sixth floor and the knights' barracks unseen. If not for Louis's heroic intervention, Chris herself might have been surprised in the baths, naked and unarmed. She shivered at the thought. She held no illusions as to the outcome of such a struggle.

And yet, Louis had been healed. The only person who could have been in a position to heal her squire was the same man who had inflicted the wound upon him. What did it mean? More of the Grasslanders' twisted sense of honor? Could it be he meant the dagger for my throat alone, and could not abide the slaying on an innocent bystander? She shook her head. It would have made sense, except for the servant they'd found slain in one of the unoccupied rooms. Why slay one man and then save another? Nothing of it made sense.

We shall simply have to ask the boy when we catch him. And catch him they would. No assassin could be allowed to penetrate deep into the knights' quarters and strike with impunity. Chris seethed with anger at the indignity of it all.

There came a timid knock on the door, and a soldier poked his head in to tell her that the knights had gathered and were prepared to receive her instructions in the common room.

Leaving the room, Chris made her way there directly. The corridors were choked with soldiers and junior knights on patrol. The attack had everyone on edge, and the guard had been tripled for the time being. Her companions waited for her in the common room.

"Sir Roland, Sir Borus," she commanded, "You will pursue the assassin with all haste. He is to be brought in alive if at all possible, though you are not to imperil your life in the process. The boy has access to rune magic, and likely powerful allies. We need also be mindful that he could be leading us into a trap."

Borus snorted derisively. "He's on Zexen territory now. We know this land like the back of our hands. He won't slip away from us."

Chris nodded. "You have your orders. Just… do be careful. I will send word to the capital for Sir Leo and Sir Percival to join the search, in the unlikely event that the assassin will try to escape towards the city. And Sir Salome, I would have you continue to oversee the necessary arrangements for the armistice to go ahead as planned." Salome bowed at the waist and saluted with fist to his chest, but Sir Roland drew a sharp breath at her words.

"Milady, you cannot mean to go forward with the truce, after this bold-faced attack on your person?"

"The peace talks must proceed," Chris said emphatically. "Now more than ever. We do not know if this attack was sanctioned. We cannot allow this boy's actions, the purpose of which we do not know, to destroy our hopes of a peaceful end to this conflict."

After the knights withdrew to attend to their appointed tasks, Chris returned to her chambers to watch over Louis. Over the course of the last two days, she had slept for less than a total of four hours. She was exhausted, and yet sleep would not claim her where she sat. The headache was still there, and her mind was tumbling with questions and fears. She once more found her hand settling on her father's Pentacle of Knighthood, which she now carried in a pocket near her chest.

She was not sure how long she had been sitting there when Louis suddenly stirred. The boy coughed and groaned, and his eyes opened to a half-lidded state. Chris sat up straight with a start.

"Madam…" Louis whispered.

"At last," Chris said, feeling some of her worry draining from her body. "You are awake. You made me wait, young man."

Louis smiled weakly. "Sorry. What about… the boy…?"

"The barbarian assassin? Not to worry. We will catch him."

Confusion washed over Louis's face. "Catch…? What?"

"I am sorry, Louis. The assassin managed to escape before he could be apprehended. Sir Roland and Sir Borus are on the chase as we speak. I swear to you, he will face justice for what he has done."

A look of shock came over Louis's face, and he struggled to sit upright. "What? No…"

Chris shot to her feet and gently pushed him back down. "Be still. You must not waste your strength. Rest."

"Madam, you don't understand… It wasn't the boy who hurt me. It was… another man. Or, I don't know… It's all so confusing. But the boy saved me. I'm sure of it…" Louis's strength was flagging, and as he spoke, his words became muddled and indistinct, and his eyes crept shut.

Chris leaned in to press a hand to his forehead, feeling for a fever. His skin was warm, but not excessively so. "Louis, you are delirious. You need to rest."

"No, madam…" her squire mumbled. "Please. Please don't hurt him. He's not the one at fault… I'll… tell you…" He fell back to sleep, chest rising and falling with a steady breath.

Chris sat back down in the chair, and considered the squire's words. His memories may be mixed up. No wonder, after such a fright, and the wound, too. Even so, Louis's words had shaken Chris's convictions. There were too many inconsistencies in the narrative of the attack. The servant found dead in the room had been killed by what appeared to be a sword, not a knife. Louis's wound had been healed by the apparent assassin. The assassin had fled rather than trying to attack her when confronted. And he had delivered Father's Pentacle of Knighthood to her. Alone, any one of these facts might have been inconclusive. But together, they painted a picture of a truth more complicated than what she had initially assumed.

She made a decision. Rising from her seat, she donned her armor – with some effort, without Louis's customary help – and girded on her sword. She paused at the mirror to rearrange a few stray strands of hair, and washed her face with the water in the washbasin.

The boy has many questions to answer, she thought.

She would join the hunt.

Hugo, Lulu, and Sergeant Joe spent the rest of the day on the road to Vinay. With evening fast approaching, the road was empty except for a handful of farmers' carts passing up and down, wheels burrowing into the well-worn ruts in the old road. The farmers watched the trio of travelers with curiosity, and some tilted broad-brimmed straw hats as they passed, but no one spoke to them or questioned their presence.

A couple of times, they spotted the dust clouds kicked up by riders on the horizon, and then they would clear off the road and hide in the woods until the riders were well past. They had no wish to encounter the knights again.

Dark clouds had gathered in the sky, and a light rain had begun to fall. Such weather was common in the Grasslands, but Hugo could hear the wind spirits sing, and their song told of a terrible storm brewing on the horizon. A dark omen, he thought.

Fubar's absence weighed on him, too. They'd all agreed the gryphon would draw too much attention after what happened at Brass Castle, but Hugo missed having his feathered friend around. He knew Fubar would be somewhere nearby, hiding in the woods to avoid being seen. The gryphon was clever – far cleverer than most people gave him credit for. But would he understand why he'd been sent away? It felt like a poor reward for saving Hugo's life.

They started seeing farmlands, separated from the dirt track by railed fences. Before long, they saw smoke rising on the horizon, and sometime later spotted a cluster of houses in the distance. As they drew nearer, Hugo gaped openly at the structures. The houses were constructed entirely of heavy timbers, brick, and plaster. No canvas to be seen anywhere, everything was permanent, impossible to move. Sergeant Joe explained that this village, Tarnay, was just a small settlement compared to the Zexen capital, but Hugo could not imagine how that could be true. He'd never seen such a large number of structures in one place. He counted dozens of houses lined up in neat rows around the village commons. There had to be hundreds of people living all crowded into this tiny space!

It was late evening by the time they entered the village. Behind the village, the sun was just about to sink beneath the horizon behind Zexen Forest. The fields were abandoned, and the dirt streets that ran through the village were deserted except for a handful of villagers carrying out the day's last chores. People stopped to stare as they passed. Hugo pulled his hood around his face as they walked, wondering if word of what happened at Brass Castle had reached Tarnay already. For the time being, Sergeant Joe seemed to be drawing the most attention. Duck clan folk probably weren't too common around these parts.

They had reached the village commons when Sergeant Joe looked over his shoulder and gave a start, letting out an anxious quack. "Look, behind!" he exclaimed. Hugo turned to see, and his heart sank when he saw what the duck clan warrior had seen.

Coming up the road to the village, two riders pressed their mounts. Even from a distance, Hugo could see that they wore the plate armor of the Knights of Zexen.

"We run," he said.

Sergeant Joe thought for a moment, then said, "No. You hide. Lulu and I will speak to the knights. It'll look less suspicious… and you're the one they're searching for. We'll meet outside of the village, afterwards."

"Right. Spirits be with you," he said. Lulu and Sergeant Joe echoed the phrase. Hugo passed behind the nearest house, putting the building between him and the knights on the road. Then he ran. He kept close to the houses as he went, ducking beneath windows and pressing himself against up against walls to wait for the solitary villagers he encountered to look the other way before he dashed behind them. Quickly he circled around the outskirts of the village.

At one point, running across the gap between two houses, he caught sight of Sergeant Joe and Lulu. He paused to peer around the corner. The knights had dismounted beside his friends and were questioning them. He recognized the knights as the golden-haired man and the elf with the lilac hair. They had a menacing cast to them, but they didn't look hostile. Hugo breathed a sigh of relief, and pressed on.

A bestial roar rang out. It was followed almost immediately by several others. Shocked, Hugo swung around to face the source of the sounds, and gaped in shock at the sight that greeted him. Dozens of lumbering beasts came galloping in among the houses. They looked like bears, but with scales instead of fur, and with eyes that shone a bright, sickly green. Among them ran several imposing scaly humanoids, each one armed with a familiar three-bladed glaive. Lizard Clan warriors.

They came on in absolute silence, without battle cries or shouts of challenge. A score of warriors, each one identical to the last, down to the patterns of the tunics that hug over their muscled bodies. A dark suspicion came over Hugo.

Before Hugo had time to think, the first of the beasts was upon him. The monster charged in on swift strides, raking at him with its sharp claws. Hugo leaped back out of its reach, separating his dagger from its sheath. He threw back his hood.

"I am Hugo of the Karaya!" he called out. "Ally of the Lizard Clan! Who leads this raid?"

The Lizard Clan warriors charged onwards, passing him by as if they had neither seen nor heard him. Screams rang through the village as the attackers made their way inside. The beast facing Hugo renewed its assault, and Hugo had to dodge and roll to clear the strange creature's barreling lunge. The beast swung around, but Hugo was already moving. He darted in close and thrust his dagger into the beast's flank. Unexpectedly, the creature howled in pain as the blade sank into solid flesh. He kept stabbing and carving until the beast collapsed. Rain pelted its body. This was no creature of mist.

Hugo got to his feet, wiped blood from his hands and the dagger, and ran towards the village commons. A horrible, sinking feeling came over him as he realized what was about to happen. A barbarian raid on a defenseless Zexen village. That's what this looks like. Someone is trying to restart the war.

Turning a corner, he came face to face with a Lizard Clan warrior – or rather, a pale imitation of one. To Hugo's trained eye, the giant warrior looked shoddy, like a child's toy hastily assembled from the parts available.

"You're no clansman," Hugo said. "Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

In answer, the false clansman raised his glaive and struck. The weapon, at least, looked just as deadly as the real thing. Hugo swayed to one side, letting the wicked blade pass over his shoulder. He darted in to close the gap between them and sank his dagger into the warrior's arm. The blade opened a wound, but no blood emerged.

The Lizard Clan warrior's head turned towards him. Its mouth did not move, but a feminine voice issued from the general direction of its head. "How convenient that you should show up here. You have been most helpful, boy, but you will serve me better as a corpse."

Shaken, Hugo stumbled back out of reach. "Who are you? Answer me!"

The false clansman swung again, and the weapon nearly took Hugo's head. Only by dropping to his knees at the last moment did Hugo escape the blow. The dodge left him off balance and without an opportunity to counter attack, so he rolled back through the wet grass. He came up onto his feet with a bounce just in time to defend against a flurry of blows, alternately dodging and parrying. The three-bladed glaive was too heavy a weapon to meet head on with his dagger, but at just the right angle and with just the right momentum, he could deflect the blows safely. Having weathered the attack, he saw an opening. Charging in, he drove his dagger into the warrior's chest.

Hugo backed off, panting heavily. Despite knowing it was an illusion, he felt a sickening revulsion at the sight of his dagger sprouting from a clansman's chest. Seeing the body stretch and waver and burst into mist made him feel a lot better. He shivered at the thought of how close he'd come to dying. If it had been a true Lizard Clan warrior facing him on the village commons, he wouldn't be standing here now.

Hugo turned in a slow circle, trying to take stock of the situation. Villagers' bodies lay strewn everywhere. Screams rang out all through the village, mixing with the sounds of weapons clashing. There were pockets of fighting here and there, but he couldn't get a sense of where the battle was concentrated. The assailants had scattered throughout the village and seemed to be slaughtering the villagers wholesale.

"Lulu! Joe!" Hugo called out. Spirits, where are they?

A child's shriek cut through the air. Hugo spun around. The scream had come from one of the houses facing the commons. He ran towards it.

The inside of the home had been demolished. A table and several chairs had been smashed to splinters. Cookware lay everywhere. A fine dusting of flour covered half the room. In the corner, one of the scaly bear-like beasts loomed over a pair of children, a boy and a girl, huddled up behind an overturned cupboard. The beast pawed at the cupboard, shoving and jostling to get at the children.

"HEY!" Hugo screamed at the top of his lungs, picking up a dented pot and slamming the hilt of his dagger against its brass surface. "Over here, you filthy beast! Come on! Face me!"

The beast stopped what it was doing and turned around. For a moment, it swung its eyes between Hugo and the children as if trying to decide on which of two equally appealing dishes to eat first.

"Here," Hugo said, "Let me make the choice easier for you." He hurled the pot at the beast, striking it on the snout. The scaly monster let out a wall-shivering roar and charged across broken furniture, clattering cookware, and dusty flour towards him.

Hugo stepped back across the threshold and let the beast's shoulder slam into the doorjamb. Rows of sharp fangs slammed shut inches away from Hugo's throat. The whole doorframe trembled, and wood cracked. Hugo grabbed the beast's neck and drove his dagger up under its head, puncturing its jaw and throat over and over. The beast shook its head and snapped its teeth at him, but to no avail. With one last shuddering gasp, the scaly monster sank down to block the lower half of the doorframe.

Sheathing his dagger, Hugo climbed over the beast's body and made his way back into the room. The children still huddled in the corner, their little bodies shaking, eyes wide and staring at him. He approached them with his hands held up, slowly, one step at a time, trying for a reassuring smile.

"It's okay. It's okay. The beast is dead. It can't hurt you anymore. You're okay. Where's your mom and dad?"

The younger of the children, the boy, started to bawl. The girl sobbed, and her eyes flicked from Hugo to something lying in a pile in the opposite corner. Hugo followed her eyes and with horror discovered what lay there. He swallowed hard. The savaged bodies of a man and a woman lay not far from the doorway, where they'd tried to stop the beast from entering the house. Their bodies were so badly mauled, he hadn't even recognized them as human at first.

Someone did this. Someone needs to pay. By the spirits, I'll make them pay. Whoever had attacked Tarnay had not calculated on the presence of knights and Grasslander warriors in the village. This was meant to have been a slaughter.

From outside, Hugo heard shouts and the clash of blades – and the whinnying of horses. He turned to the children. "Stay here," he said. "Wait for someone to come get you. You'll be safe here."

He exited the house just in time to see one of the false clansmen get run down by a mounted knight wielding a great axe. Another knight burst out behind the first, wielding a sword. As the Lizard Clan warrior burst in a cloud of mist, the two knights cried out in surprise, and reined in their mounts.

"By the Goddess," exclaimed the man with the axe. He was a barrel of a man with short-cropped hair and a tidy mustache. "An illusion! What barbarian sorcery is this?"

More false clansmen rushed out from between the buildings and charged the knights. "Leo!" the other knight called out. This man was younger, sleeker, with a shock of black hair atop his head. "We've got company!" He raised his sword to parry a blow from one of the onrushing warriors.

The older knight with the axe spotted Hugo standing outside the house. In his cloak and at a distance, Hugo was easily mistaken for an ironhead. "Run, boy!" the knight called out. "Hide!"

But Hugo did not hide. Instead, he charged at the clump of warriors surrounding the mounted knights. Slipping in behind them, he leaped onto the back of the closest enemy and slammed his dagger home between its shoulder blades. The illusion shattered, and he fell onto the ground, tumbling back and rolling onto his feet.

"For Karaya!" he cried out, and charged the next enemy.

The knights eyed him with surprise, but there was no time for questions. There was only time for steel. They fought as one. Within moments, Hugo and the two knights had turned the tide of the battle. They moved through the village, dispatching the scaly beasts and illusory warriors where they found them. Too many of the villagers' bodies lay strewn around the narrow lanes between the houses, but some yet lived. Together, they sawed what they could.

"Hugo!" someone shouted. Turning from the body of a beast he'd just slain, Hugo saw Lulu and Sergeant Joe run towards him. The Duck Clan warrior's clothes were torn and stained with blood, and Lulu ran with a slight limp, but both of them looked to be in good enough condition.

"Thank the spirits," he said. "You're okay." They embraced briefly. Leo and the other knight – Percival – stood watching them uncertainly, unsure of what to make of it.

The sound of pounding hoofbeats heralded the arrival of more riders. "There you are, barbarian!" a familiar voice cried out, rapidly approaching. There was a thwack of a bow's string leaping, and something whistled through the air. Sharp pain stabbed through Hugo's leg. He cried out in pain as his knee buckled and he collapsed in the wet grass. When he looked down, he saw an arrow sprouting from his thigh.

Sitting astride the approaching horses were the golden-haired knight and the lilac-haired elf. It was the latter who had fired the arrow.

"Sir Roland, no!" Leo cried out. "This boy—"

"Stand aside, Sirs," Roland shouted. "This boy is not who he seems. He is no less than our quarry!" While talking, the elf nocked another arrow and aimed it at Hugo.

Chris had ridden hard since leaving Brass Castle, driving Arrow Feather almost to the point of exhaustion. She hated to push the mare so, but her need was great. The new horseshoes had been expertly fitted by the farrier, for which she felt extremely grateful.

She prayed she was not too late. She had followed her hunch, guessing that the boy and his friends would be traveling towards Vinay. Why else would a small group of Grasslanders be traveling through Zexen territory, especially at a time like this? Borus and Roland would have taken their time searching the surroundings of Brass Castle, making certain the assassin had truly departed, before moving on to scour the road. She had sent messenger birds to the knights' chapter in the capital, with orders for Leo and Percival to join the hunt as well.

Light rain had turned into a full-blown downpour as she galloped along the road, turning the dirt track to mud and drenching hair and face. A thick cloak kept the worst of the rain off her armor.

She arrived on the outskirts of Tarnay after sunset, and saw the lights of the village in the distance. It was only when she drew close that she noticed that something was wrong. She began to hear shouts. As she drew into the village, she saw clumps of villagers gathered outdoors, weeping and wailing. Others carried bodies from between the houses, gathering them together to be swept up in shrouds. Everywhere there was confusion and grief. She drew rein beside a group of hollow-eyed men.

"I am Captain Chris Lightfellow of the Knights of Zexen. What has happened here?" she asked.

The men looking up at her gave no indication that her rank or name meant anything to them. Normally, she would have expected to see a spark of recognition and a touch of deference in the presence of a knight, but these men were in a state of deep shock.

"The barbarians," one of them said. "It was a Lizard Clan raid."

"They had terrible beasts with them," another man added.

A third said: "The knights caught a few of 'em. Karayans, and a duck clan warrior."

"Where?" she demanded. "Where are the captives?" The fierceness of her words startled the villagers, and they pointed over towards a cluster of houses on the opposite end of the village commons. Chris immediately spurred Arrow Feather onwards.

Angry voices reached her through the rainfall. "You will answer for your crimes, assassin," she heard Roland shout. Other voices fought to be heard. She turned down a narrow lane between the clustered houses and came upon the scene. Four horses circled the lane, each bearing one of her knights. Borus and Roland were there, and so were Leo and Percival. On the ground and in their midst were the familiar trio of Grasslanders from Brass Castle – the duck clan warrior and the two Karayan boys. One of them was on his back with an arrow sprouting from his thigh. Chris immediately recognized the boy from the encounter in the keep. Roland had an arrow drawn, and was trying to aim past the duck clan warrior, whose feathered bulk shifted sideways to block the knight's shot.

Thundering towards them, Chris called out: "Knights of Zexen! Stand down! Your captain commands it! Stand down!"

Startled faces turned to regard her as she reined in Arrow Feather beside them. "Captain," Borus complained, "These are the assassins. They're the ones we've been searching for."

"There has been a mistake," Chris said, dismounting. "Stand down. That is an order." Borus and the other knights looked surprised, but each man stowed his weapon and backed off, giving the Grasslanders some space. None of them, however, relaxed in the presence of the strangers. Any excuse, no matter how small, and the weapons would be out again.

"Madam," the duck clan warrior said, "We mean no harm. We've done your people no wrong. What happened in Brass Castle—"

"I will hear it from him," Chris cut in, pointing to the boy on the ground. "Sir Leo, Sir Percival, find a suitable dwelling where I can interview our captive. I would speak with him alone."

"Milady!" Borus exclaimed, aghast.

"Sir Borus, you and Sir Roland will tend to the needs of the villagers. Sir Leo and Sir Percival will join you once their task is complete. And find out all you can about this attack."

Sarah opened her eyes, shaking off the momentary feeling of vertigo that always accompanied the sensation of shifting one's senses from one place to another. Slowly, the forested hillside came into focus, rain-drenched branches and grass and all.

She sighed. She had been watching through the eyes of her conjured illusions, guiding them as they unleashed carnage upon the villagers. Regrettably, she had not anticipated that resistance in the tiny hamlet would be quite so stiff.

Sarah turned to regard the two men who crouched nearby, wrapped in brownish-green oilcloth cloaks to camouflage them and protect the strange weapons they bore. The two men watched the village and all approaches to hill, and neither man had moved or spoken a word in all the time since receiving the order from Sarah.

"There has been an unfortunate turn of events," she said. "It is time for you two to do your part. Find the chieftain's daughter and the captain of the knights. Make sure neither of them makes it out of the village alive. Remain unseen, if possible."

As if pulled by the same rope, the two men rose in unison, swept their cloaks aside, and shouldered their weapons. Metallic components clicked like clockwork as they primed their long guns. Without a word, they set off to carry out their appointed task.

After a brief but thorough search of one of the nearby houses, Leo and Percival carried the boy inside, then went off to see to the needs of the villagers. The boy's friends reluctantly accompanied them, after being convinced that their presence would be better served helping the people of Tarnay rather than fussing over their wounded friend.

Inside, the room that had once been the heart of a home full of life and warmth was now strewn with broken debris, and a single candle shed a dim light from the house's only unbroken piece of a furniture, a rickety side table. The boy lay on a makeshift bed prepared for him out of a bundle of blankets. Chris went to stand beside him.

"My squire survived, if you were wondering." She could see on the boy's face that he had been – despite the pain he was in, relief flashed in his eyes. "Thanks in part to you, he would have me believe. Tell me, assassin, why would he say such a thing?"

"Maybe his mother taught him to always tell the truth?" The boy shrugged, a nonchalant gesture somewhat ruined by the fact that it triggered a violent fit of coughing. The boy swore, and reached for the arrow sticking out of his thigh.

"Lie still," Chris said. She kneeled beside him.

"What are you doing?"

She gave him a level look. "What does it look like? I am going to heal you." The boy eyed her suspiciously as untightened her gauntlet and pulled it off along with the glove beneath, exposing the Water Rune on her hand. The boy's eyes widened at sight of the rune. "The arrow must be dislodged, first," she said.

"I'll do it," he said, clenching his jaw.

"That is not advisable."

"I said I'll do it," he spat, "I'm not a child."

"Even a child knows better than to argue with his healer. Now be silent, and lie still."

For a wonder, he obeyed. Chris tore the fabric of his loose brown trousers, revealing a patch of bruised and puckered skin around the arrow wound. Carefully she closed her hand around the arrow's shaft and looked into the boy's eyes. "Ready?"

The boy stared back at her defiantly. I'll take that as a yes. In a single motion, she tore the arrow free.

Remarkably, the boy did not scream as the arrowhead was ripped from his flesh, but jaw clenched, his face went pale, and the muscles of his neck went taut as ropes hoisting cargo. The boy dug his fingers into his hips and the fingers went white with the effort. Chris tossed the arrow aside and awakened the Water Rune. Pearls of rainwater on the boy's clothes shuddered in sympathetic reaction to the Water Rune. A rich blue light enveloped her hand as the healing magic poured into the boy's body.

"You are lucky Sir Roland would never stoop to firing barbed arrowheads," she said as she directed the healing power from place to place, slowly closing the wound and lowering the bruising on the skin around it.

"Yeah…" the boy groaned. "I feel as lucky as a fox in a henhouse, right now."

The arrow wound shrank away, leaving nothing but a large red welt. Chris stood, steadying herself on a broken piece of a table. She felt faint from handling all that magic, but the feeling would pass. "Now," she said. "I believe you already know my name. Seeing as how I recently found you outside my room with a dagger in your hand, standing over the unconscious body of my squire, I believe we are on familiar enough terms that you really ought to tell me yours."

The boy hesitated for a long time before sighing and saying, "Hugo."

"Excellent. Hugo, I would like you to explain the nature and purpose of your visit to Zexen territory in general, and Brass Castle in particular."

"I didn't do it," Hugo said, sullenly.

Chris raised an eyebrow. "Really? It was not you I found outside my door? It was not you who fled onto the back of a wild gryphon to escape capture?"

"Fubar isn't wild," Hugo protested. He locked eyes with her, but she did not back down. Finally, he sighed. "Fine. I was there, sure, but I'm not the assassin. I wasn't there to hurt anybody."

"Explain."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

She fixed him with a hard look. "Try me."

Hugo relented, and began to tell the story of how, after crossing paths with the knights in the courtyard of Brass Castle, he had resolved to return to the keep to seek her out and deliver a package and a message for her. As he spoke, Hugo got to his feet and tested his healed leg. Finding it strong, he began pacing back and forth in the little room to get the blood flowing through his limbs, telling the story bit by bit as he went. Chris listened patiently, though with rising incredulity, as the boy explained how he had scaled the outside of the tower's walls by hand and foot, reaching the floor upon which the knights' barracks resided with a little help from his Wind Rune – which he showed her upon his hand. He explained that he had hidden from a soldier in one of the rooms lining the corridor, only to find a dead body inside.

At this point, she interjected a question: "You claim this soldier is the one who killed the servant? A Zexen soldier?"

"Not… exactly. This is where it gets weird. I ran into the soldier in the corridor outside, and his body sort of… Blurred, like wet ink running with water. And when his body pulled itself together again, he looked different. He looked like a Karayan." He must have seen the dubious look on her face, for he glared at her. "I know what it sounds like, but it's the truth."

She shook her head. It was hard to take the boy's story seriously. If there had been another intruder in the keep, the knights would have found him. Still, what harm could come from hearing the boy out? "Very well. What happened next?"

"The stranger ran. I followed, and found him outside your door. I confronted him. Then the door opened, and the boy—"

"Louis," she added helpfully.

"Right. Louis stepped out into the corridor. The stranger, the man who looked like a Karayan, he turned on Louis. I tackled him, trying to keep him from hurting the boy, but I wasn't able to stop his blade from cutting Louis. I tripped the man, tried to get him to talk, but he was acting like I wasn't even there. So I stabbed him, and…"

"And?"

"He turned to mist and disappeared," he said, shrugging defensively. "It's true. He was an illusion. And I saw more of them here today, in Tarnay. Talk to Leo and Percival. They saw it. They know what I'm saying is true."

This has to be the most absurd story I've ever heard. Still, the boy is either telling the truth, or he's the world's greatest liar. And if he is lying, wouldn't he have picked a more believable lie?

"You used your Wind Rune to heal Louis," she stated.

"Yes."

Chris hesitated. "I cannot imagine what fool notion possessed you to climb the tower to seek me out. The civilized thing to do would have been to request an audience in the morning."

Hugo snorted. "I'm a barbarian, remember?"

Chris reviewed everything the boy had told her, searching for holes in the story. "How did you come to possess my father's Pentacle of Knighthood?"

"Well," he said, "My brother was—" Suddenly Hugo's eyes drifted to something over her shoulder, and went wide. He lurched forward and threw himself against her, sending them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. A sharp crack rang out, and then another.

Chris hit her head against something hard, and ended up lying with Hugo on top of her. The boy rolled off of her and rose into a crouch, then reached his hand out to help her. Chris took his hand and he pulled her into the same crouched position. Hugo hissed, pointing to the wall behind where they had been standing. The wood had been splintered in two places, as if something very hard had struck it. She looked around, but could find no trace of the projectiles.

"Look!" Hugo cried out, pointing to the window. Chris turned just in time to see a bright reddish-brown light flash outside the window. An instant later, she felt a sharp pain in her right arm. She gave a yelp. In the same moment, Hugo grunted with pain.

Am I hit? Goddess, am I… She tore at her sleeve, trying to expose the skin beneath. Hugo had an easier time: the tunic he wore beneath his cloak was sleeveless. She found him twisting his arm and staring at his bicep. There on the skin, a rune mark had been branded into the flesh. It was a mere shadow of the real thing, but Chris stared at it in shock. She had seen this emblem before.

It was the mark of the Hunter Rune.

Author's Notes: Those of you who remember the Hunter Rune from the games will find that my interpretation of it is somewhat different. You'll find out what it does in the next chapter!