The Silver Arrow (15 page)

All this time, Mosley had not
once asked Iseac where they were going or what Iseac was trying to
accomplish. His job was to protect him, and nothing else
mattered.

“We need to find a young man
with dark brown hair and silver eyes that would be gray to most
people. He might have a bow with him.” Iseac went on to describe
the type of bow and the inscription on it, explaining that the
young man they were looking for was most likely visiting the city
for the harvest festival and not a local, which mean he would be
known by an innkeeper.

Bayshia was a large city with
hundreds of inns and tavern. It was going to be like trying to find
a spotted grain in a sack of corn, but not just one bag, hundreds.
“I don’t know the name of the building where we will begin our
search, but I will show you when we get there.”

It had stopped raining the next
morning as they prepared to leave. They had a quick meal, got back
on their horses, and rode west away from the mountainside.

Mosley was the first one to
notice the charred smell in the air; it was faint as a result of
the rain from the night before, but he could still smell it, and so
could Iseac.

“Do you smell that?”

“Yes, but I don’t see any sign
of fire,” Mosley replied.

“Let’s head back to the road,”
Iseac suggested.

The smell of smoke grew
stronger as they rode along the main road till they got to a
junction with fewer trees. That was when they saw the birds flying
in a circular motion ahead of them. These birds were red around the
head and the rest of their feathers blue. Only one thing attracted
these birds, and that was the blood of something dead or dying.
There were many of them, which meant something terrible had
happened.

The road they were on split in
two directions. One meandered down to the left, leading toward
Orie, and the other curved slightly to the right into
Chartum-Valley.

While Iseac knew that every day
spent on the road and not in Bayshia was valuable time wasted, the
birds flying overhead were a sign that some might need their help.
Besides, he knew a fast way through Chartum-Valley without losing
time.

“Let’s find out what is going
on,” Iseac said as he sent his horse into motion. The horses seemed
more spirited with the sun rising as they veered right. The
mountain pass, which looked whole at a distance, opened up as they
rode toward it. As Iseac and Mosley got closer to the crest of the
hill, the first sign of their fears was confirmed.

The birds were picking on
something that lay on the ground. As they got closer to it, they
could tell that it was the disfigured remains of a man in the
center of the road. The birds around them flew a safe distance from
Iseac and Mosley, their beady eyes shifting between them and the
food that lay on the ground.

“It looks like it’s been here
about a day,” Mosley said, judging by the smell as they looked down
on the discolored corpse with flies around it.

There were arrows sticking out
of the chest that they both recognized as Golan. The now-tattered
shirt on the corpse had a symbol on it that flapped about, held by
a single thread.

It indicated that this man was
a courier, the symbol partially covered in dried blood.

Most small towns had a courier
and a hawk used for sending messages across town, one confirming
the other if there was any question. It also guaranteed that the
recipient received the message. If the courier was killed by
Golans, Iseac could not help but wonder what they could have done
to the people of the town.

He urged Durack on until they
were past the crest of the chasm. At their distance, they could see
smoke rising from within the town as they rode downhill. No one
knew why Golans do what they do, which made them dangerous, so they
had to be vigilant as they made their way toward
Chartum-Valley.

The place had an eerie silence,
stilled by inactivity as Iseac and Mosley rode into the valley. The
scene was even more gruesome than they had anticipated. The acrid
smell of burnt flesh and bodies starting to decompose hung heavy in
the air like smoke. The streets on different areas were covered in
bloodstains that stretched along the road from the rain the night
before. Most of the buildings, from what they could see, were
destroyed by fire. Their charred foundations were the only
identifying pieces of the structures that were once there.

The potent stench turned
Iseac’s stomach and he threw up, unable to hold his meal.

“Are you okay?” Mosley
asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. My meal just
isn’t sitting well with me this morning.” Iseac wiped his
mouth.

“I haven’t seen anything like
this before,” Mosley said with a sense of horror. “Whatever
attacked this people seemed bent on destroying everything in its
path. With this much carnage, I don’t believe they had any
intention of taking prisoners.”

“So what would Golans be
looking for this far south, and why Chartum-Valley, is the real
question,” Iseac said.

“What did these people have
that was worth destroying their town?” he asked himself as they
made their way toward the heart of the town.

The sound of their horses’
hooves against the cobblestones seemed louder in the silence that
encapsulated the place.

Mosley continued to scan their
surroundings beside Iseac.

Iseac got off Durack at the
town square, releasing the shield of air he had held when they rode
into town. There was a quicker way to check for survivors. He got
on one knee, placing his right hand on the ground,
concentrating.

This was the fastest way to
detect life and help anyone that might still be alive. As images of
the dead swept past his consciousness, he felt a single pulse, and
narrowed his focus on it. It was not far from their position, but
before he could say anything, he heard a splintering sound. He
released his concentration, opening his eyes to see Mosley standing
in front of him with a piece of broken arrow on the ground.

“Someone is here,” Mosley
exclaimed, his voice raised.

“I know,” Iseac replied as he
ran for cover.

“Golan,” Iseac thought as
Mosley took cover on the opposite side. He only sensed one; unless
something had changed, there should have been more arrows aimed at
them.

Golans were known to go in a
pack of four, and only if the others were killed would you find one
alone.

He needed to know what had
happened to these people, and whoever had just shot at them was
their key to finding the answers.

Looking around, nothing
provided any real cover. Iseac crouched down against a waist-high
stone wall, the edges charred by the fire that had consumed it.

“I will attack him head on
while you go around,” Iseac said to Mosley, who acknowledged the
plan with a nod.

“And we need this person
alive,” he said as the air around him pulled itself into a solid
mass in front of him.

“Now,” Iseac said as he ran out
from cover, rushing forward to meet their assailant, his feet
barely touching the ground with his cloak flapping behind him like
a flag.

Mosley watched as Iseac
sprinted in the direction the arrow was fired, and he darted to his
left, his eyes focused on the general vicinity where the intruder
was hiding. Iseac caught a slight rustling in the woods as he
rushed in, just as his shield deflected another arrow. That one had
been aimed for his head.

He could not get a clear view
of the Golan between the rustling branches as the Golan was
retreating. So he ran faster to close the distance, bursting into
an open clearing inside the woods. The sun peered through gaps in
the trees, its rays illuminating the rich green and brown leaves
that covered the open area.

As Iseac looked for signs of
the Golan, he heard the swooshing sound of something zip by. He
turned to face it, ignoring the sound of something slumped to the
ground.

Iseac could see Mosley putting
his hand down. He had just killed their only witness, he thought,
as he turned his attention to the Golan, which was the slumped
sound he had ignored.

“He is not dead,” Mosley said
confidently as he walked over to the body, joining Iseac.

“His head will be throbbing
when he gets up, that’s all,” Mosley said, picking up his knife. He
had knocked him out with the head of his knife.

Iseac pulled the hood off the
face of the Golan and was shocked at what he saw. It wasn’t a
Golan, as he had suspected, but one of the young men in his
dream.

“It’s him!” Iseac exclaimed in
disbelief. “The one we needed to find in Bayshia.”

Mosley looked at Iseac. He had
no hint of surprise in his expression, but his eyes showed that he
was perplexed.

The young man’s face had
patches of dirt over it; his cloak was damp and dirty. He was dirty
all over, with dried blood on his arm and lower ribs. Mosley
stooped down and picked up the limp body from the ground. Iseac
picked up his bow, and they walked back toward the town square.

That night, there was a stir as
the young man rose from his makeshift bed on the ground.

“Ah…our mysterious archer, how
do you feel?” Iseac asked as if talking to an old friend. “Sorry
for the bump, but that was the only way we could stop you.” He
watched the young man blink while shaking his head to clear it.

The motion must have been
painful, because he placed both his hands on his head, which was
wrapped in a woolen cloth to cover the wound he received from
Mosley’s knife.

“You’ll find meat and fruit on
the plate next to you, if you are hungry,” Iseac said as he bit
into his own food.

The young man said nothing, but
instead looked to the right and left of him, past his plate.

“Looking for this?” Iseac said,
his voice drawing the young man’s attention as he placed the bow in
front of him. The young man stared at Iseac, wondering what was
going to happen next.

“Are they going to kill me?” he
wondered. “If they were, then why am I not in a restraint?” the
rational part of him said. “And why would they bind my wound?”

“Okay,” the young man thought
to himself, unsure what to make of his current circumstance.

“You can have this back,” Iseac
said, pausing for a second, “after you tell us what happened here
first.” The young man stared at him, somewhat confused.

“Do you have a name?” Iseac
asked.

“Yes,” he muttered after a
minute.

“I’m Iseac, and he is Mosley,”
he said, gesturing to the Ackalan, who nodded his head in salute
before sitting down. “You now have our names, but I don’t believe
we got yours.”

“Samuel,” the young man replied
with some reservation as he stared at Iseac, who appeared to be
about the same age as Faray. This thought sparked feelings of anger
and sadness as he remembered seeing Faray lying on a wagon, bloody.
He needed to get out of here and find his family. Iseac’s words cut
in on his thoughts.

“Well, Samuel, why don’t you
get something to eat?”

Iseac needed to get Samuel to
relax, so he began to speak.

“We were heading to Bayshia and
decided to stop by the valley for some supplies. When we arrived,
we were shocked to see the town destroyed and all the people
killed. We were searching for survivors when you showed up.”

Samuel listened as his head
slowly shifted from a throb to a dull ache, with his eyes adjusting
to the firelight that danced several feet from him.

As his senses returned, the
aroma of what was cooking over the fire pricked his hunger. He
remembered Iseac saying something about food being next to him.

He picked up the plate and
placed it on his lap. “If they were going to kill me,” he thought,
“they wouldn’t have gone through this trouble.” And there was a
sense of honesty and openness about the man who called himself
Iseac.

He took his first bite and
waited. Nothing happened.

It tasted so good. Without
knowing it, he began to eat with the ferocity of a hungry wolf,
unaware of the silence in the camp.

“Would you like some more?” he
heard Iseac ask as he looked to see them watching him.

“No, I’m fine,” he said,
slightly embarrassed as he tried to tame his protesting
stomach.

“Here, have a drink,” Iseac
said as he tossed him the skin he was drinking from.

“I know this must be difficult,
but what happened here?” Mosley asked as Samuel corked the lid back
on the skin. “I have never seen this much carnage outside of a
battlefield, and not with women and children, either. The people of
the town seem to have been caught unaware. What I don’t understand
is how so many people could have appeared without anyone spotting
them miles before they came upon the town.”

“They came from the southwest
side of the town,” Samuel caught himself saying. “They somehow knew
no one would be expecting an army from that direction.

“It is a treacherous area that
has taken the lives of many; few people use it because of its many
pitfalls. How they managed to get so many through, I don’t
know.”

“An army?” Mosley asked. “What
did they look like? What were they wearing?”

“They weren’t really humans;
they had pale white skin like corpses, with deep blue bulging eyes,
and their teeth were jagged. Another group with red paint over the
right side of their faces carried bows. They were accompanied by
two bat-like creatures, which is the only way I can describe them.
The creatures were taller than an average man and black as tar.
They searched the hillside, killing the people that survived the
initial raid.

“Those who were not killed were
taken captive,” he said, pausing to hold back the tears that slid
down his cheeks. “My brother and mother were taken, too.”