Fear carried his feet forward as he
dashed between a pair of Kenzai that clearly hadn’t expected the boy to come
their way, but they lost little time before calling to their brethren and
following in pursuit. Sane wondered how well his pursuers knew the streets that
he tried to lose them on. The sounds of more boots on cobblestone came from
behind him. It would not take long for the men with their longer legs to catch
the boy. He had to hide.
His eyes flashed around him peering
into shadows as he looked for a safe place to hide from the hunters. Magic! he thought, Magic! Magic! Magic! Come to me! Help me! The boy felt a second
wind come to him, but if there was any magic about he could not tell.
A hunter appeared before Sane
causing the boy to veer down another side street to avoid the Kenzai’s grasp.
Another hunter came from the right and two more appeared on his left, but Sane
continued to run darting out of each man’s reach in turn. He was getting tired
again, but pushed on. There was no stopping now. He knew that if the hunters
caught him, then they would kill him.
Still the hunters gave chase and
followed him or tried to cut him off. Then he saw what he had been looking for.
An unattended merchant’s cart was parked outside of a house. The boy risked a
look behind and saw that he lost the hunters- at least for the moment- and slid
underneath the cart. It was a perfect hiding spot for this time of night as
long as he stayed curled up in the shadows. The cart appeared to be too exposed
to make a good hiding spot and Sane thought it might only get a cursory glance
from the hunters for that reason, but within the shadows he would be difficult
to see.
The moment of truth arrived scarce
seconds later as one of the Kenzai ran past. Then three more followed suit. The
boy wondered how many hunters there were. It did not matter he was too weary to
run any farther. It took all of his concentration just to control his exhausted
breathing.
A fourth and fifth man ran past,
but they enjoyed a more leisurely jog rather than an all out run. One of them
stopped terrifyingly close to the cart.
“Why are you stopping?” asked the
other.
“Need… to catch… my breath,” the
one near the cart huffed.
A minute or more passed as the
hunters rested. One was actually sitting on the cart now. Every nerve in the
boy’s body called out for him to move his feet, but he could not overcome the
fear and weariness that kept him rooted to that spot.
“Do you feel that? It is like a
pooling of magic,” asked the one that stood at the end of the small side
street.
The one sitting on the cart did not
respond leaving the question hanging in there. Then a sudden jerk of the boy’s
tunic pulled him out from underneath the cart and the grim face of a Kenzai
hunter greeted him. In a movement so swift that the boy could barely even see
the blur of the strike in the night the Kenzai hit Sane in the face with his
ham sized fist driving the boy to the ground.
“That is for making me run,” the
hunter told him.
“Calm down, Marcos,” said the other
hunter, “He is just a boy.”
“You make me run, you get hit. That
is the rule,” the bruiser reminded his partner.
Sane rubbed his cheek. “What are
you going to do to me?” he asked looking at the one who hit him.
The bruiser jerked the boy up again
and began dragging him along until the boy was able to regain his footing and
walk between the men.
It was the one who showed Sane some
small mercy that answered. “You would have been going to a domain to live out
your days, but now that you ran… it will be up to the magistrate to decide. You
will either continue to the domain as planned or be sent to the prison of Baj
as a rogue magician.”