They tumbled, a chaotic descent down the near-vertical cliff face. Sharp, jagged stones, thankfully, failed to pierce their heavy armor, but each jarring impact sent a fresh explosion of stars across Silas's vision. His body cartwheeled down the steep incline, slamming against protruding rocks, snagging momentarily on a gnarled, jutting tree branch. Several times, Silas clawed desperately for a handhold, a tree trunk, anything to arrest his uncontrolled fall, but even branches thick as his arm snapped under his weight. The knight, Lothlan, was a tumbling, silver blur not far from him, his plight even more dire. Helmetless, he could only curl into a protective ball, hugging his head tightly, resembling less a knight and more a bizarre, armored sphere, his silver plate armor shrieking and grating with each violent impact.
"Where's Lothlan? Anyone see him?"
"Down there! Quickly, find them!"
The ragged, panicked shouts of their pursuers echoed from the clifftop above, torchlight a nervous, flickering dance against the dark sky. Silas could hear the crunch and slide of leather boots on loose scree; they were searching for a viable path down. He was still flailing, still trying to find purchase, anything to slow his descent, but the crushing weight of the armor, combined with the treacherous, slick moss coating the rocks, rendered all his efforts futile.
The two human "balls" finally reached the bottom, crashing with bone-jarring force at the cliff's base. Silas lay sprawled on his back, winded, fighting for breath, the world a dizzying, spinning kaleidoscope.
*Can't stay here. Pursuers will be on us any second.* He struggled, grunting with effort, to prop himself up. His vision swam, then slowly, agonizingly, refocused. Not far off, Lothlan lay motionless, blood still seeping from an ugly gash on his face, as still, as silent, as death itself.
Silas's hand, moving with a furtive, practiced stealth, crept towards the short knife sheathed at his waist. He limped closer, every step an agony.
*This one had better not be dead,* Silas thought grimly. *Otherwise, his men will never let me walk away from this. Worst case… I'll have to haul him into town, dump him at whatever passes for a hospital here.*
"Don't move."
The voice was cold, calm, and undeniably lethal. A blade, equally cold, pressed against the nape of Silas's neck, sending an icy shiver down his spine, the hairs on his arms standing erect. He froze, every muscle tensing. *So soon? They found us already?* He could feel the blade's chill, an almost intimate pressure, seeping through his skin, threatening to touch bone.
*The archer.* It had to be. *This one… this one is dangerous.*
"Hands up. Turn around. Slowly."
Silas complied, raising his hands with a deliberate, measured slowness, his mind a whirlwind of frantic calculations, assessing the odds, the angles, for a counterattack. He still had a sliver of power left, a desperate, final reserve. If he could just focus it, channel it all to his neck, then, in the instant of turning…
"Let him go, Leon."
Lothlan. He moved. Stirred. Slowly, groaning, he pushed himself into a sitting position, his face a bloody, battered ruin, yet, incredibly, stretched in a wry, almost cheerful grin. The only mar to the picture, aside from the blood, was his nose, now canted at a comically grotesque angle, lending him a rather pathetic, lopsided air.
Lothlan reached up, gingerly touching his mangled nose, then winced. He looked at Silas. "This… *friend*… of ours," he said, his voice surprisingly steady, "is clearly no Purity Army dog. That disorganized rabble lacks the capacity, the sheer *audacity*, to recruit a brother of his… caliber."
Leon chuckled, a dry, humorless sound, and sheathed his sword.
"I know. When I was scouting earlier, I caught the scent of wolf on the wind, quite near to where I first saw him. I presume our… *little brother*… here had already spotted me by then. And the wolves that caused such a ruckus? Also his doing, I'd wager."
"Damn it all to seven hells!" Silas finally exploded, his voice raw with exasperation. "Then what in the blazes were we fighting to the death for, just now?" He was, he had to admit, utterly, completely, fed up with these lunatics.
"Hah!" Lothlan propped himself further up, leaning heavily on one arm, his armor groaning in protest. "A good, honest fight is a rare commodity these days, wouldn't you agree?"
Silas immediately scrambled back several paces, his eyes, narrowed and wary, sizing up the two men. In the pale moonlight, he could now clearly discern Leon's features. Lean, almost wiry, middle-aged, his face smeared with dark streaks of camouflage mud. A longsword hung at his hip, and beside it, a compact short bow and a quiver of arrows.
"You are free to go," Lothlan said, with an airy, almost dismissive wave of his hand. He sounded, impossibly, like a perfect gentleman, as if the preceding life-or-death struggle had been nothing more than a minor, accidental collision in a crowded thoroughfare. "My sincerest apologies for any… inconvenience… we may have caused you."
*Godsdamned madmen. Every last one of them. Time to run.*
Silas had already turned, was already taking his first step to leave.
"Wait!" Lothlan's voice, sharper now, cut through the night. "Your name? Perhaps… perhaps there is common ground between us. Perhaps we could… cooperate."
Silas didn't break stride. He wanted no part of these people, no entanglement in their strange, violent affairs. Especially given the distinct, unsettling possibility that they were Church operatives, sent to silence any and all loose ends.
"I *will* find out, you know!" Lothlan called after him, his voice, though fainter now, still echoing in the darkness. "I will find you again! Count on it!"
Silas's figure swiftly melted into the concealing depths of the dense forest. He didn't look back. Yet, he could feel it, an almost physical pressure on his spine, the weight of those unseen gazes following him, until, at last, the intervening trees swallowed him completely.
For the next several, grueling hours, Silas moved at a punishing pace through the lightless forest. He deliberately chose a circuitous, roundabout route, even circling the entire perimeter of Sordin Town twice, a painstaking effort to ensure he had shaken off any potential trackers.
Only when the eastern sky began to pale with the first, faint blush of dawn did he finally, cautiously, return to his temporary encampment.
The tattered tent was still there, its patched canvas surface glistening faintly, damp with morning dew. As Silas approached, a familiar, low rustling sound emanated from the nearby bushes. Scamp, followed by the rest of the pack, emerged from the shadows, their tails wagging with a hesitant, almost sheepish cheerfulness, yet their posture, Silas noted with a wry amusement, held a distinct air of… three parts sneakiness, and seven parts abject, cowering subservience. They milled around him, their wet noses nudging his hand repeatedly, a clear, if unspoken, apology.
For the very first time, Silas thought, he was witnessing a truly guilty-looking wolf.
*"Cowards. Utter, complete, lily-livered cowards."*
"Useless bloody things," Silas grumbled, though without any real heat, as he grabbed Scamp by the scruff of his thick neck ruff and rubbed vigorously. These cunning, pragmatic beasts, he knew, had undoubtedly sensed the shift in the battle's tide, recognized the overwhelming odds, and made a swift, strategic retreat at the first opportunity.
And that, he conceded, was probably for the best. He released his grip, watching as Scamp, in a display of fawning affection, began to enthusiastically lick his fingers. If these foolish, loyal brutes *had* stayed, if they *had* tried to intervene… they'd be little more than charred, smoking carcasses by now.
He crawled into the tent, unceremoniously clearing out the wolf droppings and scattered food scraps, then collapsed, with a groan of utter exhaustion, onto the simple pallet of animal skins that served as his bed. The myriad wounds on his body throbbed and burned with a fiery intensity. He'd have to venture into town later, procure some medicinal herbs, some bandages. But right now… right now, he was simply too tired, too drained, to move. What gnawed at him, more than the physical pain, more than the lingering exhaustion, was Lothlan's final, parting pronouncement.
*"I will find you again."*
Silas stared up at the small, ragged hole in the tent's canvas roof, through which a single, defiant ray of nascent morning light now penetrated. *Were they Church? Why would they be at a Purity Army encampment? And what in the seven hells did that posturing, enigmatic knight truly want from him?*
Outside the tent, Scamp, already, was sprawled on the ground, snoring contentedly. The creature, Silas thought with a shake of his head, fell asleep with an astonishing, almost insulting, rapidity. As if *he*, Silas, were the one tasked with keeping watch. He closed his eyes, forcing his aching body, his racing mind, to rest. Whatever Lothlan's true motives, whatever game he was playing, Silas knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that he had to remain vigilant. Ever vigilant.
After all, in this treacherous, unforgiving land, trust, more often than not, was a far more lethal weapon than any sharpened sword.