Chapter 8-4

Valgard’s lungs burned. He knew he hadn’t run far,but sweat drenched his silk shirt and cape. His bloody nose was a nail hammered into the centre of his face, and the blood was flowing around his mouth to give him a crimson beard. He admonished himself for becoming pampered. Pausing for only a second to lean up against a tree, Valgard galnced back to see if any of his knights had followed. There was Lloyd, running over a hill. Not out of breath. Of course.

“Is it over?” Valgard said, between long sucking breaths.

“At least one of the mongrels is in this forest, I know not of the other two,” said Lloyd.

A single drop of blood dripped onto Valgard’s right shoulder.

He looked up to see a sheepish-looking Leonas, shoulder still spitting out blood, perched on a tree branch above him. Leonas shrugged and leapt down from the tree, fired a burst of flame at Lloyd and took off again. Lloyd danced out of the way of the blast, but his sword was caught in it and shattered into a hundred warped pieces.

“My blade!”

“The tomes!” said Valgard. “I had them in my pack and it is gone... did he take them? I did not sense a thing!”

“He is an experienced vagabond,” said Lloyd. “But he cannot run far with that injury. I shall catch him and bring him to justice!”

Lloyd took off at a gallop. Valgard was behind him, trying but failing to keep up.

* * *
Anjanette and Milly came over the same hill a few moments later and found Leonas leaning against a tree trunk, changing out of his bloodstained shirt. His shoulder had been magically healed. The flesh over the wound looked unnatural, a patchwork replacement from stock parts, but it was no longer bleeding and the bones were barely even out of place.

The girls, on the other hand, were much worse for wear. Anjanette had a black eye and clothes drenched with sweat. Milly’s plain robes were caked with spots of dried blood, her right eye was a nasty shade of brown and wouldn’t seem to open, and she moved gingerly, afraid of breaking anything more.

“Okay, we’ve taken care of tubby and... martial arts boy,” Anjanette said.

“Martial arts boy?” said Leonas.

“Hey, I just got my lights rearranged,” said Anjanette. “Don’t question my wordplay now, Leo. Just tell me where the other two are.”

“They took off after me in that direction,” Leonas said, pointing deeper into the woods.

Milly laughed, then clutched her ribs. “The old loop-back-around?”

“She’s learning,” said Anjanette. “That always works on linear minds. But what about the books?”

Leonas lifted Valgard’s pouch, a shiny golden pack with silver-encrusted linings. He pulled it open to reveal four of the Ancient tomes.

Anjanette’s smile couldn’t have been removed from her face with a chisel. “Hell yes! Let’s get going before they realize that we’re in the other direction.”

Milly bent over and went into a long, hacking series of coughs. When she finished she straightened up and said “Um, let’s just hope we don’t run into those two again.”

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