Kieran yawns, leaning back in his chair, stretching. It's been a long night, and he must have drifted off to sleep at some point during his watch, but he doesn’t fret; it isn’t like their hideout is an easy place to find. They have been staying here for almost a year now, and no one has ever even gotten close to stumbling upon it.
The main entrance is hidden behind a waterfall; you can’t see it even if you know it is there, and the path behind is treacherous enough that only the most tenacious of people would even attempt to check behind it. The other entrance is even worse off, with it leading into an underground maze. Even their little troop doesn’t know all the different places the paths lead, other than into the bellies of some vicious creatures best left alone.
Kieran scratches his beard and reaches for the keys he left on the edge of the table. His hand gropes around for a second before his eyes widen, looking carefully on the table and below it, he notices his keys are missing. “Gods be damned.”
Kieran jumps to his feet and rushes out of the store room and through the hall to the entry hall. Kieran's eyes focus on the open cage, “Damnit. How did they manage that?” Kieran rushes back into the hallway, opening the door to his room on the right. “Mikael, get up, there's trouble—”
Kieran's voice catches in his throat, his hand hesitating as he reaches out in the dim light, turning Mikael over. A look of shock and terror is upon Mikael’s lifeless face. “By the gods, what happened? Who did this? The girls? Impossible.”
Shaking his head, Kieran reaches for his sword belt, finding it missing, he blinks several times. “Damnit, who steals someone’s belt?” Grabbing his sword, left discarded on his bed, Kieran runs out of his room to his cohort's room across the hall.
“Marcus, Joseph! I don’t know what is going on, the girls are missing, and Mikael—” Before he can finish, Kieran freezes in place. Moving slowly, he turns Joseph over, seeing the same look that was upon Mikaels, and glances up at Marcus' unmoving corpse in his bed.
Unsheathing his sword, Kieran throws his sheath on the ground, moving back into the hallway and down to the room he awoke in. Glancing in to make sure no one had entered since he left, Kieran moves to the last door on the left, opening silently, shoving it wide, and getting ready to strike. The storeroom is empty. Kieran turns and moves to the door at the end of the hall.
“What in the hells is going on?” Kieran opens the last door, moving into the dimly lit room, his sword raised. As Kieran nears the man lying in the bed on the side of the room, the man bursts into action, leaping out of bed and shoving Kieran back against a desk on the other side of the room. Kieran yelps in surprise, but before he can recover from the startle, a dagger is pressed against his throat.
“What is the meaning of this, Kieran? Now that the cargo is safely secured, you are betraying us? I’ll have your damned foolish head. Greed makes a man a fool, but I thought you were smarter than this.”
The knife presses harder against Kieran's throat, beginning to draw blood, before the man rips it to the side. Kieran shouts helplessly, “Wait, Will, wait! I would never betray you, I'm not a foo! Please, Will, someone’s taken the girls!”
William Sinclair's hand stops, a small trickle of blood running down the knife onto his hand. “Explain, now.”
Kieran swallows dryly, not moving even an inch. “When I woke, I noticed the keys were missing, so I checked the cage—and the girls, they were missing! So I ran to my room to get my weapons and alert Mikael, but he was dead. I checked Joseph and Marcus, and they had also been slain as they slept. Panicked, I checked the store rooms and found nothing, then came to check on you. I feared you had been slain as well. I know not why we both were spared, who took the girls, or where they went. Please, William.”
“Gods be damned, who was supposed to be on watch? This is why I always tell you fools to stay alert until the job is completed!” William Sinclair lowers the knife, cursing. He turns and begins to put his weapons and armor on.
“I-it was s-supposed to be Marus’ turn, b-but he and Joseph got to drinking. I-I decided to cover for him, b-but must have fallen a-asleep.” Kieran touches his throat tenderly to see just how badly he had been cut.
Finishing up, getting ready, Sinclair turns growling and punches Kieran in the face. “Get your shit and let's go. I am not letting those two go so easily.”
Sinclair storms out of his room, leaving Kieran behind. He checks the storage room with the chair and table, finding nothing amiss, he moves to the other storeroom. In the larger storeroom, Sinclair kneels, touching some drops of blood on the floor.
Blood in here? Why take the time to pause in here if they were here to rescue the girls? There is nothing of value in here. Did they take something? Doing a quick search and calculating what should be in the room. Sinclair moves back to the blood, squatting and moving his eyes as if following an invisible person.
They entered, turned to leave, then stopped. A pack is missing, along with some rations and some bandages. Using his knife, Sinclair lifts a bloody and damaged piece of clothing off the floor next to a barrel.
They were wounded. Unprepared to be injured as well. They stopped and bandaged themself on impulse. This wasn’t planned, so it isn’t the Ridge Weald; they would have brought their own supplies. And wounded? How did they get wounded? Joseph, Marcus, or Mikael would have alerted Kieran or me even if their fight was short and overwhelming, so it could not have been them. They most likely were taken stealthily in their sleep and wouldn’t have been given the chance to alert others or wound someone. Hmmm.
Sinclair moves down the hall silently like a ghost, his eyes darting around the hallway searching for anything amiss. Reaching Marcus and Joseph's room, Sinclair enters carefully, not to disturb anything. Marcus lies in his bed, eyes barely open, one arm under him, while the other appears to have moved to grasp something near his chest. Joseph, on the other hand, lies face down in a pool of blood. His eyes are wide and full of shock, arms parted away from himself with hands that look as if they were grasping at someone.
Marcus was taken completely unaware; he barely seemed to have reacted at all. Judging from his wounds, this wasn’t cleanly done; it is rough and vicious. Many stab wounds with slight tears to them as if the person was in a rush or panicking.
This is not the work of a soldier or a cutthroat. A soldier would have been more dramatic with a larger wound; most likely, they wouldn’t have slit or stabbed the throat but driven the sword through the chest, nailing them to the bed. They wouldn’t have worried about waking the others; all three would have been killed around the same time unless the soldier was alone.
Even if the attacker were alone, the work would have been more methodical. It isn’t the work of a cutthroat, either, well, not a skilled one at least. They would have made a quick, clean cut, finishing it fast and smoothly. No, no, this seems to be done almost in anger or by someone who is unaccustomed to taking lives at night.
Sinclair leaves the room and enters Kieran’s room. Kieran finishes putting his armor on and grabs his pack. “I’m almost ready, sir. I just need to grab Mikael’s belt, and I will be ready.” Sinclair's eyes immediately move to Kieran’s waist, then his nearby hand where he holds his sheathed sword. Raising an eyebrow, Sinclair looks Kieran over from top to bottom.
“Why do you need Mikael’s belt? Where is your own?”
Kieran’s hand tightens on his sword. “It's the damnedest thing, when I ran in here to get my sword and tell Mikael of the girls’ disappearance, my belt was missing. I left it right here hanging on the end post of my bed, but my sword was simply tossed onto my bed, and the belt was gone.” Kieran moves to the foot of Mikael’s bed, shaking his head as he removes Mikael’s sword from this belt and adds his own in its place.
“Was anything else taken?” Sinclair asks, moving past Kieran and looking at Mikael's still form. Squatting down, he examines Mikael’s face, hands, and wounds.
“Umm, No? I don’t think so anyway. I didn’t notice anything else when I went around. Oh, the lights seem to have gone out in the entry hall, but that seems to be about it.” Kieran finishes putting the belt on and scratches his short beard. Absently, he places his other hand on the hilt of Mikael’s dagger on his waist, the feel of it seeming off, and he glances down. “Oh, and my dagger. It was on my belt and wasn’t left on the bed like my sword. I guess they took it.”
“You dagger and your belt? That is all, you are sure?” Sinclair looks up at Kieran, then turns and looks at Kieran’s bed. “And your sword was just left here on the bed?”
Kieran nods to Sinclair, moving next to him, looking at the empty bed. “Yeah, it is the damnedest thing, isn’t it? It makes no sense at all.”
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Sinclair reaches out and picks something small off of Kieran's bed, smells it, and rubs it between his fingers, looking closely at it. “Did you rest here at all yesterday or last night?”
“No, after we got back, I put my gear down and then headed to the entry hall. We all ate, and the boys got rowdy, then took to drink. I moved to the storage room for some peace and quiet. I checked the girls once they had had enough to drink, and they were lying in the cage asleep, maybe crying, I don’t know. Nothing was amiss.”
“You didn’t sit here even for a moment? Not just passing through or to check anything?”
“No, I didn't. I'm telling you, why do you keep asking?”
Sinclair stands and holds his hand out to Kieran, showing the black smudge. “Ash, there is ash all over your bed. You are right about one thing: none of this makes any sense.”
Kieran moves around Sinclair and checks the bed as if he cannot believe Sinclair. “What the hell? This wasn’t here yesterday when we returned.”
Sinclair scratches his chin, staring at the ash on the bed. “It wasn’t Ridge Weald or some lucky brigand. Whoever did this was impulsive and unprepared. They acted rashly and made odd decisions that might have made sense to them at the moment but now seem particular.”
Kieran glances up at Sinclair, confused. “What? What makes you say that it wasn’t Ridge Weald? They are the only ones who should be looking for us. We haven’t upset anyone else recently. It must have been them; they are just doing strange things to throw us off, that has to be it!”
“No, that is unlikely. If it was the Weald, they would have killed you in your sleep and come for me, not just taken the keys and left. A brigand or assassin would have done the same; they wouldn’t have left us behind to give them chase or build a grudge with. Plus, why would any of them need your sword belt and dagger?”
“Or have to take rations from our store room for that matter? And the amount they took was too little to be of any use, unless they planned to use it solely for the girls, but then they definitely were not prepared to rescue them. Also, whoever it was had been wounded. I found blood and a makeshift bandage in the storeroom, along with some of ours missing.” Sinclair shakes his head.
“If not the Weald, who could have done this?”
“That is the question, isn’t it. My only guess could be someone from the Dark.”
“The Dark?” Kieran shudders as the word leaves his lips; his hand moves to his sword instinctively.
Sinclair chuckles at Kieran's response. “It wasn’t elves that is for sure, but maybe someone who was lost down there. It would explain a bit. Any length of time down there would drive a man to make unstable decisions. Food, but not enough for anything extended, the belt, and to replace one lost or damaged, and fresh bandages over whatever could be found at hand.”
“Even killing the others in search of supplies and the keys makes sense. By the time they found you and the keys, they chose to just take the keys and leave. In the Dark, you never want to stay too long anyplace. Leaving us alive wouldn’t matter; they probably didn’t realize how close out of the Dark they were and figured we’d have other problems than chasing after them.”
Kieran nods.“When you say it like that, it does make sense, but if they are from the Dark, how will we find them?”
“They wouldn’t have backtracked; that is too dangerous. They would have left through the secret entrance behind the waterfall. If it was light enough when they left, they will probably be moving slowly, the transition from the Dark to the world of light isn’t easy. But there is one thing that still doesn’t make sense.”
“What's that? You said yourself that everything fits with someone from the Dark.” Kieran is frustrated at this confusing mess.
“Not the girls.”
“The girls?” Kieran can’t help but glance at the cage they used to be in.
“Yes, the girls, why take the girls? If they think they are still in the Dark, the girls would be almost worthless. Their crying would attract unwanted attention, and it isn’t like they will be moving willingly either. It would be a death sentence dragging them along, so why take them?”
“With brigands, cutthroats, or the Weald, it makes sense they want to either rescue them or ransom them as we did, but someone from the Dark most likely wouldn’t even know or care who they were.” Sinclair pushes past the confused Kieran and walks out of the room and into the entry hall.
He pauses in the entrance before turning back, pushing past the following Kieran again. “And why put out the torches?” Sinclair pulls the only lit torch out of the hallway’s bracket and returns to the entry hall. Glancing around, he moves to the torch bracket in the entry hall to relit it. “Interesting.”
Kieran watches as Sinclair puts the torch in the bracket and turns back to him. “Wait, they didn’t put the torch out, but took it? Why would they do that?”
“If they were from the Dark, they wouldn’t have; bringing the light is a death sentence.” Sinclair moves back to the doorway next to Kieran and begins to examine the room. Kieran moves toward the cage, opening his mouth before Sinclair stops him and motions for him to remain silent.
Sinclair takes in the broad scene, then moves to the cage. It is open, but otherwise nothing seems amiss. He turns and notices the table. His hand touches the ash, rubbing it between his fingers, before glancing at the torch he just placed. Moving swiftly, he heads back to the bracket, noticing a chair near the wall.
Sinclair touches the chair with one hand and glances at the table, his eyes widening. Sinclair shoves the chair back in place, picking some more ash off this table, looking to the secret entrance, and he finally notices the corpses.
“Over here,” Sinclair calls out to Kieran while pulling his dagger. The men approach the foot of the table and find the gruesome scene of three needleleafs with their heads bashed in.
“Needleleafs? What in god’s name happened to them?” Kieran subconsciously takes a step back, his lip curling.
Sinclair moves between the corpses, examining each in turn. He pulls a small piece of scorched metal out of the mess of the head of one of them. Moving it between his fingers, tossing and catching it occasionally, he continues to check the three bodies. It doesn’t take long before he stands and looks at Kieran. “They didn’t come from the Dark.”
Moving closer to the gruesome scene, Kieran gazes confusedly at Sinclair. “What? How do you figure that?
Sinclair holds up the piece of metal he found and points at the corpses. “They came from the waterfall. The ground is still slightly damp, and the needleleafs charged toward them as they entered.” Fiddling with the metal, Sinclair smiles
“And this is from the torch in the entrance, also missing, I bet. That is why it was so dark, even with the one in here missing. They used the torch as a club, beating and burning the needleleafs. That is why they took your belt; they weren’t armed. The torch is where the ash came from, on your bed, and on these tables. It had to have been mangled, given the beating they gave to these things.
They took the belt and dagger and used it to kill Mikael; maybe they woke him or saw him as a threat or something. Afterwards, they moved to Marcus’ and Joseph's room, killing them and taking anything they needed.”
“They moved to the storage room next. They didn’t plan on taking anything, but as an afterthought, they decided to grab some food and a pack to help with the girls. While doing so, they found the bandages and wrapped their wound more properly, discarding the makeshift rag. But there is no blood here in the entrance; they were hurt by the needleleafs. “
“They never once had a plan; they were unarmed and poorly supplied. They weren’t used to killing; these ones, the needleleafs, are an act of aggression, crude and over the top, as if they didn’t know when they needed to stop. It also explains the wounds on the boys; they took the dagger and just went to town on the weakest area they could find, the throat. It was savage and rough, no plan, skill, or style to it.”
“Then they came into the room you were in and saw the keys. They didn’t kill you because the keys were right there, just taking them and leaving before you woke up they probably didn’t even try my door because they already found the keys. I know what you are thinking.”
“‘Why did they rescue the girls then?’” Sinclair said, mimicking Kieran’s voice with a smirk.
“And that is simple. It was either on impulse, like everything else they did, deciding to help them since they were in trouble, or they were out searching for them and stumbled in here by accident, finding them. It is most likely the first, given how young they were.”
“Wait, how do you know that they were young? Hell, how did you figure any of this out?” Kieran looks shaken, glancing between the small piece of metal, the dead needleleafs, and Sinclair.
Smiling widely, Sinclair claps Kieran on the shoulder, walking to the torch on the wall. “The blood trail is the biggest clue giving away their actions after they got hurt. They didn't bandage it well with the makeshift rag, and you could see the path they roughly took, including where they paused and turned back in the storage room.”
“The damaged torch is the second-best indicator; they left ashes all over the table in front of the cage where they spoke with the girls and were probably told the key was in the rooms with us. It was then left on your bed next, as they took your sword off the belt and took just the dagger. Why not take the sword? Because it was too large and heavy for someone so young, but that isn’t all.”
Pulling the chair back out and sliding it under the torch, Sinclair gestures to the chair and table. “Why pull this chair out and put it under the torch? Because they couldn’t reach it! At first, I thought maybe it was the girls, they decided to take the torch, but the ashes on the table say different.”
“The same person who put it down to talk to the girls, who put it down on your bed to get the weapon to kill the boys, put it down here as well to get on the chair and get the undamaged torch. They couldn’t reach the torch or carry the sword. They were unarmed and used a found torch as a weapon.”
“No soldier in their right mind would do that, and any brigade or cutthroat worth their salt wouldn’t have been unarmed. And most importantly, if they were planning on leaving the way they came, they wouldn’t have bothered taking another lit torch with them. They went into the Dark.”
Kieran's mouth hung ajar, listening to Sinclair. He glances around the room, trying to see the things Sinclair obviously did, but fails. Shaking his head, he turns back to Sinclair, even more amazed. “But why go into the Dark if they came from the waterfall?”
“If I were to guess, I would say it was the girls’ idea. We brought them in through the Dark; they probably didn’t want to follow some random, strange youth into the unknown darkness with a tale of a cave hidden behind a waterfall, especially after watching him beat those needleleafs to death with a torch. Having gone through the trouble of helping the girls, the youth probably followed after them.”
“Let's go, if we hurry, we might be able to catch them before they become something’s lunch.” Grabbing the torch, Sinclair heads off into the same unlit hallway Max and the girls left through, Kieran following hot on his heels.
