Act 14.

Linda and Margaret stared in opened mouthed silence at the dead man in front of them. The black arrow protruding from his throat, his dead eyes staring into the sky.

Suddenly the thought struck them.

If there was someone with a bow and arrow in the forest who had just shot this man, then the two of them were potential targets, standing in the open.

They looked at each other and in the same moment both moved for one of the large statues that dotted the western lawn of the castle.

Linda could hear an arrow fly by as they hid behind the statue of the previous king.

"Well that went well." said Margaret as another arrow bounced of the mason figure.

"Yep." said Linda.

She turned to her friend.

"So what do we do now?" she asked. "Try to run for it? Try to get at your guest?"

"I never invited him." said Margaret.

"Does this happen a lot around here?" asked Linda.

"Well, you have to understand that some people are never happy with whoever is in charge, and so some disgruntled persons are bound to be more vocal than others." said Margaret.

"Specifically those who lost power when the new regime was established?" said Linda.

"That is a good guess." Margaret answered.

"Except...." began Linda, trailing off into thought.

"Except what?" prompted her friend.

"At one point he told you that things weren’t as simple as you thought." said Linda. "What exactly did he mean by that?"

Margaret nodded her head.

An arrow sped by planting itself into the ground nearby.

Margaret swore.

"Still there. Why doesn’t he just run?"

"Probably because he thinks our guy told us something, and now wants to keep us quiet." said Linda.

"Your probably right." said Margaret. "I had been wondering about what he had said as well. None of our know enemies have ever had one of their people killed when they were captured. This is new to me. Usually someone gets captured, we find out who sent them. The prisoner is executed and the one in charge is banished or fined or has some land taken away."

"But this is different." she mused. "I am wondering if this is a new enemy. And I like to know as much about my enemies as I can."

"Well, we know he is pretty ruthless." said Linda. "And if we don’t do something soon, that’s all we are ever going to find out."

Another arrow flew very close to Linda’s head.

The two women crouched down toward the base of the statue, which was the widest part of it.

"We need to get to the forest." said Linda. "But we need some sort of protection. Anyone who can hit someone with that sort of accuracy is someone to take seriously."

As if to emphasise her words, an arrow skited off the base of the figure near her left shoulder. Linda tried to make herself smaller.

Linda saw that Margaret was staring at the statue.

She looked up at it.

It was an ordinary statue to look at it. It was the standard pose of most of the statues in the western lawn. The king in full armour, holding a sword lifted aloft, a shield in his other hand, standing with one foot on his fallen foe.

She looked back at Margaret.

"What is it?" she asked. "What are you looking for?"

"Protection." was all the knight answered.

And as Linda watched, Margaret rose slightly and pounded her gauntleted fist into the arm of the statue that held the shield.

One.

Two.

Three times.

On the third try the arm broke off. Margaret pulled down the large shield shaped rock, just as another arrow nearly found it’s mark.

"You have to be kidding." said Linda.

"Can you think of a better solution right now?" said Margaret.

"I am open to suggestions."

Linda couldn’t think of any, so kept her mouth shut.

"That’s what I thought." said Margaret.

She broke what was left of the arm off, leaving only the shield shaped granite.

"Stay behind me." she told Linda. "We’ll head for the next nearest statue. And then on to the forest."

"Be careful." said Linda.

"You too." said Margaret.

They positioned themselves, with Margaret holding the stone in front of her and Linda hidden by both the stone and Margaret.

"Ok, go!"

They moved out from behind the statue and began to make their way quickly to the forest edge near to where they judged the arrows to be coming from.

An arrow hit the shield that was big enough to cover most of their bodies as long as they crouched while running. A second one followed soon after. By this time they had moved to the statue that was close to the trees.

A third arrow embedded itself in the ground near Margaret’s feet.

They quickly moved to behind the next statue.

There Linda caught her breath. Margaret hardly looked like she had done anything strenuous.

"Ready?" asked Margaret.

Linda nodded. This next run would be shorter than the last one, but now the archer was aiming to cripple them by attacking their feet and legs.

They moved off once again.

Just as they feared, the archer aimed lower.

He was able to get off three shots this time. The first two missed but the third did strike the top off Margaret’s foot. Fortunately it hit the armour covering that covers the top and bounced off.

They entered the trees, and Margaret dropped the shield.

They ran towards where the arrows had been coming from. They could hear their target running as well. It seemed he was just trying to get away and was not really the sneaky spy type.

The two women could now see that this archer was dressed in the black of his dead companion, but did not seem to be moving as gracefully.

The two warriors closed the gap between themselves and the archer.

Suddenly he dropped out of sight.

Linda and margaret exchanged questioning glances. They then heard the sound of horses.

They reached where the man had disappeared.

It was the edge of a hill leading to a path. They ran down it only to see a horse and rider galloping away down the trail. He disappeared around a bend.

Linda and Margaret stopped running. Linda caught her breath and looked around.

There was a horse still waiting there. They quickly moved towards it both with the same idea.

It was hobbled by a length of cord tying it’s front legs together.

The odd thing about this rope was that there was no knot. It was one continuous piece of rope.

"Magic." Margaret said with disdain while examining it. "This looks like it only comes off if you know the proper words or something. No way we are getting this off and using this to go after the other one."

"He must have been the other fellow’s mount." said Margaret rubbing it’s nose.

"No distinguishing marks." she said. "Probably no way to trace it back to an owner, but we’ll see."

"Still." said Linda now recovered sufficiently to converse. "It would have been nice to have a live one."

Margaret just nodded.

"We’ll head back and report." she said. "And have one of the mages come out here to get this off. Then we will see if we can’t figure out what is going on here with what little was left behind."

The two walked back to the castle.