I

Crouching low, Yoreno moved up behind the Emblazoned Party’s rogue member, Sorika. She had her bow out, an arrow knocked.

Though she wasn’t an archer like Lev, she was still proficient in the weapon. Yoreno glanced about the hills under the canopy of thick mountain evergreens. Bright patches of sunlight shone on the ground and the birds chirped in the distance.

“Do you see anything?” he asked.

Sorika said nothing as she glanced about, her eyes somewhat unfocused. She was listening. As a rogue, her auditory senses were highly trained.

Yoreno could hear the sound of his own breathing.

He moved, but Sokrika put up a raised hand.

Stopping, he twisted his sword in his hands so that the rune-etched flat of the blade was facing outward. It wasn’t uncommon of him to deflect arrows or crossbow bolts with his broadsword.

The trick was no know where the arrow was coming from.

A bow with a heavy draw could put an arrow through a wild bore’s body, but to a top-tier, or even a mid-tier adventurer like Yoreno and Sorika, but an arrow moving with that level of speed and force was actually rather easy to deflect or dodge altogether.

If either of them was to be killed now, their enemy would have to shoot them from a position of stealth.

Suddenly Sorika moved, whirled on her heel and pushed Yoreno aside as she twisted her shoulders, obviously to present a smaller target.

The shaft cut through the air and stuck into the dirt. Yoreno’s eyes followed it for just a moment before he jumped to his feet and lunged in the direction of the enemy archer.

Behind him he could hear Sorika’s lighter footfalls hitting the dirt. He jumped over an outcropping of exposed tree roots and ran up the hill, shielding his head from the low overhanging tree branches and sharp needles.

When he crested the hill he spotted the archer loosing another shaft. Yoreno lifted his sword and deflected the arrow.

“Look out!” Sorika called, and deflected a second arrow from their right with her curved dagger.

“Split up!” Yoreno shouted.

As he ran toward the first archer, Sorika split off and went after the other. Yoren kicked his legs as fast as he could, his armor and boots slowing him down.

But the enemy archer, clothed all in black, was in his sights.

The Schuarist rushed through a stream and up a steep bank. Knowing he couldn’t do a similar feat, he took the longer path but circumvented the embankement.

If the archer looked behind himself, he wouldn’t find Yoreno directly behind him anymore. Instead he was circling around to flank the archer from his right, though he was losing precious distance in the process.

Sorika pursued her target into a thicket of bushes, scratching herself as she lunged through them. She was close on the archer’s tail as she came to a bluff overlooking the river.

The cultist was not ten paces ahead when she curved around a large rock below. Sorika jumped, landing atop it, then down across the shallow river bed. She was catching up to her quarry and her enemy knew it.

There was a panicky movement to her head, the way she glanced about for opportunities to lose Sorika.

Finding nothing, the enemy ran over an embankment of wet sand and up onto a large rock jutting out over the main river.

Turning, she raised her bow to put a shaft through Sorika’s heart. With her blade in hand, she was fully prepared to deflect the projectile.

As the Sschuarist drew, Sorika spread her legs and put her left hand on her other blade to draw it if necessary.

She loosed the arrow and Sorika, predictably, deflected it into the wet sand.

The Schuarist scowled, then her eyes lifted to the hill behind Sorika. She then took a shaft to the chest, her body convulsing once as her eyes went wide.

Muscles slackening, her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell back into the rapids of the river.

Sorika glanced back, saw Aevalin knights and ran to the rock. Glancing into the river and searching for the Schurist’s body, she found nothing. She was gone. Carried away by the swift currtent.

She turned to regard the knights and frowned.

Running up to them, she said, “Why did you do that?”

“We killed a Schuarist who was doing battle with a woman of Aevalin,” their leader said. “Why do you question?”

“I was pursuing her!”

“There will be others.”

Throat burning, Yoreno stopped running, glanced about and swallowed, then sucked in a deep breath of air. His throat burned like the gods had poured hot liquid fire down his mouth.

“Agh!”

Dammit, he thought. The archer got away!

Sheathing his sword, he trudged back in the general direction Sorika had run to. Now that he had run so much, sweat was beading down the sides of his face. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

The shade from the thick mountain trees was nice, but even so, the sun was shining brightly and the general weather was warm.

It was the beginning of spring.

After their encounter with the barbarian tribes, Yoreno and the others had searched far and low for signs of the Nai Sha’el cult of Schuarists. They had had run-ins and even today they pursued the illusive members of their cult.

But in these lands they seemed to hold a soft dominion.

The Emblazoned Party was getting close.

That was why Yoreno had agreed with Dantera that Dellwyn and Lev should head back to the Roaming Lions to bring reinforcements.

It was clear that the Nai Sha’el would not be ambushed in a small cave and defeated in a simple melee. This would take real effort, a military adventure.

A quest.

The shrubs rustled and Yoreno turned, found Dantera there. “Did you catch one?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Led me on a merry chase, though. Sorika went off in that direction after another.”

“We need to be careful,” Dantera said as she stalked down the hill toward him, her large sword in hand.

He still held Ito Farralia slung over his back, ready for when Dantera chose to use it once again. So far, she had not, though.

Nodding, he said, “They could ambush us while we’re separated. We don’t have enough people.”

“All the reason why I sent Dell and Lev back.”

“’You ‘sent them’ back?” he asked, challenging the supposed order she had given.

“We,” she corrected.

Dantera was a knight, he a lord, and the master of the adventurer’s guild the Roaming Lions. Dantera had lost everything, her title of lady, her possessions, including her manor and of course, the Roaming Lions.

All because the king was killed by assassins during his Readventure festival, a festival that was supposed to usher in a new age of adventurism and conquest of the lost lands of the world after the Age of Darkness.

Princess Neslyn had blamed Dantera, and once she was crowned queen, had wasted no time in stripping Dantera of everything that mattered to her.

It rankled Yoreno’s sense of justice.

But…

She had thrown a bone, offering Dantera her title and confiscated lands back if she found and brought back the king’s assassin. All of the lands the corwn was still holding on to, that was. The Roaming Lions was Yoreno’s possession now, through and through.

But he did not intend for it to remain that way.

They had struck out after the tragedy at the castle and now they were running about the wilderness after members of the of Nai Sha’el cult—Schuarists who wanted the Age of Readventure to cease because it was in direct opposition of their goals—to allow the dark magicks to flourish.

“They’ve been gone over a month,” Yoreno said.

“Be patient,” Dantera said. “They will return soon. Now let us find Sorika in case she is in trouble.”

He nodded. “All right.”

“After we have regrouped, I want to show you two something I found. It is quite interesting, I think.”