Private Tales Your Money or Your Life

[Rob Yew]

A single man stood in the road. No. Not a man at all, for his ears were pointed, though they scarcely peaked from a face half-swathed in bandages. He'd a tunic and loose pants, much stained and patched. He idly picked at his fingernails with an enormous knife, seemingly heedless of the rattling wheels and clop of hooves, announcing a single carriage and four accompanying horseman.

Tall bushes rose on either side of the dirt road and here the trees stood thickly together, a canopy through which the sun peeked through in shafts of light.

The leaves stirred with the wind and in the autumn, many fallen leaves rustled in flurries on the ground.

"Out of the way you fool," barked the lead rider, his liveried surcoat above his chainmail announcing him as a guardsman of one of the mercantile houses of Alliria.

"Hmmm," mused the solitary elf, "No. I think I'll stay."

The lead rider urged his horse forward with foul oath, but as the horse clod forward upon a pile of leaves, the leaves gave way to hole dug in the dirt of the road and covered with a thin lattice of branches. The branches snapped beneath the horse's hoof, sending the horse collapsing into the hole and hurling the rider from the saddle.

The screaming of the injured horse split the air and for a moment, all the riders watched in horror at their fallen comrade laying still in the dirt where he'd been thrown.

"Bastard," growled one, reaching for his sword.

"Ahh, I wouldn't," mused the elf. And just then an arrow hissed from the bush, skimmed past the rider's ear, and buried itself with a thwock in the wood of the carriage.

A crooked grin twisted the elf's lips and he pointed his dagger at the lot of them.

"All of you, dismount, or you'll be sprouting new growths in goosefeather."

Lyria Killoran

 

[Lyria Killoran]

She has been trailing the path the carriage and men were traveling for a while now, not engaging in the slightest. A bow and a full quiver of arrows strapped to her back, Lyria was ready to intervene. She had spied the waiting group of highwaymen and gave them a wide berth as she circled around. They were awaiting the cargo coming through, and no eyes dared to look behind them as the main event rolled past the bend.

Lyria poised herself atop of the ravine, concealed beside a tree trunk that allowed her dark brown cloak blend her into it's shadow. An arrow was now nocked into her bow, but she did not move to draw it just yet.

The anticipation had her heart thumping loudly, but Lyria reverted back to her lessons in centering herself, of calming herself to better concentrate on a target or task.

The elf that conducted the main event was not half bad. He had done this before, knew how to wield his charming countenance to stall the guards.

She had a job to do. Beneath her breath, Lyria began to count the seconds passing, holding up her bow readily as she waited. There was someone to kill, as there was wealth to be taken. Of course, she did not plan on being made known after she would make a kill, and would leave the fallout to the elven male down below on the road.

Gods bless him if he escapes.

Lyria pulled back the string, drawing her arrow and now waited for her shot.