The Captive

 Tex turned away to search the bandits, a small but precious opportunity for the prince to study him. There was an uncanny cast to him, for the purpose of everything on his person was discerned easily enough yet each was of a type Neteth had never seen before. He was not only a foreigner, but one who had obviously traveled a considerable distance. Yet he spoke with no more accent than a low-caste native. He was a foreign and likely a mercenary, that much was plain, but perhaps he had visited before.

“You've no need to plunder them. There will be reward enough from my family.”

“I'm not after money,” Tex said and tossed a ring to Neteth, who recognized it at once as belonging to the king's closest adviser, the old sukallu Ubashekar. “A little rich for thieves in the woods, don't you think?”

“Indeed. How strange,” the prince said, turning it between his fingers and recalling the time the sukallu had told the story of how he acquired the ring. Though his years prevented him from venturing far beyond the palace, that clever old man had once been a great general, and before that an accomplished traveler. A capable man in whatever endeavor he pursued, the prince admitted, despite his low birth. The ring was one of the most striking pieces in an extensive collection that Ubashekar had spent decades gathering. The simplicity of the piece belied the mastery of is construction, for it consisted of two gold wires entwined and detailed to resemble two serpents coiled about one another, one with eyes of jet and the other of nacre, and each devouring the other's tail. It was rendered with such lifelike precision that he could almost feel the creeping, slithering circuit of their struggle.

“We'll have to catch one,” he continued. “Alive.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, now. After them, before the trail goes cold!”

“Just the two of us?” Tex asked.

“It would take too long to gather help. Besides, they're in a state of panic.”

“Fine by me. A couple of them went back through that clearing.”

They began to run, and as they trod the brambles and dead leaves of the basilisk's nest he looked about for the animal, which he knew would return sooner or later.

“This place has seen better days,” Tex said.

“It's always this way when a basilisk is near. Its scales are covered in a potent toxin that kills with but a touch. You have to mind your footing where the tracks are fresh.”

“I figure I'm better off than you are there,” replied Tex, and it was true enough; most of his body was either armored or covered by – and here the prince had to grapple for the closest equivalents familiar to himself – some form of gambeson and leggings.

They raced onward as though the roots and trunks before them were no obstacle and soon heard the clumsy progress of a bandit left by his companions to find his own way. But the forest became healthier with each step and they pushed themselves knowing their quarry's opportunities to escape grew correspondingly.

“There's a ravine ahead. He will have to go left or right,” the prince said.

“I'll break left.”

The small but solid weight of the dagger in his hand reassured him. Its bronze length flashed where struck by scattered rays of sunlight like a flame held captive and straining to be free. The bandit saw him, skidded to a halt, and ran the other way.

The fleeing man made it no more than twenty or thirty paces before Tex flew into him, catching him about the waist and throwing him roughly on his back.

“Spare this wretch's life!” the man begged. “Had I known it was you, sir, I would have deserted Hati.”

“He is your leader, I take it,” Neteth said.

“Yes, and now he is dead. He told us only that we would kill a rich man. I did not know it was you, my lord.”

“Are you certain he had no intention of ransoming me?” Neteth was taken aback and struggled a moment to regain his composure.

“Yes, my lord. He told us no captives. A rare thing for our band, I assure you. I was so astonished when I saw you, my lord, I could not fight.”

Neteth looked at the quiver on the man's back. “Be that as it may, I'll have you flayed. You've offended me twice over, for being a traitor and a coward.”

The bandit looked to Tex in hope of finding a more sympathetic face.

“I'd just as soon let you go, but who knows? We might regret it. Maybe you'd run back and tell your friends....”

“I will show you where our camp is. But I tell you, we are no traitors. Every year the tax collectors hire us. Please spare your servant whose heart is filled with contrition and fear,” said the bandit, who bowed ostentatiously, pressing his face into the dirt.

“We shall see,” the prince said.

Their captive continued making signs of obeisance until Neteth ordered him to stand, whereupon he sprang to his feet and led them south, so obviously cowed that they felt no need to bind or gag him. He continued protesting his innocence until the prince ordered him to keep quiet, an order he eagerly obeyed.

Shadows lengthened as the day wore on and just as Neteth was on the verge of accusing the bandit of misleading them a spark flared in the distance. Their guide looked back and, speaking in a low, hoarse voice, told them they were near and indicated several places where lookouts would be posted.

“They will be on alert tonight.” From among the dross of his pleas they'd plucked some useful morsels of information, such as the fact they could expect some fifty men in the camp, all armed albeit with varying degrees of commitment and skill. Tex had said little and seemed to treat the matter as lightly as a normal afternoon stroll, while the prince silently fretted over how to overcome this challenge; for he had no doubt action was needed, only wavering on its form the way a sculptor might think of a hundred ways to mold the desired form out of clay.

“We'll wait for nightfall,” he declared.

Tex nodded.

“You,” Neteth said to the bandit, “will remain with us until then. If what you say is true, your freedom is assured.”

By then he knew better than to respond verbally, but merely knelt and averted his eyes.

“Just so you know, I'll come through it all right, but I can't make any guarantees for you,” Tex said.

“I know.”

“And you know fifty against two ain't great odds.”

The prince smiled with greater confidence than he felt. “Does the tide count grains of sand?”