It was a voice I’d heard recently. A beefy, wrinkled arm choked my neck and a blade pressed against my back prevented me from moving. I heard Trent gulp. Even he didn’t dare turn around.

Strands of long white, grayish hair fell over my chest as the man pressed tighter against me.

The old man.

Getting all sweaty had been for nothing. He was standing right behind me, breathing heavily and latching onto his prey.

“What, are you gay, old man?” I hissed. “Let go of me.”

He sliced through the skin of my left waist. It stung and felt hot. I could feel blood gushing out of that area.

“Just where the hell ‘re my horses?”

“How should I know? Do you see us with any? They were gone when we arrived.”

“You better be honest with me, or Hilda’s going through your stomach, punk.”

He named his Machete?

“Sir. We ain’t your enemy,” Trent said in a different kind of accent. “Don’t you saw all those town folk yonder? They’re lookin’ fer someone. Likely the same goons that ransacked ‘yer yard and took ‘yer ‘orses.”

My eyes shot wide. I knew where Trent was trying to go with this lie. I put my hands up. “That’s right, sir! We found a big hole and investigated. We didn’t mean any trouble.”

“I smell bullshit in your words, boy,” he said, bringing the blade closer to my back.

“Come on, old man. Why wouldn’t we take something as valuable as a horse if we did what you said?”

“Then why’d you run?” he hissed.

“A person comes out yelling and waving a machete. What are we supposed to do?”

I could feel the blade pressing against me recede.

“So yer with the watch?” he asked in a softer tone.

“O’ course,” Trent replied. “Them knights’re lookin’ for someone. Likely a group.”

“Argh,” the old man, said, scratching his head in annoyance. “Betcha they came through the back hole. The mayor said he’d patch it. The snake.”

“The back hole. Right. Near the southern wall,” Trent said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Oh, Trent is getting him to talk.

“Yeah. You seen it?” the old man grumbled. He exhaled loudly and took off running back to his yard. “Alright. Wait for me, eh? Going to grab somethin’!”

We were far enough that his footsteps couldn’t reach our ears after a while, and Trent and I were alone again in the small forest.

“How’d you know what wall he was talking about?” I asked.

“I didn’t. I was going to keep guessing ‘till he told us.”

“Hm. Let’s find that back hole then.”

“We have no choice. Hopefully, it’s not just the rambling of an old man. Take off your shirt, Alster.”

We threw away our shirts and went half-naked. In this world, it wasn’t uncommon to see a shirtless man. Even back in the village, the poorer men without clothing to spare would work in the fields shirtless, using their shirt as a hat or bandana against the sun’s rays. It was looked at as a sign of poverty. Here at Casselberry, we’d seen some of the poor sleeping against the walls of establishments using their shirts as a blanket. It would let us blend in.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Casselberry was a walled town like Lancaster. Though made out of splintery wood bound to have inconsistencies I could take advantage of, they were too high to climb. But if the old man was telling the truth, we wouldn’t have to.

Trent and I made a mad dash toward the southwestern wall. Aldernman’s dome was moving away from us. So he was surely heading toward the main gate. It was all or nothing. If there was no back hole, we’d lose our only chance to reach it before him.

Close to the wall, the patrols of town guards were making rounds, most walking in groups with a leader holding a large lantern. I figured the town had regular guards too, since from what Trent told me, the Holy Knights sometimes moved stations depending on their assignment. But to our surprise, a few of them working independently were riding horses.

Trent and I looked at each other and nodded.

“How much water do you have left?” he asked.

“Enough.”

We waited in front of a tree and tried our best to blend in the shadows. Within about two minutes, Alderman’s dome receded past us and I restarted our invisibility. With three targets active, the timer was down to an hour.

Invisibility was overpowered for stalking. As we moved closer to the wall, we came within feet of a five-man night patrol. They passed right by us, none the wiser; although I did realize they were slightly on edge and looking over each other’s shoulders for intruders since the bells rung.

We let them pass. Aside from the crunching of grass beneath their feet, there wasn’t a sound in the air, waning as they got further away. It stayed silent for nearly ten minutes. Finally, with the former group far out of sight, a new patrol with three horses came. They were coming in fast, with no signs of stopping.

I had two options. The first, stay invisible and shoot one; wait for the others to realize something was wrong and finish the job. The risk was missing my target and them getting away. The second option was to undo our invisibility and take them all on at once.

I chose the second. I let Trent know what I was about to do and he gave his blessing. He decided to pick up a few rocks on the ground to act as a distraction, while shooting from a tree in their blind spot, still invisible.

Good idea.

I got in front of their path as they were approaching and waved my hands.

“Stop! Wait!”

They three men pulled on their horses’ reins and stopped in front of me. They were pretty strong-looking men in their mid thirties, with chain mail, leather gloves and boots. Their heads were uncovered.

“Who are you?” one of them asked, glaring.

“I ran from my home. I couldn’t sleep! I saw a dragon in the sky!”

“Dragon?”

“Yes!” I said, waving my hands frantically. “I think it might return soon. GASP! Up there! I see it!”

As they turned their heads to look up, I shot the one closest to me in the head with a fast water ball. He fell over, face planting the ground. Trent immediately threw one rock after another at the other two.. They shielded their faces with their wrists while I continued to shoot. Trent snuck up to one of them and pulled him off his horse, strangling him by the neck. The man kicked and flailed in vain as he tried to fill his lungs with air.

“You won’t get away with this!” the last man said, whipping the reins of his horse and taking off. He left his comrades and fled while the second man fell unconscious to Trent’s chokehold.

“Alster, let’s hurry,” Trent said. “How much time do we have?”

“Fourty minutes.”

“Turn it off for now. Until you see another patrol.”

I left only Matilda’s invisibility on. Trent and I mounted a horse each and scaled the outer wall, looking for the hole the old man had mentioned. The walls’ grooves and occasional stone crevices were unusual but nothing out of the ordinary. And certainly not close to a hole.

Where could it be?

I didn’t have time to ruminate. In the distance, another patrol group along the wall came into view, about a hundred feet in the distance. I resumed our invisibility and passed them before turning it off again. This happened several times as were circled the wall from the southwest to the southeast.

“The old man must’ve lied to us,” I concluded, annoyed as we passed our fifth group of patrols. A small trail of smoke and faint light in the distance got our attention. The flames of a bonfire leapt six feet in the air, crackling. About ten men, were seated around two wooden tables stacked together playing cards. Large crates blocked a section of the wall about six feet wide. The wall directly adjacent looked charred and blackened.

Trent and I hadn’t decided on a signal to stop, as we were expecting an abandoned hole, not a camping ground. But this must have been it. Behind those crates might be the hole. I couldn’t hear Trent or his horse, but I had stopped anyway. I hoped he had done the same, as we couldn’t get separated now.

The ten men were playing cards and drinking.

I guess if I turn it off just for a second, I’ll signal Trent.

As my card shone, Trent came into view. He was right next to me.

Perfect.

I turned it back on and enabled sounds from just us two.

“Father, do you have a plan?” I whispered. “I bet the hole is behind those crates.”

“I don’t. We can plan a surprise ambush. But I think that is the extent of our options.”

The only thing standing between us and a clean getaway were ten drunken men.

“Guess we have no choice,” I said. “Load up on rocks. We’ll shoot them on my signal.”