49. Surprises.

Maria and William walked along the dark path that would take them to William’s place. Most of the paths around here were always a little dark. They had a few torches placed fairly far apart to give some light to those walking the paths, but not enough to make the island easily seen from passing ships. The village was hidden by a very thick forest that surrounded it and the main port was in a bay, the entrance to which was well hidden.

Maria was not that worried about the darkness. One of which was because the pirate code forbade fighting on the island, except in the case of duels for honour. Any breaking of these rules would put a pirate in front of the pirate court. There they would be judged by their peers and punished as was fitting the crime. This could range from a fine to hanging. It had been a long time since the last hanging had happened, according to what Maria had learnt in her time here. But fines for drunken brawls or stealing someone else's booty were the most common transgressions to happen recently. Not that that surprised Maria that much.

So Maria and William were not expecting anything out of the ordinary. So when something out of ordinary did happen, it took both of them completely by surprise.

As they rounded a bend in the path they were confronted by what seemed to be two men dressed all in black. But Maria soon realised that these were not standing like men. They were hunched slightly and seemed to be swaying. The two of them stopped to assess the situation. There were just standing there as if waiting for orders.

"What is it you want?" asked William.

The men did not answer just stood there.

"What is going on?" asked William of Maria.

"I don’t know," said Maria. "But I suggest a retreat would be in order."

As much as Maria did not like backing down from a fight, She was not armed right now as her sword was safely hidden in the small hut they had offered her, since barmaids would not have a great big sword on them. Unfortunately, the sword being safe, made her vulnerable. So she wanted to avoid conflict at the moment.

The two of them started to back up the path.

They bumped into something and the two slowly turned their heads to look at what it was. It was another of their assailants, and this time they could see that they were not men at all. Yellow eyes looked out of shadows, fangs could be seen protruding from an opening that could be, loosely, called a mouth. Its arms were longer than a man’s and there were large claws where hands would be. They were not dressed in black, their skin was black and covered with a coat of very thin hair.

William cried out and leapt away. Maria moved back to be next to him. Now Maria could see that the creatures were starting to move in on them.

Maria saw that William had pulled an amulet from beneath his robes and was tapping it rigorously.

"What are you doing?" she asked out of frustration.

"This thing is supposed to tell me when magic is being performed anywhere on the island, "He said. "If someone brought them here, I should have been notified."

She pulled him out of the way of the creature that was near him and taking a swipe at him with its claws.

"We can worry about that later," she told him. "Right now we have to not get killed."

That statement brought the point home and he put the amulet away.

"I’m not much of a fighter," he said.

"I guessed that," said Maria. "I can fight, but I am not sure what kind of damage I can do to creatures like this without a large weapon."

Another of the creatures took a swipe at them. Maria pushed William out of the way and rolled to her right. As she rolled she reached into her left boot and pulled out the small dagger she hid there. She got to her feet quickly behind the creature that had attacked them and sliced into its back with the dagger. It didn’t even make a noise it just turned and swiped at her again. Maria couldn’t tell if she had hurt it. For all she knew their blood was as black as their skin and she wouldn’t be able to tell if they were bleeding. The creature swung again and Maria rolled away again. She thought of just outrunning the things, since they didn’t seem very quick, but she didn’t really want these things running around free to attack anyone else. Besides, she wasn’t sure how fast William could run.

She looked over at him. He was doing something with a bag while one of the creatures was coming towards him. He reached in and pulled out some powder that he blew in the direction of the creature. The creature hesitated for a second, and then continued on. William’s face showed his surprise that nothing happened and he scrambled backwards. Maria moved to catch up to him, when she felt a hand grab her ankle. She had forgotten about the third creature and it had surprised her. She fell sprawling on the ground. She rolled onto her back and looked up at the first creature getting ready to strike.

Before he could do anything though, a sword came into her vision and struck the creature at the neck. It went right through, but instead of the head falling off as Maria expected, the creature just disappeared.

"That was strange," said the voice of Julie.

Maria looked up into the face of Julie, who smiled down at her and held out her hand. Maria took the hand and Julie lifted her effortlessly to her feet. Julie turned and stabbed the creature that had tripped Maria through the heart, and it too disappeared. Finally Julie moved toward the last creature and hacked into it, seeing it just vanish like the rest.

Julie, Maria and William all just stared at each other in the silence. All of them had the same puzzled look on their faces.

Maria broke the silence.

"How is it that you were here, Julie?" asked Maria.

Julie looked embarrassed.

"I followed you two," she said. "I was watching you two at the inn and you weren’t acting as two people making a date. You were too sombre looking for that. The others were too drunk to notice, or just didn’t care."

She looked around as if making sure there were no other people around to hear.

"Besides," she continued. "I can read lips a little and saw that you kept mentioning the Hunter from the tales. And since Hunter has been on everyone's lips lately, I wanted to find out what you knew. So I followed and saw the creatures come after you. I couldn’t just stand by and watch them hurt you. Besides that little dagger of yours doesn’t look like it can do much."

Maria put the dagger back in her boot.

"You’d be surprised what it can do," she said.

Maria turned to William.

"What were those things?" she asked.

"At first I thought they had been summoned but, again, my amulet told me nothing magical was happening and my banishment spell failed. Now I think they may have been projections. That would explain my amulet not notifying me since it cannot detect psychic activity."

"Someone’s mind sent those?" asked Julie incredulously.

"Or several minds," said William.

"Why did her sword destroy the creatures?" asked Maria.

"I don’t know," said William. "But if I can examine it at my lab, I may be able to figure that out and that could help us figure out who sent the creatures."

"Then let’s go," said Maria leading the way up the path to William’s lab.

As she walked she pondered the new information she had just received. The psychic abilities shown by their attacker could be what’s stopping Maria from finding her prey.

The question was, Are they hiding themselves or someone else.