FARHAYVEN: VENGEANCE (77 page)

     Scanning around and seeing that it was safe to do so, Ray touched his palm to the ground and retracted the wall of rock and stones back into the ground.

     “Pursue _ request permission to do of this to the assassins,” he requested.

     “Granted, Minvian Iddell. Meanwhile, I shall evacuate the royalties immediately,” decided Sky, sheathing his sword.

     As Sky turned around and requested the prince and queen to follow him out of the hall, Ray gave out commands for Serene and her subordinates to follow him in pursuit of the few remaining assassins while Clover, Rod and the others were to stay back and tend to the wounded. Ray punched the wall in anger, stepped out of the main hall and mounted one of the prepared horses and galloped away in full pursuit, not even waiting for his subordinates to join him.

     All manner of emotions were running through Ray’s mind. Embarrassment was one of them. The fact that his defences were not sturdy enough, and that his preparations and setup were not detailed enough, was a great blow to his pride. Stupidity was another emotion that he was feeling. He should have ordered his soldiers to be in full battle gear instead of normal operational gear. The addition of the battle helm would have hardly made a difference but the shield and chain mail would have saved many of his Sollenthars’ lives. He considered himself silly to have thought that a full scale battle was not possible deep inside Fallsian territory. His only consolation was that Sky and his subordinates were also in normal operational gear, and this fact lessened Ray’s sense of his own stupidity somewhat.

     Ray galloped blindly into the green forest, not really sure where he was going. At the moment the horse that he was riding on seemed to be guiding itself. A sense of failure engulfed him also, for he had allowed the female assassin to escape from him yet again. She had already escaped from him twice before. Always keeping the advice of his mentor, Grand Elementhar Ridge Santlyn, in mind, Ray was furious with himself; for his mentor had always advised him thus, ‘
Mistake – never make the same of this twice!
’ And he had just realised another mistake that he had made, for in his haste to start the pursuit, he had forgotten to command roadblocks to be set up to capture the escaping assassins.

     The darkness of night had set in once again. Out on the Serpentian grasslands, the sound of neighing horses had ended Thorn’s lucky streak. He crouched low and crouch-ran as fast as he could, keeping a lookout for ground features which could hide his malnourished body. He knew that it was pointless to try to outrun his pursuers, so hiding from them would be a better choice instead. But there was a silver lining in this dark cloud for Thorn, for he only heard neighing and not galloping
!
His pursuers had caught up to him but did not know exactly where he was.

     Then a trumpeting sound caught Thorn’s attention. It was the trumpeting sound of elephants. There was a herd nearby. A wild and desperate idea occurred in his mind, but being caught in this wild land and desperate situation, the idea seemed logical, somehow.

     Thorn continued to crouch-run past the herd of wild elephants for a distance of approximately 200 paces. He then crouch-walked backwards with large strides to double back on his tracks, so that the tracks he had made on the grass did not show him turning back. Then he leaped away from his tracks, landing in a roll and crawled slowly and quietly towards the herd. He was hoping that the tracks that he had made crawling on his belly would confuse the Serpentians into thinking that the tracks were made by something other than a human and they would follow his other tracks instead. Finger’s width by finger’s width, he crawled silently and gradually towards the elephants. Most of the elephants were sleeping, but the lead bull was wide awake and eyeing him with caution. Thorn crawled as close to the herd as he could, or more precisely, as he dared. The lead bull still eyed him cautiously, but showed no alarm or indication of panic. Thorn crawled in closer and closer and closer still.

     The Serpentians rode pass the herd of wild elephants. The Serpentian tracker paused and stared at the marks on the grass in confusion. He signalled for one of his comrades to join him. This other Serpentian jumped off his horse and walked up to the first tracker. Both Serpentians analysed the tracks and shook their heads. After a short murmur of discussion, the trackers proceeded to follow the false tracks that Thorn had set up. Neither tracker believed that any human would be crazy enough to approach a herd of wild elephants. They followed the false tracks until it ended and then started searching wildly for new tracks to follow. After a while, both trackers reported to their superior that the tracks were lost.

     A familiar voice broke the silence of the night with a yelling so loud that it could have possibly encompassed the whole grassland. And Thorn knew this voice well, the ever low-pitched, deep growling and egotistical voice of Fightlord Forktongue. The Serpentians then spread out and conducted wild searches. And every time a Serpentian approached the herd of wild elephants, the lead bull and several of the bull elephants would trumpet their trunks loudly, flap their ears and stare aggressively at the relatively puny humans. As tough and as well built as the Serpentians were, they knew that they were no match for the sheer size and mass of these elephants. So the Serpentians respectfully and wisely backed away, much to Thorn’s advantage and relief. Approximately an hour later, the Serpentians mounted their horses and rode away, heading north. Thorn was safe, for now
!

     The torch burnt brightly in Ray’s hand. His horse trotted lightly in the dark forest pathways. Serene was right behind him. Her eyes were more focussed than his. Ray was still upset with himself and furthermore, he harboured no real expectations that they would be able to track or capture any of the fleeing assassins in this nightmare of darkness and foliage. The other Sollenthars were all as focused and as optimistic as Serene. Then the distant sound of galloping horses cheered Ray up significantly, for on one of the chariots that these horses were pulling was Spirit the White Wolf; Ray’s best friend and companion, and the best hunter he had ever known. Spirit’s keen sense of smell and sharp night vision would be the key for Ray to redeem himself, not in the eyes of Prince Patrum or any other, but on the weight of his own expectations and personal standards.

     Spirit jumped off the chariot that he was on as soon as it had stopped. Ray and Serene had already dismounted at that time. Spirit ran to Ray and licked his face playfully and then did the same to Serene. Both Ray and Serene patted Spirit on his forehead.

     With the greetings over, it was time for Spirit to get to work. Ray held out a piece of cloth that was torn away from one of the assassins’ uniform when he was making his escape earlier and Spirit sniffed at it. Spirit’s sharp canine nose detected its distinct smell and his hunter’s brain registered it to memory. Then Spirit raised up his nose and breathed in a lungful of air, and together with this he took in the smell of the forest.  And there it was, this distinct smell of the assassin, though it was very vague and weak. Spirit advanced a few more steps and sniffed the ground. There it was again, this distinct smell, but this time it was more apparent and stronger. The smell formed a track for him to follow. First he took a few slow steps, and then he began to move faster and finally he began to run. Ray and Serene mounted their horses and followed close behind. The hunt was on.

     Spirit led Ray, Serene and the others in and out of the forest pathways, weaving in and out of bushes and clusters of plants. Finally he stopped and stared fiercely at a cluster of thick bushes near a stream. He began to bark fiercely at it.

     “Bushes _ of these, execute multiple Heat Bursts now
!
” commanded Ray.

     Dozens of flaming spheres slammed into the targeted cluster of bushes. A loud yell later, a nearly lifeless body clad in black clothing stumbled forward out of the bushes and collapsed; warm blood still oozing out of the many burn wounds on it. Ray felt relieved slightly. Somehow this one kill gave him a small sense of vindication for his earlier mistake.

     Spirit sniffed the ground near where the body of the dead assassin was and his eyes became focused yet again. There was a new scent that he had sensed and yet it was an old familiar one. No matter how different the individual assassins were, they all smelt similar as far as Spirit was concerned, for they all had the smell of blood on them.

     Spirit broke out into a sprint with Ray and the Sollenthars following closely behind. In the darkness of night; this patch of white fur, this efficient tracker-hunter and his fearsome long, sharp pairs of fangs; move fluidly through the trees and bushes like a hot knife through butter. Ray and Serene, though they were on horseback, had some difficulty keeping up. Tree branches were in their way. A quarter of an hour later, by the banks of a river, came Spirit’s ever fearsome bark. Ray, Serene and the others dismounted. They proceeded carefully with their swords fully drawn.

    
Whoosh!
Whoosh! Whoosh!
The twirling sound of Airblades sends everybody diving to the ground. Three assassins jump out of the river and charge at the Sollenthars. Spirit leaps into the air and sinks his fangs into one of the assassins, flooring him immediately. The screams of horror and pain from the floored assassin send a cold, piercing fear down the spines of his comrades. This temporary distraction buys Ray and Serene a few precious moments of time. Ray gets to his feet and does a Horizontal Strike with his silver staff to knock one of the remaining assassins’ sword off balance and follows up by thrusting one end of his staff into the assassin’s throat. The stunned assassin drops his sword and collapses to his knees as he chokes. Ray ends this assassin’s miserable life by striking vertically down and hard at the assassin’s forehead and splitting his skull.

     Serene sends a Heat Burst straight at the last assassin’s face. Death comes instantaneously to this assassin and he collapses straight onto the ground like a tree that has just been felled. Serene looks up to find Spirit sprinting back into the dense forest in pursuit of another target.

     The sound of thunder cut across the Serpentian grasslands the following morning. A tired and thirsty Thorn Sayvion looked up at the gloomy skies above. Rain was exactly what he needed, for in order to more effectively evade detection, he had stopped following rivers and streams. Drops of cooling moisture fell from the dark sky above and he opened his mouth wide to catch as many of them as he could. In a matter of moments, the droplets of water had turned into a torrential downpour. Thorn drank to his heart’s content.

     Thorn could not afford to rest during the day anymore. He carried on and stumbled a little. The ground was turning muddy, but he cared not. ‘Keep on moving one foot in front of the other’, this was what was going on in his mind
!
This was what he chanted to himself
!
Footstep after footstep in the mud, he kept on going
!

     Thorn could see them from afar, those curved, dome-like shapes of Serpentian tents. Those tents belonged to the nomadic class of Serpentian society. As how Thorn understood it, Serpentian society was not particularly complex. The lowest and most common class were the nomads, who moved from place to place when the nutrients of the soil in which they had planted their crops in were depleted or the grass on which their livestock fed on were eaten up. However, they almost always moved within the boundaries of their own warlord’s land and never into another’s for fear of heavy taxations, if they were lucky; and conscription or even extermination, if they were not.

     Then there was the warrior class, which consisted of conscripts from the nomadic class, relatives of those who were already soldiers or just any Serpentian with a particularly vicious and violent nature. The most vicious and cruel of these warriors would challenge each other in what was known as the Trial of Worthiness. The ultimate winner, or the
only
survivor left in this ceremony, claimed the land, called nestland, as his own. And this winner would then become a warlord and would be granted the title of ‘battlelord’. All warriors who were too cowardly to partake in the Trial of Worthiness would then bow down to this battlelord. And the same process was repeated amongst the battlelords to select a king. Therefore, the Serpentian who was to become the king of Serpentia would normally be the most vicious, violent, cruel and cunning Serpentian of them all.

     Every level of Serpentian society was evil, cruel, selfish and power-hungry
!
Thorn had no illusions that the group of nomads that he had come across was not going to be friendly or sympathetic. The wisest thing to do would be to avoid them. But Thorn was in a desperate situation
!
So he planned to sneak into the camp and steal from them
!

     Thorn crouched low in the wet grass. Slowly he crept closer and closer to the nomads’ camp. There was a cluster of seven tents in total, positioned in a random pattern. Thorn could see through some of the flaps and openings of these tents. He could see that most of the Serpentians were asleep. Some were awake and cooking breakfast. Two or three little boys were running around in the rain and playing in the mud, but all of the adults were in their tents. Livestock of goats and cows, numbering nearly three dozen, wondered freely. Thorn was hungry. But he had to be patient. So he lay hidden in a cluster of grass, waiting for the right time and opportunity.