The Branchalite Legionnaires

Chapter 8: The Forest of Wayreth

The forest had opened up a little about an hour before midday in their travels. Michelle got a little anxious when it was not quite so dense. She had Fandy and Ailea look for tracks, since they were both capable and this time they came back with the news Michelle was dreading: horse tracks, and not their own. There were enough skilled wilderness types in the group to avoid that kind of nonsense. Four horsemen. Looked like heavy warhorse tracks. Michelle brought them all to a stop.

"How recent Sir Ailea?" She asked the individual capable of putting it into human terms.

"Less than an hour. Two in medium armor, two in light armor. If I had to guess, I'd say two Thorn knights and their squires."

Michelle nodded, a thoughtful express on her face. "It's possible we could locate them first, right? Try to ambush them?"

"Slower to track than to ride," Ailea pointed out, apologetically. "We knew they were going to be out here. If we just ride hard in the same direction, we will meet up with them soon enough. Unless they've stopped to investigate something. Then it will definitely be sooner."

"Can we arrange for them to meet up with those goblinoids?" Michelle referred to the hobgoblin tracks they had come across earlier, though there had been no sign of hobgoblins either.

"They may have goblin worg riders with them, which means they could outpace us."

Michelle sighed and called everybody over into a huddle, including Fandy on her riding dog. "Sir Ailea has found tracks from horses, quite possibly Thorn knights and their squires. We knew they were out here looking for Wayreth, now we have positive confirmation. We've also seen tracks from hobgoblins. Again, we knew they were out here, so it's not a surprise. We need to figure out a way to travel safely here. Every time we have a conflict, we expose ourselves to danger. It's only a matter of time before something bad happens. I'm willing to entertain options here. Even run like crazy in the direction we need to go and just don't look back." She managed a weak grin at the last.

"You and Fandy could scout ahead on foot," Steven suggested. "You're stealthy enough, you could spot the bad guys and come back to organize an ambush."

"Slow, but possible," Michelle conceded. "What do you think Fandy?"

"Fandy think it too late for that. We got flying sorcerers coming our way." The Aghar lady pointed up into the sky and Michelle saw the knights. At the same time, she heard horses coming from their direction.

Michelle took a look around and then said, "Spread out. If they unleash those hail storms I don't want them catching more than one or two of us. Get the horses to safety and get your bows ready."

They dismounted and all spread out then, so that not one of them was within twenty feet of another and the horses would not be targets. Bows were readied and almost as one, arrows were loosed into the air at one of the knights flying nearby – apparently, they had not yet been spotted. Sarah sang a spell instead of using a missile weapon, and Michelle could feel Branchala's blessing guiding her movements. She then felt a blessing from Gilleana buoying up her spirit. Many arrows hit one of the Thorn knights, but he did not fall. Only one arrow hit the other flying Nerakan and the squires were not visible enough for anyone to target them.

Then Thorn Knights responded with their devastating hail storm, one hitting Steven and Michelle, the other hitting Steven, Ailea and Gilleana. The two squires came in much closer on their horses and the knights flew in closer too. Michelle focused on the flying knight she originally targeted, as planned, two arrows loosed at him in quick succession. One arrow stuck in his left arm, the other pierced his torso and the knight crashed into the ground and lay still. Michelle heard Sarah sing another blessing from Branchala. Sarah extended her right hand palm up and a golden ray projected from it toward the remaining flying knight. The ray hit the knight causing him some significant burn damage, but it did not bring him down.