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.”

Hunted (Part 3 of 4)

Night came too quickly as the boy waited for the inevitable to come. It wasn’t fair. Why would they think he knew magic? He never cast a spell or sacrificed the neighbor’s yappy dog in a dark ritual. He didn’t know the first thing about magic.

His mother was sitting in her chair sobbing again as she watched her son and for the first time Sane understood why. She feared this day would come ever since Avelice disappeared. She would lose both of her children to the Kenzai.

His father stared helplessly at a bottle of ale. He had not yet given in to putting the bottle to his mouth, but he did not look far off.

Maybe Avelice will save me, Sane thought hopefully, or her husband, Xander.

He finished packing his meager possessions: some clothes and an old slingshot he got as a gift on his last birthday. It seemed wrong that that was all his life had boiled down to. A few possessions that fit snugly into a backpack and any trace of the boy would be gone from this place after tonight.

The family ate dinner listlessly. No one wanted to say their final goodbyes and they could think of nothing else to talk about. The moment they finished there was a knock at the door. The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence. If there was any doubt that the Kenzai were watching them, then that doubt was now gone. The three of them stared at it intently, but did not move. A second knock followed. This one was a bit louder and sounded somehow more insistent than the one that came before. Sane’s father finally rose from his seat and opened the door.

“Sir Cordwainer,” the cloaked figure nodded, “It is time.” The man entered the room without being asked. He was followed by another Kenzai who was similarly attired in a non-descript brown cloak with the hood pulled over his head and the husky Constable Ragnit.

“It is good to see you again, Josef,” the constable said to the boy’s father, “although I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“As do I,” replied Josef. He spoke like a man resigned to his fate.

The first Kenzai stood before the boy and pulled down his cloak revealing the face of a man who was probably in his mid-thirties. To Sane, he said, “This is scary, I know, but I promise that nothing bad is going to happen to you.” He cautiously took Sane’s backpack from him and handed it to the other Kenzai without looking. His focus was always on the boy.

The other man rifled through the bag and pulled out the slingshot. “A weapon,” he said devoid of any warmth in his deep voice. That was probably why the first Kenzai had done all of the talking up to that point. He handed it to his partner.

“You can’t take this,” said the first Kenzai, “I’m sure you understand.”

“It was a gift from my parents,” Sane told him on the verge of tears, “It’s all I have to remember them by.”

“Rules are rules,” the baritone Kenzai told him stoically.

“Let him keep it!” his mother wailed to the surprise of everyone there. “Let him keep the slingshot!” She lunged at the Kenzai holding the slingshot and made a grab for it, but the Kenzai was a battle hardened warrior and flung her to the ground with his free hand causing her to cry out in pain.

Josef went for the man next, but he was pressed up against the wall by the apathetic Kenzai who pinned him by the throat with one arm and freed his sword with the other.

“Easy,” Constable Ragnit cautioned pulling his own sword, but it was unclear whether he was warning the Kenzai or Sane’s father.

Sane was unsure of what to do as he looked at his mother crying on the floor and his father turning red from a blocked windpipe. He felt the blood pumping through his small body. He wanted to fight these men and save his parents. Instead he turned and he ran down the hall toward his bedroom. He had a hand on the doorknob when he remembered the dreams about these men catching him in there. He ran into his parents’ bedroom on the opposite side of the hall instead and climbed out of their bedroom window with an ease only possessed by those that were both young and swift.