“Lewis, get out of here now. They’re coming. Coming for you. We’ve resisted them, and you may as well make our resistance worthwhile.” Called a familiar voice. It was Gideon. His face was a sad collection of bruises, blood, and dirt, and he looked to be in terrible pain.

  “Alright, alright.”

  “Is the Master alive?” I shook my head sadly, although oddly enough, I felt not much remorse over his death. “Get out of here now before it’s too late.” Right on cue, a man stepped out of the house, holding a long, curved blade.

  His movements seemed slow, but he was near in an instant, more men in black following behind him.

  I kicked the horse into action, and it reared up, before running off into a full sprint. The men were on horses also, falling behind. We entered the forest, and I knew that we would escape. I knew this forest like the back of my hand, having ridden out here many a time, and knew that the men would stand no chance.

  The adrenaline pumping through me was energizing, yet the knowledge of the blood that had been spilled all in search of me induced a twisting in my stomach.

  My knuckles were white from grasping the reins so tightly, and I was bent over the horse.

  After a few hours of riding through the dense forest, heading straight south, I had to stop and give the horse and myself a rest for the night, though there weren’t many hours that remained to the intense day. We settled down behind some bushes hoping that we wouldn’t be spotted or caught up with, and lay down in the soft grass.

  My thoughts drifted from soft grass and bright stars to where I was in this world. I went from being an orphan in a rich man’s house to having no one. I was alone. And to add to that, I was being pursued by bloodthirsty men who would kill just for me. And if that’s what they’d do to find me, what would they do to me if I were caught? If. I wouldn’t let it happen.

  I drifted in and out of sleep.

  Finally, I awoke but soon noticed that I was not alone. I tried to look around without moving too much and saw a man sitting on his haunches, hovering near a tiny fire. He was feeding it with small twigs, wood chippings, and leaves. I was up in seconds, my dagger out.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing?” I snapped.

  The man somehow hadn’t even seen me lying only a few yards from him and jumped up and screamed. He sat there, panting.

  “I honestly didn’t know… you were… lying there… oh my. Goodness,”

  “I — I’m sorry. But what are you doing here?”

  “These… These are my parts. I live here.”

  “Oh, um… well I was just passing by, and well, uh, you didn’t happen to see a few men in black with bloody swords, perhaps?”

  “I don’t…no, I didn’t. But earlier I heard hoofbeats traveling that way —” He pointed in the direction I was headed. “Are you looking for them?” When I didn’t reply, he asked, “Would you like something to eat?” He held a piece of fish up. It was blackish but smelled good enough, and I took it gratefully.

  “So, what are you doing living here?” I asked after having finished.

  “I used to live in the city. But the plague… it destroyed everything.”

  “The plague?” I asked, and he must’ve noticed the questioning tone I inquired with.

  “You’ve… never heard of it?”

  “No, I believe I haven’t,” I remember some of the servants whispering of a war or epidemic of some kind, but I’d heard nothing of a plague.

  “Let me… explain.” The man ate his last bit of fish, wiped his hands in the grass, and began. “It all started about fifteen years ago…” Makes sense that I’d never heard of it, at that time I’d only have been an infant. “With a trader named Amos. He was well-known and wealthy. He sought out mostly furs, using his men to hunt them down, skin them, and such. He sold these near and far and made a good bit of fortune for himself. Some say, though, that he had problems in his head. He was crazy, some said. No one knew for sure, but someone claimed to have seen him in a room with vials and glasses, pouring chemicals into chemicals, giggling excitedly. His family made up for this story, saying that he liked to mix a certain mixture of water and a chemical to put on the skins to help them dry nicely.

  “Anyway, one shipload of furs he brought back was sold and distributed. There were so many and were decently cheap. Many people bought them in prodigious quantities, because of their high quality and low price. But soon afterward, people began to get sick. Most of the furs were sold to companies that turned them into clothes, but then again, Amos owned a good deal of those companies as well as the fur business. People got an illness with symptoms of shaky, shaky hands and feet, so much so that those who had it couldn’t even walk. They swell up also in certain areas and have some kind of fever as well. About everyone who had the plague died, and those who didn’t die immediately couldn’t ever walk again and died a few months or perhaps a year after the plague affected them. The worst thing was that the children could pick up the illness much easier than grown adults could, and too many of the children were affected. It wiped out many of our people, and everyone figured out that it was Amos who had sold it to them.

  “Now there were two different stories. Amos claimed that the animals he killed must’ve had the plague before he killed them, and got a few of his hunters to testify. The other idea, which most people believe (since they would prefer to blame something on a living human than a dead animal) was that the story the man had told of him mixing chemicals for the skins together was the plague that he’d put onto the furs, which helped them dry, of course, but was deadly. But if this were true, Amos would have to have gotten the plague himself. And he did, soon after the epidemic was over. He hid, and people suspected that he had finally gotten it. But when came out perfectly healed, everyone was awestruck.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “They immediately discovered that he had had an antidote all the time, and had been hiding it himself, since what it was made of was high quality and very expensive. People were angry, and all of his remaining products, equipment, and ships burned. He was hung as well.”

  I was silent for a moment, taking all this in.

  “That’s terrible. I can’t believe I never even heard of it. I’m sorry that happened to you.” It seemed as if some loved one of his had suffered from it, for he was heavily sobered.

  “Yes, it was terrible indeed. I lost everyone, so now I’m here.” He smiled. “And I quite like being away from the city, it’s not all that terrible.”

  “I can see that,” I said grinning. “Looks like you got yourself a fine home here,” He smiled proudly, nodding. Indeed he had. I gazed admiringly at the shack he’d built inside a hollow tree, two of them actually, and a few stones were set up in a way that appeared to be some kind of stove. Each hut in the tree had enough space to lie down in. One had a bed in it (which was leaves and brush with a blanket on top) and the other one was a pantry. He had fashioned a sort of covering instead of a door out of reeds, that hung down over the doorway.

  “Well, thank you for your hospitality, but I’ve got to be heading out.”

  “Alright, well it was nice having some company. Farewell.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and stood up, as he disappeared behind the reeds and into his hut.

  After drinking at a nearby creek, I straddled Cheyanne (my horse) and we rode off again.

  We continued to ride through the forest where all was fairly isolated where I traveled, except for the wild animals, of course. I ate from the food supplies the man had given me and rode on until dark. Occasionally I would hear scuffling and grunting (probably just from animals), and my heart would pound vigorously, but no one came.

  That night I was exhausted and fell asleep before my head hit the ground.

  Thirst came and woke me in the middle of the night. But before I could sit up, a hand grabbed my ankle and pulled. I yelled, startled, and leaped to my feet instantaneously. I tried to twist my leg from the grip, but it was strong and would not lessen. I grabbed my sword, but before I could pull it out of its sheath, someone yanked my arms behind me and began tying them. I yanked my head backward, slamming the man in the nose, pulling my hands away, and punching him in the gut before he could retaliate. I heard him gasp, then he shoved me to the ground with a force I’d never felt before. Upon standing up, more slowly this time, he punched my nose.

  I wiped blood from my nose and went for my sword again, but this time my feet were pulled out from under me by the man who held my leg. I kicked at him and this time pulled out my dagger, cutting him across his forearm.

  “Ahh!” He cried, clutching his arm, letting go of my leg. I kicked him in the face, and he fell to the ground. Then the broadside of the sword hit me hard on the back of my head, and I crumpled to the ground in pain. I felt him reach for me again, and I took my dagger and stabbed into something. But it was the ground and not the man, which I was half annoyed and half relieved at.

  I pulled it out, but not soon enough, and my hands again were being tied. The man who tied them was panting, and I could feel his fingers slipping on the rope that bound me.

  “This took a while, but we finally caught up with you. It wasn’t very fun, I’ll tell you that,”

  “Well, it wasn’t so well and jolly for me, either,” I huffed. He grunted in reply, rolling his eyes. “If you remember correctly, there were two of you and one of me,”

  “Actually,” He finished the knot, “not quite.” Before I could ask, he whistled loudly on his fingers, and men came, some running, some on horseback, towards us.

  Oh.

  “We could’ve used your help over here, you know,” The man said to them.

  “Well, you could’ve called us,” Retorted a man, crossing his arms, looking me over. “It looks like you had some fun without me.”

  “Yeah. Well, go see if he’s okay,” The man who bound me said, nodding his head to the man I’d kicked, who was still lying there. They attended to him while the man tied my legs and shoved me onto the ground. I accidentally dropped my dagger, surprised.

  “What’s this small trinket?”

  “He lives in that rich house, remember?” one of the men reminded him.

  “Of course I know,” The man snarled back.

  The one spoken to cowered, then said hastily, “Sorry, Commander Drax,”

  Drax grunted in reply, fingering the blade, then put it, along with the sheath and holster he stole from me, around his waist. It was supposed to wrap around the belt as a sort of second belt. It was tight on him.

  “It fits you nicely. Looks a bit like a corse,t though,” I added. And as I said this, half of the stitching burst.

  He turned red and took it off, dis-attaching the sheath from the belt thing, which he returned to me. As soon as he removed it, his belly flopped back down. It was still dark out, and the men seemed like they wanted some sleep. Commander Drax yawned.

  “Did that fight tire you out? Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said sympathetically. He started to retort, but one of the men said, “Commander, save your anger for later.” Drax stopped but growled. I smirked, then said, “So, what’s the deal here? What do you want me for now?”

  “You should be glad that we haven’t killed you by now.”

  His words caught my attention, but I replied, “I’m not sure if you could, anyhow.”

  He pushed that aside and said, “We have orders to get rid of you. And the more you talk, the more I get creative with what I can do to you.”

  “Orders from who? Your mother?”

  He aired, “From someone much higher in power above me than you’d be able to imagine in that little brain of yours.”

  I rolled my eyes, my arms crossed. “Still sounds like your mother.”

  He cursed at me angrily. “Foolish boy, our orders are from the King himself!”

  Although I could hardly say I wasn’t surprised, I acted that way. With fake awe, I replied, “What a terror!” Then I added, “The king who never shows himself and lies in lavish while his subjects sit in poverty? He can barely move a finger for he’s so covered in silks and lace, so how do you think he could muster the power to write a warrant for you to ‘get rid of me?’”

  “Well, here it is.” He held up a parchment with the writing scribbled on it. In ink — you could tell it was a slightly different color, a little lighter — was the king’s seal.

  “Didn’t even write it,” I scoffed quietly.

  “Of course not. He had it written by a scribe,” Drax said quickly. I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. But I scanned the document, which read this:

  “To: Commander Drax

  Because of present circumstances, His Majesty the King wishes that Commander Drax would take men with him, seek out Kyden Amahri, and do whatever he wishes with him, as long as he is exterminated. Be creative.

  Your Majesty the High King of the Isles of Calhor and the Marshalls, extended border of Adaesia and the Faering Sea,

  Matthias Jerrain.”