Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

"Did you really think I wouldn't find you wallowing in this ditch," asked the man in black armor. "Did you think I would just keep walking down the road hoping to come across your corpses?" He didn't wait for a response. "I knew how you escaped the second I came across this ditch. It was just a matter of following it away from the road." The man never took the aim of his arrow off of Soern. Soern never took his eyes off the archer.

"Let me guess," Soern spoke finally, "you're a Sarion. A deadeye from Tanglefern. Am I right?"

"Bullseye," answered the deadeye. "Now, which one of these little twerps is Dashyl?"

Dashyl sucked in air when he heard the question and Fretly's head snapped sideways to look at his friend.

"Ah yes, the younger one," the man said as he studied the boy. "Are you Dashyl," he asked.

Dashyl looked at Soern but the warrior still did not take his eyes off the archer, so Dashyl looked at Fretly. Fretly slowly shook his head.

"Why do you want to know," Soern asked the man.

"I have been hired to find him," the man admitted. "I have been looking a long time for you," the man addressed Dashyl directly. "My waiting has finally paid off and now I can get paid," the man said, chuckling to himself. He turned his attention back to Soern. "I am only getting paid to find one Sarion boy and you, my Kirzan friend, are no Sarion boy, I'm afraid."

As the man pulled back on his bow string, Soern yelled, "Rush him!"

Dashyl froze, unsure of what he should do. He saw Fretly jump over to his backpack and look for something inside. The archer fired his arrow as Soern charged him, screaming. The arrow pierced Soern's left hand and the warrior fell to his knees clutching his hand with the arrow stuck halfway through.

Fretly had found Dashyl's knife and flung it at the deadeye, but it bounced harmlessly off his armor. Fretly followed up his throw by throwing himself through the air at the man. The archer deflected the leap with his left forearm, knocking his attacker to the ground. The deadeye reached behind his back to grab another arrow. Fretly took the opening and grabbed the bow with both hands and hugged it to his body as tightly as he could. The archer tried to shake the bow free at first. He dropped the arrow he was holding and started punching Fretly in the face and head, but the urchyn would not let go.

While Fretly and the deadeye wrestled, Soern stood up and with a great bellow pulled the arrow all the way through his hand. He snapped the arrow in two and dropped the back half. "Fretly, move aside," roared the huge Kirzan. Fretly let go of the bow and rolled away. Soern then charged at the deadeye ramming the middle of his armored chest with his shoulder. The man fell down with Soern's big bulk on top of him. The old warrior held down the deadeye.

"Who hired you," the warrior asked the man.

"I'll never tell, he could make my life a living terror, you can only kill me," the man answered.

"What does he want with Dashyl," Soern asked.

"Save your breath, old one, I'm not one for conversation,"the deadeye said, obviously struggling under the warrior's weight.

"I see. Then that's that. Fretly, open the visor on his helmet," Soern calmly commanded.

Fretly did as he was asked and turned away as he realized what Soern was going to do. Dashyl watched, however, as the Kirzan stabbed the broken arrow into each of the man's eyes, then stood up.

"Try finding your way back to Tanglefern, now, deadeye," Soern said as the man rolled on the ground and screamed in agony.

"Get on your igwazas," Soern again calmly said, "we're getting out of here."

"We can't just leave him here like this," Dashyl pleaded.

"Look," Soern said sternly, "he's a hired assassin. He would have killed us and maybe you. We are showing him a mercy he would not have shown us."

"Mercy? But..." Dashyl protested, but words failed him.

"Let's go, Dash, Soern's right," Fretly consoled.

Soern bandaged his hand as the other two gathered their gear quickly. The three travelers mounted their runners and headed back toward the road. The deadeye ran after them for a short ways, pleading for them not to leave him, but he couldn't run far without tripping and soon they were out of range of his cries.