Robber Royale: Fairytale of a Thief and a Scoundrel

Boar

By the next evening she had pretty well had her fill of the bandit lifestyle, though by the looks of it, she wasn't the only one; over twenty-four hours of being cold and damp was taking its toll on all of them. Not a word had been said since they'd lunched, the warmth from the otherwise unimpressive food, a little piece of heaven; as it had been that morning after one of the most uncomfortable nights Gaelian had faced in awhile, though she was willing to bet Fox's had been worse.

She had fallen asleep against him sometime during the evening meal and had woken up hours later in the same position, he still seated, his head lolling forward. She'd moved enough so that he could be more comfortable, but the chill was such by then, she wasn't willing to move away much more than that.

Still, it hadn't rained since early morning, and over the last half hour the forest had begun to thin out, deciduous overtaking the evergreen, patches of the soon-to-set sun warming up the earth around them. Fox called for them to halt and everyone dismounted, stretching out as needed, Gaelian's legs unstable at first, unwilling to bear her weight.

"We continue on foot from here." Fox said, turning about his own horse and giving her rump a smack, sending her trotting back the way they'd come, everyone else following suit; their having transferred the things from the horses into their own packs that morning now making more sense to her.

"Wait. What? Why in the Two Kingdoms..." Gaelian protested tiredly as Fox came over and sent her mount on its way with the rest of them. She sighed as she watched it go, then turned, giving Fox a look.

He simply smiled, though it was weary. "Time to lay low again."

That got her attention, and she looked around them with more suspicion than before, hurrying to be at Fox's side as he started off again, their pace achingly slow now in comparison with riding.

"Why is that?" She whispered.

He cocked his eyebrow and smiled down at her before answering. "Because love, we are now in the land of the Boar."

She looked back up at him with wide eyes, to which he responded, "Don't worry, so long as we keep our wits about us, stick to the edges, and stay quiet, we'll be just fi..."

The shrill cry of a horse cut his words short, followed by the drumming of horse hooves from behind and to the right of them. Before they'd even had time to respond, riders could be seen. Dressed in heavy leather and furs, several men charged full speed towards them on thick sturdy horses, one lifting a horn to his lips, letting out a great mournful bellow.

Without the need for any direction, Fox's men turned and ran, Fox and Gaelian with them.

Miraculously, they seemed to outpace their pursuers, or at least Gaelian didn't see them anymore in her glances backwards.

"Spread out!" Fox managed to yell eventually. But just as they began to do so, from out of nowhere it seemed, another group of riders came upon them from the left, blowing their horn as well.

They all turned and began running towards the right in an effort to get away from this new threat.

Where had they come from? It couldn't have been the same group, could it? But if not, how did they know...

Her thinking was cut short by another charge of horses, this time directly in front of them, all of them backpedaling then heading slightly left in an effort to get away from both groups of horses. But...where was the last group of horses? Shouldn't they have been upon them by now?

Her knee was hurting again, skipping the building-up-to-sharp-pain step, straight to the sharp-pain.

She needed to stop, but if she stopped then those horses...Wait, where were the horses?