Hunted: The Conclusion

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.”