Clutching the hilts of the short swords belted to their sides, three legionaries stepped into the tavern and squinted in the dark. They questioned Eirene the serving woman. She shook her head, but her eyes flashed at the table where Alexios, Dionysios, Gontran, and Diaresso were sitting—except they were no longer sitting there. They had left.
Slipping out the back door and passing the chefs and servers working at the cookhouse, Gontran guided the fugitives through a narrow side alley to the street, with Diaresso’s crossbow bouncing on his back. The two merchants jumped onto their horses, followed by Alexios and Dionysios—two men to each mount. This was Alexios’s first time riding a horse. All he could think about was falling off, breaking his neck, and spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, though the voice reassured him that he was an Apprentice Rider (Level 4/10).
The fugitives rushed toward Abydos’s outskirts. It was late, but still crowded, as the city’s sailors and fishermen were going home for the night. The two horses—Gontran’s black palfrey was named Phaethon, and Diaresso’s white Arabian was named Musa—pushed through the heaving masses.
Alexios looked back at the tavern. Three legionaries ran out of the entrance. Before he could look away, they pointed at him.
I guess my stealth isn’t very high, he thought.
As a swordsman it is only at Beginner Level (2/10), the voice said. Rogues like Gontran Koraki are Masters (8/10), however.
Pointing and shouting, the legionaries seized three horses from the crowds, mounted them, and urged them to a gallop, knocking men and women and children aside and even trampling them.
“Gontran,” Alexios said. “Uh—I mean, Helena, whoever you are.”
“What?” Gontran turned back and spotted the approaching legionaries. “Oh, darn.”
Sounds like Helena, Alexios thought.
Gontran-Helena yelled at Diaresso to get moving, then urged on his own mount. Phaethon and Musa could only go so fast, however. Each horse carried two men, the crowds were dense, and none of the four fugitives wanted to run anyone down.
By now the legionaries were blowing their whistles. The fugitives escaped Abydos and urged their horses to gallop north, though the poor beasts could never keep up this pace for long, grunting beneath the heavy weights on their backs, their heads heaving up and down. Soon they were groaning. The voice warned that the exhausted mounts were close to throwing the fugitives.
Something whistled past Alexios and thumped into the grass nearby. He looked back. A legionary was shooting arrows at them.
They’re trying to kill us! he thought.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Just then the legionary loosed another arrow at Dionysios. The old monk drew his Adhana sword—still bloody from the tavern fight—and, without even looking back, sliced the approaching arrow in half. The two pieces clattered on the road.
Alexios’s mouth fell open. Dionysios met his gaze and smiled.
By now the horses were growing so tired that the four fugitives were forced to dismount. Gontran fled into the grain fields and hid, and Alexios followed, hoping somehow he could take advantage of Gontran’s high stealth skill. But Dionysios and Diaresso stood their ground—the former raising his sword, the latter stepping on his crossbow and winding up the bolt loaded inside.
The mounted legionary archer loosed one more arrow at the old monk. Dionysios knocked it away, his sword sparking against the steel arrowhead. By then Diaresso was ready. He hefted his crossbow, took aim, and pulled the trigger. It made a kind of creaking-snapping sound as the bolt darted through the air and lodged itself in the legionary's throat. The man clutched his spurting wound and fell to the ground.
“Whoa,” Alexios said.
The two other legionaries galloped past and swung their swords at Dionysios and Diaresso. Dionysios deflected the blow while Diaresso leaped out of the way, dropping his crossbow and drawing his scimitar from its golden sheathe.
The Romans dismounted and approached, swords at the ready.
“Why are they getting down?” Alexios whispered to Gontran. “Don’t their horses give them an advantage?”
“I think their swords aren’t long enough,” Gontran whispered back, nodding toward a massive white charger. “That one’s practically the size of an elephant.”
The legionaries must have left their shields and throwing spears back in the city, which was a problem for them since Dionysios’s katana was longer and lighter. Nonetheless, they still had their helmets and armor. As professional soldiers they also stuck together, approaching Dionysios while doing their best to keep the old monk between themselves and Diaresso.
The Roman soldiers said something in Latin to each other which Alexios was unable to understand—it must have been some tactical term. Then, while the soldier on the left attacked Dionysios with his sword, the soldier on the right stabbed forward. In most cases, this would have killed Dionysios, since an ordinary person armed with just one sword could never deflect two blows at once. But nothing was ordinary about Dionysios. Deflecting the first attack, he jumped so high into the air his legs were both parallel to the ground, flying over the spatha sword coming at him and kicking the face of the soldier on the right so hard that the man was flung onto his back. Landing on the ground, Dionysios kept turning and swung his blade into the helmet of the soldier on the left. This man also fell. For a moment, both legionaries were stunned. Dionysios could have killed them, but he allowed them to get up and flee to Abydos. Diaresso had already sheathed his scimitar and was winding up his crossbow again, but Dionysios stopped him.
“It’s easy to kill them,” the old monk said. “Not so easy to bring them back to life.”
“They will alert reinforcements.” Diaresso raised his crossbow and took aim. “There could be hundreds of such warriors in Abydos.”
“It’s almost night.” Dionysios looked at the sunset which had ignited the clouds in the sky. “They won’t find us. And besides, I think I solved our transportation problem.” He nodded to the three extra horses wandering the fields.
Quest completed, the voice said. Help Dionysios find horses.
Diaresso frowned and lowered his crossbow. The legionaries were out of range.
The fugitives gathered their horses—now totaling five—and rode as fast as they could along the road that led north to Konstantinopolis. Alexios had somehow procured the massive white charger for himself. While he bounced on the saddle, barely holding on due to his low horse riding skill, he named the horse Blanco.