**** WARNING, VIOLENCE AND BLOOD ****
Cavil watched Tannah cradle her injured lover in her arms while men, armored and unarmored, began to gather around them, offering aid.
Balter slipped past him, still naked, and knelt by his wife's side.
Cavil looked around at the camp surrounding their tent. It was quiet.
The response to this attack had been slower than he would expect. Even when considering the murdered guards Cavil couldn't help but wonder who had been paid to look away.
Something else was happening, he was sure of it. He turned and went back into the tent, just as Tannah was lifting Aretta up, thronged by men, tears running down her face.
He tried not to get angry as he dressed himself, stepping over the bodies of lizard men and trying not to look at his dead friend.
"Focus," he thought. "There are dangers yet to slink from the shadows."
Just then Polias slapped the tent flap open and hustled inside, followed by Zakilus. He felt the tension ease a little. These were his two most loyal knights.
"My lord, are you injured?" Polias said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Cavil heard steel slide from its sheath and turned just in time to see Zakilus drive the blade of his longsword down into the body of one of the sprawled Silgans.
"He was twitchin'," Zakilus chuckled, pulling the blade free and wiping its end with a small rag from his pocket.
"My lord?" Polias said, pulling Cavil's attention away from the creature Zakilus had just silenced.
"We need to get out of here," Polias told him, a sense of urgency in his glare. Cavil looked deeply into his eyes for a moment. "They killed Jerran and Gertashar, these animals were after you, not Tannah."
Zakilus nodded in agreement and tossed a ragged pair of trousers and a thick woolen shirt at Cavil's feet.
"Get dressed, we're leaving," he said in a demanding tone. Cavil looked up at him, noticing that he had a hand on his sword handle and sweat dripping from his forehead.
"Been off exerting yourself, have you, Zak?" Cavil asked. Zakilus hesitated and then took a deep breath.
"Yeah ... sorry, my lord," he answered, loosening the grip on the sword handle.
"Liar," Cavil thought. Zakilus never shirked his duties.
"What is this?" Cavil asked, inspecting the garments they had given him.
"What does it matter, we need to hurry, there could be ..." Zakilus said before Polias cut him off.
"It's a disguise, sir," Polias said. Cavil stood up slowly and started dressing himself at a reasonable pace, but not too hastily. The two men stepped back and watched nervously as Cavil pulled the trousers they had given him up around his waist.
He picked up the wool shirt they had provided and inspected it while Zakilus paced, pulling his sword part-way out of its sheath and sliding it back in again with a noisy click.
"Do you really think a beggar with two guards escorting him won't draw anyone's attention?" Cavil posed, pushing his head through the collar of the outfit and noticing that Zakilus had left his field of view.
He turned and saw Zakilus move toward him with a rag in his hands just as Polias seized him from behind.
He opened his mouth to shout but the thick fabric muffled his voice.
"We're not making you a beggar my lord," Polias laughed. "We're making you a prisoner."
Cavil tried to squirm free and saw stars as Zakilus struck him hard in the jaw.
When he had regained his senses he watched helplessly as they tied his wrists together with a hemp cord.
"Fuck," he thought. He'd known immediately that something was off, but they'd acted too quickly for him.
With his hands bound, Zakilus took the end of his leash. He looked back at Alswain's body one last time as they led him out into the night.
"I'm sorry, dear friend," he mourned internally, the fear that his death would be meaningless creeping into his mind.
He tried to note his surroundings mentally but he was still in a brain fog from being knocked senseless.
Before he knew it the two men were placing him in a saddle.
"Hmmumf fhmmum," he mumbled through the rags around his face.
Polias held the reins as Zakilus climbed into the seat in front of Cavil, then he wrapped the excess length of rope from Cavil's hands around his waist, pulling it tight before taking the reins from Polias.
Polias loosened the knots securing the animals and then mounted the beast beside them.
They kicked the horses into a gallop and quickly found the road.
Cavil scanned the trees for any sign of Tannah's scouts, suspecting that Polias had likely already bribed anyone who would see them.
Bribed, or murdered, he decided, thinking about Gertashar and Jerran, two men they had worked with for years.
They moved swiftly and dangerously over dark terrain, emerging into an open, downward sloping field. Cavil wondered, as the horse's hooves beat at the uneven earth, if his life would end due to some hidden ditch or gopher burrow.
Cavil strained nervously against his bonds, knowing that a fall at their current speed would be disabling if not fatal.
After a couple miles, they slowed, approaching a junction where the southern path crossed a westward link to the villages that dotted Turmadond's shore.
"So that's it then," Cavil thought. "There must be a boat waiting for them at Kurnsport." He raised his wrists toward his chest, observing a mere foot of cord connecting him to Zakilus.
"If only there were a way to unhorse this fucker," he thought. "I might be able to outride them long enough to ruin their schedule."
