Chapter 13

I made my way from the inn to the market east of there, where Clive had said they had been ambushed. When I arrived, there was a bustle of activity, normal for a market of this size, as well as a grouping of soldiers on the far side. I suspected that was where the attack had transpired. I weaved my way through the crowd until I arrived at the other side, where three soldiers were investigating the area.

“Good afternoon gentlemen, what exactly happened here? Do you have any idea who did it?”

One of the soldiers turned to me and sternly replied, “This is an official matter, I am afraid that I cannot disclose that information at this time.”

His eyes widened at the change in my expression, as I was no longer feeling very friendly now.

“Ok, let’s try this again. You will tell me what happened and let me look. If you doubt me on this, call the Patron here, he will confirm my authority.”

The man paled and whispered something to one of the other soldiers before running off, no doubt to find the Patron. The other two stopped their investigating, instead turning their attention towards me. We were wasting time, having this contest of wills, and it could mean Liza’s life. A few minutes later, the soldier arrived with the Patron in tow.

“What in the devil is going on here?” The Patron asked, slightly winded. “Davik? Why are you demanding access to this area?”

I turned and replied, “Liza was with Clive, here in the market, looking to buy some goods, when they were attacked by an unknown group. Clive is now at the inn, severely injured, with Ilane working as fast as she can to save his life. Liza could be anywhere, and they could be doing any manner of things to her. I spent most of my life learning to hunt and track, if given access to this area, I am sure I could pick up their trail.”

“Oh, my goodness, I did not know it was your friends that were attacked. If you do find sign of where they went, what do you plan on doing about it? You said yourself you cannot use a bow in your current condition.”

“Regardless of what condition I am in, I will track these bastards down, and I will return Liza back here.”

He nodded and said, “Of this, Davik my boy, I have no doubt, but you will not be going alone. These three will accompany you to find your friend. Though they are soldiers, they, too, are hunters, though not as skilled as yourself. I was told of your exploits in Fardun by the Patron there. No one in this province has hunted wolves and other predators as successfully as you have. Nikos, you will take Gavin and Ruke to help Davik with his quest. Any order he gives, assume it has been given by me. Take this opportunity to learn from him and use it to hone your skills. Change out of your armour and meet back here as soon as you can. By that time, I am confident that Davik will have a destination in mind.”

With a salute, the three ran off in a hurry and the Patron gave me a quick nod as he left as well. I turned to look at the area. While I was confident that I would find something, worry nagged at me. Pushing those worries out of my mind, I began to look around. Despite all the foot traffic of the soldiers, I was still able to make out Liza and Clive’s footprints. They had headed away from the market, and I remembered that they had been told of a seed shop farther east in the village. No doubt they had been on their way there, when they had been surprised. I could see that there were at least seven of them: three had come from the left, two from the right. The rest had come from behind, cutting off their escape. They had used the buildings as cover until their prey had gotten into position. Once they had, the group attacked without mercy, and Clive had fought brilliantly. He put himself between Liza and the attackers, their tracks showed he had moved them so that the wall of one of the buildings was behind them.

There were boxes and crates stacked on the sides with room for them to have used. This would limit their options but allowed Clive to better protect Liza. The group wasted no time trying to attack them, but Clive’s reflexes were on point. He had gotten at least a shot or two off before they had disarmed him of his bow. There were no dead attackers, given that there were no bodies in the road, but they were no doubt injured badly. Looking at the ground, I saw pools of blood in two areas close to where Clive had been fighting. The shafts of broken arrows lay on the ground near the blood - the fools had taken the arrows out before leaving town. This would result in blood loss that would make it difficult to run far, or even ride without treatment. This would prove useful, as that would mean a possible blood trail. There were other splatters of blood, but these looked to be from sword slashes. I could see that both the attackers and Clive had suffered from contact made with the opponents’ weapons, hopefully the damage to Clive was only superficial. I would hate to have him crippled, or even worse, die because of me. Once Clive’s wounds had been too much, they had taken Liza and, from the way her prints changed, she must have been knocked out. The one thing I wondered was why had they let Clive live. They could have killed him, but instead, they left him to come to me. I had a feeling that the man in the cloak had a hand it this, and I hoped that soon it would come to an end, with his death at my hands. I shook away the thoughts and started following the trail of their flight. One of them showed a much heavier step, which meant he was the one carrying the unconscious Liza. One showed signs of a limp, another looked to be dragging his left leg. Both had trails of blood that meant they had been injured in the fight. There were at least two other blood trails, these were much more subtle, but there, none the less. They must have suffered lighter wounds, and they had been to the upper body rather than the legs. A fifth showed much heavier blood loss, and I wondered if I might end up running across his dead body while I chased the group down.

A few meters away from the ambush point, there were signs that they had gotten on horses and left the town in a hurry. Despite being on the horses, there were still blood sign that I could follow. I would need to hurry and get my horse before the lead they had become too great. I turned to find the three soldiers had returned and were garbed in leather vestments that would prove useful for hunting. They gave a nod and I gestured them to follow as I made my way to the barn.

“It looks like they have headed East from the town on horseback. While that does give them a lead of a few hours, they have five members injured, one of which could die of blood loss on the way to wherever they plan to camp. Two will need to take care of their wounds soon or run the risk of them going septic. The last two will be fine until they reach camp for the night.

The three looked at one another with surprise, no doubt they did not think I would be able to discern so much from the scene.

“I expect them to be trying to make it a few kilometers into the forest before nightfall, but they have left a trail that we will be able to follow. The only way they could lose us would be to kill the three heavy bleeders, but even then, we would have enough signs to continue pursuit. I can see you have bought your weapons, so we will use my horses to catch them. I have four and it will allow us to leave immediately.”

They responded with affirmatives and we ran to the barn, quickly collected my horses and we were on their trail. Instead of dashing through the city, Nikos guided us out from the barn and back to the edge of town where the group had escaped. It did not take long to pick up their direction and we dashed off after them. With at least one to three hours head start, we pushed the horses hard, hoping to close as much of the gap as we could. After an hour of running the horses hard, the trail was easy to follow and we had to slow down to deal with their countermeasures. While they had been clever in hiding their numbers, trying to shake off would-be followers, there were subtle signs that helped us stay on course. As we continued towards the forest, the trail was becoming fresher. This meant that we were catching up to them, and soon we would be right on their tails, and closer to saving Liza. We continued at our pace until we reached the forest edge and we saw what looked to be a body. As we drew closer, I could see he had taken an arrow to the chest that he had pulled out, and received various wounds from Clive’s sword. He had bled too much and fallen from his horse; the angle he fell at led to his neck being broken when he impacted with the ground. It was much more merciful than he deserved, but I could not dwell on that now.

We entered the forest and found the vegetation to be thick, but that proved to be advantageous to us. They could not go through it without leaving noticeable tracks to follow. We knew that continuing on horseback would rob us of any advantage we now had. Ruke volunteered to stay with the horses as the rest of us continued afoot. It had been a while since I had dashed through the thick growth of a forest and it felt exhilarating. To be on the hunt again filled me with energy and I felt alive. We stayed north of the sign, making sure to make as little sound as possible. They both showed their skill as hunters, as they kept up with me and made very little noise as they did so. As we continued, we started seeing sign of a struggle, no doubt Liza had woken up and was trying not to go quietly. It looked like her tactic worked as they had to stop, and it looked like that proved detrimental. There was fresh blood on the ground, and based on the tracks, it had to be one of the injured men, a hint of a limp meant the other one who had been hit with an arrow. I looked like there was a scuffle caused by Liza, which had resulted in her kicking the wound, making it bleed more heavily. He ended up being carried by one of the two members with light injuries.

The two uninjured members were carrying a struggling Liza, which was making them sloppy. They could have killed her or knocked her out again, but they had not done that. It looked again as though they were prevented from going to extremes with my friends, meaning this was going to be a trap intended for me. I relayed my thoughts to Nikos and Gavin, and they could not see any other reason for the actions, either. The question was, were they expecting me to come on my own? If so, it only added to my advantage, as I knew they were not allowed to hurt Liza, at least not yet. We continued our set course, moving a bit farther north, and slowing our pace to ensure we would not be seen. Based on that scuffle, we were only about twenty minutes to a half hour behind them, and the injury Liza aggravated would force them to either make camp or kill him. If they intended to kill him, his body would have been left at the site of the scuffle or it would be dumped nearby. It was another hour before we started hearing hushed voices coming from the southeast. We slowed down once we heard that, making sure that the noise we made was limited.