Demons and Dragons and Rangers, Oh My!
Chapter 5: Ride to Castle Araluen
Halt
The rain pounded down on the lone rider heading west to Castle Araluen. The casual observer would have thought this man was miserable. The decidedly less casual observer that was riding parallel to him 30 yards to his left knew that Halt was simply deep in thought. So did the rider on his right. Their names were, from right to left, Gilan, Halt, and Will. However, until the mighty doors of the throne room of King Duncan were closed and sealed, they referred to each other as, from right to left, Neal, Falberd, and John. This was because King Duncan had decided that the people, until it became absolutely necessary, were not to know about the demons that the Rangers were summoning to combat the new threat from Alagaesia. As such, it would be best that the people were not aware that the strangers riding with vanguards of what appeared to be mounted foreign soldiers (They were in fact djinn. As Rangers trained from their induction to the order, they were capable of summoning around seven high level djinn apiece.) It was always better to avoid raising questions. King Duncan had called these three in particular to help him thrash out an effective strategy to deal with this new threat. Halt would stay afterward to go through lists of currently summoned djinn and who was controlling who, so as to say, if they had more djinn than they expected they would need, then they would inform that magician to dismiss his/her djinn and summon some Afrits. Thus was the Araluen way to deal with things they didn't understand. First step: Try to make them your friends. If this does not work, use step two. Second step: Fling arrows and Detonations into said misunderstood thing until it stops breathing. Halt was especially good at this step. It was because Halt was deep in thought that he did not notice, as he usually would have, that his rearmost djinni was gone. And then Gilan's. And then Will's. It was at this point that Will noticed that his djinn were disappearing, and signaled to Halt. Halt then in turn signaled Gilan, and on the count of three, they spun around and loosed arrows at the first movement they saw. Two cloaked assassins fell dead from their horses and one howled with pain as an arrow embedded itself in his shoulder. Nonetheless, he still managed to wheel his horse away, only to be shot from the saddle, with an arrow quivering in his back. "Blast!" Halt bellowed. He urged Abelard to gallop, and didn't bother to check if Will and Gilan were following. Somebody was willing to send assassins capable of slaying djinn after the soldiers. Halt could only imagine what they were willing to send after the King.
I know, it's short, but I am going to make up for it with the next Halt chappie. I am afraid that the next chapter (An Oromis one) will also be very short, because I have NOTHING to write about, and I can't write that character well anyways. So. Barty chappies are gonna have LOTS of dialogue, and some action. But Oromis get's nothing, and Halt is about to get an amazing banter and butt-kicking chappie soon. ^_^