laneys.info Beware of Yankees, drunks, and loose women.

William was sure of two things: one, he had not seen a living being in over a month, and second, he was lost.  With no landmarks visible in the miles of sand, retracing his path was going to be a lot harder than he had counted on.  It did not matter: he whould find her or die trying.  Between the heat during the day and the cold at night, he was beginning to wonder if the latter might be more likely.

Several more days passed before he saw someone at a distance.  Though he was no mage, William knew a little prosaic magic that could come in handy.  He cast the spyglass spell from his sailing prosaic list; this allowed him to see ten times closer than normal.  William could tell a bandit when he saw one, and he also could tell this one had friends by the way he kept looking over his shoulder.  Having been trained in the ways of ambushment, William figured the attack would come that night.  When the dunes grew taller, obscuring the view of the enemy, William set camp.  He pitched his tent with the rear toward the dune, then he hobbled the horses thirty feet away from the tent.  William took up a position thirty yards away on a small dune and waited.  William hoped his ambush skills would serve him well tonight and mentally prepared to cast the nightvison spell from his warrior law prosaic list.

Around midnight, in the moonlight, they appeared; two of them, they crawled down the dune on their bellies like snakes.  William activated the nightvision spell and suddenly he could see them as if it were day.  He smiled to himself as they took the bait, one going for the horses and the other entering the tent.  William put an arrow into the one nearest the horses first, then killed the second as he exited the tent.  Two down.  William sensed that there were more, so he waited.  Two minutes later, three more appeared; one with a bow, two with swords.  The archer stayed at the top of the dune covering the other two as they descended to the camp.  The archer gave a small cry and toppled backward as the arrow found its mark in his chest.  The other two never knew what or who killed them.  As the last one fell, William whispered, "That was for you, Areial."  Again, William waited.  Nothing.  The treat was over.

Checking the bodies, he found four gold, three silver, but no horses in the area.  William broke camp and, using the remaining time of his nightvision, put some distance between himself and the camp site.  William was still feeling cocky two days latter as he rode.  Five bandits down, no small feat.  Then, without warning, the sand behind him exploded.