Pandora's Box

Chapter 1: Part II

A beat later and flanked by her escorts, Pandora raced after her father and his guardsmen in hot pursuit. The thunder of hooves trampling the soft road pounded in Pandora's ears and pine-scented breezes tousled the hair from her shoulders. With every passing stride, the phantom pressures of the uncertain future melted away leaving only the open sky and the rhythmic tranquility of the chase.

On the horizon, the road snaked its way through a family of rolling hills steeped with the stony nubs of the earth's knuckles. Pandora watched as the king's guard pressed their mounts hard around a bend and then disappeared with the king close behind. The princess leaned forward and urged her mount on. Being defeated with the steels had hurt enough. But she would never allow herself to be defeated in a race.

Pandora felt a rush of adrenaline as she leaned hard into the bend. The rush fast turned to confusion.

And then to dread.

The king's guardsmen lay in a leap in the road's center, their mounts vanished. The king lay at the road's edge. He clutched in agony at his ankle. Pandora's keen eye found the culprit stretched across the road. A length of black chain...

The princess wheeled her mount to an abrupt halt, reins digging into her hand despite her supple gloves. She ordered her men to hold, but was a second too late.

Four men pounced on Pandora's guardsmen, a pair of thugs to each man. The human missiles knocked the soldiers from their mounts, seizing the element of surprise, and making quick work of Pandora's escorts. Two more highwaymen emerged from behind an outcropping of rock, and approached the downed king with weapons drawn and eager.

Speech grated the back of Pandora's throat like dry sand. King Drake struggled to his feet, and found his tongue easier to find. "You men halt-"

A bandit's boot found its mark on the king's chest and sent Drake sprawling back into the dirt. A chorus of jeering laughter came from the man's partners and thanked them all with a mocking bow as they circled their catch. For a second time, Drake scrambled for footing on his wounded ankle. A bandit with a flat, pan-shaped face descended upon the king from behind, sweeping at the monarch's uninjured leg, dumping him once more into the earth.

"Stop it!" Pandora's command screeched across the treetops, jettisoning dozens of birds from their perches and piercing the air like a hawk's talons.

The thieves snapped to the princess. Their captain, Lakal, a squat man with the tanned skin of those who called the lands at southern end of the Great Road home, regarded the young woman with a sickly grin filled with yellowed decay.

"Well, well, she speaks after all!" Lakal gestured with his flat chin and two of the bandits seized Pandora's reins. "Gentleman, please unburden Her Highness of any valuables."

Fear gripped Pandora's body like a vice, squeezing the very breath from her lungs. Her hands spasmed as her fingers white knuckled around the reins.

"Stay calm, Pandora," Drake said, voice steady despite the danger. "It shall all be over soon."

Pandora nodded her understanding. The tension gripping her shoulders began to ease-until one of the thieves, a man in a soiled, ill-fitting shirt grasped her knee and laughed. "Maybe we can take her with us." Pandora's eyes stretched wide open as Soiled Shirt's friends shared his laugh.

But the laughter died a gurgling death.

Drake's dagger whistled as it sailed for its mark, and landed with a thunk in Soiled Shirt's throat. The king rolled to a stand, hobbling delicately on his good foot, drawing his sword. Pandora seized the opportunity as her father had taught her, slamming her heel into the chin of the bandit holding her reins captive.

"Take him," Lakal roared as he drew his own sword.

Lakal's remaining thugs rushed the king, daggers and clubs readied high. The King parried a storm of slashes and piercing lunges. Drake's impeccable form and patience stymied the common thugs' wild attacks. But only for a moment.

Pandora saw the sweat beading at her father's brow, glistening proof of the gnawing pain at his ankle. The king's shoulders looked as though they bared the weight of the world. His counter attacks slowed. "Pandora, ride!" Drake shouted, fending off a neck high slash.

A bandit circled behind the king...

"Father!" Pandora screamed.

Too late.

The bandit's club buckled the king's knee and he collapsed in a heap. Drake's sword rolled from his fingertips. The bandit who clubbed him pinned Drake's wrist into the road with his boot and pressed the tip of his club to the king's chin.

Burning fury squeezed Pandora's pupils to needle tips. The skin at her fingertips prickled, and the tingling sensation spiraled up her forearms. The edges of her vision dulled and then disappeared as though a dark stage curtain had fallen. "Leave him alone."

Lakal bent at the waist, his rolling belly laugh nearly knocking him over. "Would you look at that! Look at the anger in those pretty blue eyes. Careful boys, she may just hop on down and have your hides."

The bandit hovering over King Drake raised his club. Patches of leather and fabric on Pandora's gloves and sleeves burned to ash as the prickling sensation grew. Indigo flame erupted around her hands. Her voice abandoned its previous tremor and came reforged as wailing thunder. 

"I said leave him alone."