SIR ROWEN SUNSHINE's Arc

Chapter 5 of 2

At dawn the group broke apart. Aldric took the ransom note and the signet seal and rode south with the black dragon, carrying the proof to the king. Rowen rode north alone to hold the merchant. Sylara stood by his stirrup, bow in hand, and did not mount. "The merchant hires blades," she said. "You ride into them with no one at your back." Rowen gripped the reins. He knew it. One road needed the proof. The other needed a sword. He could not be two men. He rode hard through the morning. By noon he caught the merchant's party on the road. A wagon, a fat man in a fur collar, and six hired men with their hands near their swords. Rowen raised the king's name and ordered the merchant to stop. The merchant smiled and lifted one hand. The six men spread out and drew steel. Rowen was one against six. He pulled his horse back toward the trees for ground that favored a lone man. The hired blades came on. Then an arrow took the nearest man through the shoulder, and he dropped his sword screaming. Sylara stepped out from the brush, nocking a second arrow before the first man hit the dirt. "You split the group," she said. "I didn't." She had not ridden south. She had ridden after Rowen and shadowed the road. Two more arrows cleared two more men. Rowen charged the three who stood. He took one across the chest and turned fast on the next. Steel rang. The hired men had been paid to guard a wagon, not to die for one. When Sylara's next arrow buried in the earth at their feet, they broke and ran into the trees. The merchant tried to whip his horses forward. Rowen cut the harness and pulled him down into the mud. The fat man begged. He offered gold. He offered the name of other buyers. Rowen bound his wrists with the man's own fur collar and said nothing. Sylara walked out and looked at the bound merchant. "Alive," she said. "The king will want him talking." "You should have gone south." Rowen's hands were still shaking. "Aldric rode alone." "Aldric has a dragon," she said. "You had a horse." She lowered her bow. "Next time, don't split what shouldn't split." Rowen looked at the merchant in the mud, then north up the empty road. He had the man now, bound and breathing. But Aldric carried the only proof three days south, with the black dragon and no second blade. Rowen had held one road. He could not see the other. If the merchant's men reached Aldric before the king did, the proof would die on the southern road, and the prisoner at Rowen's feet would be worth nothing.