foot.
Niko crept toward a boulder at the bend and crouched behind it. Three riders atop their horses trotted down the road. Two waited at the top of the canyon, their silhouettes dark against blazing sunlight.
Niko could take one out by surprise, but the two others would be more difficult. Assuming they were armed.
Yasir crouched beside Niko, a small, slightly curved, half-wood, half-metal contraption in his hand. Unless he was going to throw it at them, Niko wasn’t sure what good that little club-shaped thing would be.
“Varian’s keeping the horses calm,” he whispered.
Niko eyed the three approaching riders picking their way over the dried riverbed. They wore head coverings wrapped around the lower halves of their faces, leaving just their eyes exposed. Two were dark-skinned, like Niko, but another was fairer. They all wore light, layered robes. “Who are they?”
“Marauders. They roam the roads looking for easy pickings.”
Talking their way out of trouble was unlikely then. They’d want the contents of the wagon, and if its owners put up a fight, they’d leave their bloody remains for the vultures.
Yasir switched his strange weapon to his left hand and wiped the palm of his right on his thigh. Sweat beaded at his hairline, and it had nothing to do with the heat. He wiped his forehead dry.
Now wasn’t the time to get into it, but it was becoming clear Yasir wasn’t accustomed to battle. “Do you at least have a blade?”
He nodded tightly but lifted his little backward club. “Hoping it won’t come to that.”
Niko refrained from telling him he might want to turn the little contraption around to hit them with the heavy end, but he wasn’t sure it would make a difference. There wasn’t much weight in the thing whatever way he swung it. Walla help them.
The two riders atop the canyon had vanished in the sun’s glare. They wouldn’t go far.
The lead rider in the riverbed walked his horse around a scattering of larger boulders.
“Etara make my aim true,” Yasir whispered, then the fool stood up.
Yasir straightened his arm, flicked the club’s upward hook backward, pointed the narrow end at the rider, closed one eye, and pulled on the contraption’s ring. The little thing barked louder than a firework and briefly lit up like one too, startling Niko from behind the boulder. Impossibly, the rider, still some distance away, jerked in his saddle like he’d been hit, and tumbled from his startled horse.
The two other horses shied, desperate to flee from the sudden light and noise. Niko saw his moment, bolted forward, and made it to the nearest marauder as he reached for his curved blade. Niko swung his blade, slicing into the man’s arm. Blood splashed. The marauder cried out, pulling back. Niko yanked him from the saddle, then angled the tip of his blade against the man’s exposed throat. Terrified eyes looked up at him from between his face wrappings.
All Niko had to do was push down and end it. He breathed hard, fingers twitching around the blade’s handle. The lust for blood ran hot in his veins. Out here, nobody would know. Another body, and they’d attacked first.
Yasir’s noisy weapon barked again, and the third rider galloped off, bouncing in his saddle, barely staying seated.
Niko held the marauder’s blinking gaze. Niko bared his teeth. This man wasn’t an elf. He didn’t need to slaughter him, despite what his muddled heart and head were telling him. “A few rolls of silk aren’t worth your life.” He straightened and backed up. The marauder rolled onto his front and scrambled to his feet. Clutching his wounded arm to his chest, he staggered after his skittish horse.
Niko watched the riders until they were out of sight. The one Yasir’s weapon had dealt with lay dead on the ground.
Yasir appeared to be hastily refilling his barking weapon with black powder, spilling most of it over his dusty boots.
Niko sheathed his blade and approached. “We’d best get back to Vas—Varian.”
Yasir wiped his sleeve across his face and nodded, fumbling his strange little noisy club thing back into a custom-made pocket.
“What is that thing?”
“Pistol.” Yasir’s smile jerked, finding its place on his lips again. “I won it in a game of cards.”
That pistol had killed a man at twenty paces. Such a thing would have been more than useful at the frontline, against the elves. “Will you show me how it works?” They headed back down the river toward the brush.
Yasir shrugged, pulled it from its pocket again, and showed it to Niko.