#soaa

The bounty hunter, perched on the limb of a dew-laden tree, nocked an arrow in perfect silence. The arrow, fletched by a master of great skill, roamed over the skulls in the camp below. Fourteen men with their bedrolls and wineskins, fourteen men with fat purses and bloodied knives. The sun had yet to breach the horizon, but the hunter could still see in the half-light of morning; the hot blood of these men would feed the earth until sunlight flooded the world.

The arrow loosed, the only sound in the clearing the soft crack of crumpled bone. Another and yet another fell, until the sound was too great, and a single man woke.

His thunderous roar pierced the early morning quiet, “Awake men, we're being attacked!”

The bounty hunter swung the bow over a shoulder, dropping down to the ground below with a muted thud. The hunter fled through the trees to the small clearing where a horse was tied to a tree. The bay gelding nickered, stamping his front hooves with nervous energy. There was something wrong; he could tell. Animals could always tell.

The hunter tore his reins from the tree and swung onto the horse's back, pulling the hood and mask over hair and face. Shouts from the thieves in the clearing caught their ears, the half dozen still-living men scrambling onto their own horses. The gelding needed no more encouragement to start galloping away through the trees. The hunter decided to steer him back to the main road. Speed was their friend now and weaving in and out of tree stumps did not afford much.

The dirt road was further away than the hunter remembered, turning east on the trading route. The gelding was glad to be out of the forest and lengthened his gait accordingly. The hunter kicked his sides with a little force; the thieves would be here any moment and they needed as much of a head start as was possible.