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  After a few seconds, he heard three more bangs. They must have been loud for him to hear from inside the tunnel. Insistent indeed, he thought, continuing along the dark underground passage.

  At the sound of the men at the door, and the feeling of the earth closing around him, Tansley felt memories being awakened.

  It was a few years earlier, in his old trading post further up the highway. He could hear strange noises, there was movement downstairs, whispered voices, the rattle of metal, the creak of floorboards. There were people inside. And when their clumsy noises brought no response, the intruders became emboldened.

  They'd scoured the hut and found him hiding in a cupboard. They forced him to reveal the location of his most valuable possessions, before leaving him, bloodied and bruised.

  When this trading post became available with the death of its proprietor, Tansley bought it and moved in. He'd learned from the previous owner that it had a clever means of escape. He was putting it to good use now.

  Reaching the end of the tunnel, he carefully opened the trapdoor, briefly looked around and climbed out. He stayed close to the ground and lowered the door gently.

  Although not far from his hut, the combination of the trees, bushes and the embankment made it impossible for him to be seen from the road. He would take no chances though, and would remain crouched until he was a good distance away.

  Sweeping some soil and leaves over the door, he picked up the sack and swung it over his shoulder, before heading down the embankment and further into the woods.

  Relieved to be out in the open, Tansley moved quickly. He could shout for help if need be, but a look over his shoulder showed that wouldn't be necessary, nobody was following him.

  Stealing another glance behind him he was confident he hadn't been seen and relaxed a little more.

  He continued to move briskly but gradually allowed himself to stand taller, or as much as the heavy sack would allow. He knew that before long he would be on a busier stretch of the highway. There would be more people further along and there would be safety in numbers.

  15

  Gregario kept pace with Decarius and Aegis as they made their way up the highway. Walking slowly, before finding a suitable tree to lean against, while his companions entered each of the roadside buildings one by one.

  The closely spaced trees around him made seeing the road difficult, even from forty yards away. So much so, that he found himself following their progress more by sound than by sight. The banging on the doors, opening of latches, creaking hinges and mumbled greetings, followed a minute or so later by the sound of departure.

  After a time, they arrived at the fourth trade house along, outwardly no different from the others but this one contained something special. Gregario knew who this one belong to, he had been before and knew its proprietor. A man more predisposed to trading in surplus weaponry and armor than any of the others. A man who would buy military apparel, stolen or otherwise.

  Gregario grew more attentive, and looked around for a tree better suited for the purpose of concealment than support. No sooner was he in position, than there came the sound of knocking. Gregario tensed and held his breath. How long would they be this time? A few seconds passed, and then a few more. Nothing. Three more bangs sounded through the forest, louder this time, disturbing a bird which flew away, chirping a warning call as it went. Still nothing.

  Gregario looked around the tree and toward the hut more intently now, his view was mostly obscured but he could make out some of the building. There was no obvious movement visible through the upstairs windows, but smoke wafted from the chimney, suggesting someone was home. 'What's wrong?' He half-thought, half-whispered to himself.

  At that moment, a few yards behind him and to his right, something caught his attention.

  It was the nature of the movement that unnerved him more than anything else. The ground itself was shifting, sliding, rising up. There came into view some wooden slats, an iron ring, a hand, an arm, a hooded figure. He gasped at the realization of what he was seeing and circled to the other side of the tree, so he would be concealed him from the emerging man. Gregario took a few deep breaths and pressed himself against the silver bark, its width just enough to shield him from view. Once there, he waited and listened.

  From the sounds he could hear, he pieced together what was happening. The gentle thud of the closing of the door, the scraping of sticks and small stones on wood, followed by the rustling sound of footsteps that quickly faded to silence.

  Gregario stole a glance. The hillside undulated here and he could see a figure, half running, half crouching in the ditch beside the earthen bank. Scurrying parallel to the road and already fifty feet away. The short stocky build, the ungainly gait. Was it Tansley? It had to be.

  The the figure looked back, not directly at him, but at the trading post. Gregario resisted the urge pull back behind the tree. Remaining perfectly still was the better way to remain undetected, and it gave him the chance to confirm what he'd already suspected. It was Tansley, with a sack over his shoulder, making his escape.

  He hesitated, weighing up his options, and no sooner had Tansley disappeared from view, than Gregario made his move. Stooping low and running, as quickly and quietly as his posture, and the crunching forest floor, would allow. Not after Tansley, but towards his trading post and the road just beyond it, questioning himself as he did so.

  Should he have grabbed the man as he emerged? Or at least chased after him? He could have caught him, but it would have complicated things in the process. Without a doubt the man would have been able to call for help, alerting other merchants to his plight. Rightly or wrongly, he'd let Tansley go, and now he wasted no time in getting to the road to inform Decarius.

  "He's making a run for it," he said, darting from the trees and signaling with jolt of his head in the direction of the woods behind him.

  "Show me." Decarius demanded, breaking into a run and following him, with Aegis close behind.

  Gregario lead the pair to the place where the man had made his escape, dropping to his knees to show them the trapdoor the tradesman had climbed out of. Despite dragging aside earth and leaves he couldn't immediately find it, the man had done a good job concealing it and, despite knowing roughly where it was, the location seemed to allude him. While searching the ground about him, Gregario told them what he had seen.

  "A door in the ground opened, somewhere here, and the owner of the hut came out. Wearing a blue hooded jacket and a carrying a sack tied up with rope, and made off that way," he said, stopping his search and pointing in the direction the merchant had gone.

  "Couldn't you have grabbed him as he came out?" Aegis asked, not unreasonably.

  He looked to Decarius for confirmation.

  "He did the right thing," Decarius said.

  Gregario nodded, he thought so too, and resumed his search. Almost immediately his fingers touched something cold, and the accompanying metallic rattle signaled he'd found what he was looking for. Grabbing the ring firmly, he stood and lifted the door, exposing the opening below.

  Gregario watched as Decarius knelt and looked into the tunnel, and then along the embankment in the direction Tansley had fled. His expression one of concentration.

  "Are you sure it was Tansley, the merchant from this hut?"

  "Without a doubt."

  "Wearing a blue jacket and carrying a sack, you say?"

  "Yes."

  Decarius looked at the tunnel and then back along the embankment and made his decision.

  "Right, this is what we're going to do. You two, get inside this shack. Try the tunnel first, force your way in if you have to. If it's locked, try another way but don't be seen. Search the place, and if the gauntlets are here, take them to the clearing we stopped at earlier. I'll meet you back there."

  "Where will you be?" Aegis asked, as Decarius started moving quickly down the hill in the direction Tansley was last seen.

  "Making sure he didn't take them with him," he cal
led back.

  The two of them watched Decarius go, before looking at each other and then down at the open trapdoor in front of them. Neither of them moved. The hole in the ground looked dark, damp and not very inviting.

  "After you," he said.

  Chapter 3

  16

  The Regis Highway nestled between the foothills and followed the contours of the land much like a river. Flowing down toward the village of Tivitay and the neighboring workshops of Serfacre.

  It had occurred to Tansley, that it may once have been such a water course, before. The mountains could have easily channeled their capacious reservoirs of water this way quite naturally, if it were not for human intervention. The water was useful, valuable, powerful and thanks to the massive construction rumored to exist within the mountains, controllable.

  Tansley had only heard of its existence through hearsay. The drunken boasting of travelers from the south, of the things they had seen when in the deepest chambers of the Halvyon Temple. Coralainians had a word for the mechanism, an unusual word.

  Tansley had doubted its existence, yet the people who controlled the temple, did seem capable of controlling the rivers.

  What Tansley did know, was that the dry river bed, if that's what the Regis Highway really was, meandered to the left, a few hundred paces downhill of his trading post. It was a point that would give him a good view back up the road, and he would be able to see where the two visitors had got to without the need to break cover.

  He'd traveled this far by staying fifty paces off the road, in the forest and a little up the hillside. Now that he'd reached the bend in the road, he stopped and looked back to see if they had moved on from his hut.

  He couldn't tell if they had or not, since he couldn't see hide nor hair of them.

  In the time it had taken him to get this far, he imagined they would have moved on to the next trading post. At least, that's what he'd expected to see, yet the road was clear. Maybe they had entered the neighboring hut and were speaking with Cawney, the proprietor there.

  Tansley waited a further minute to see if they would emerge, and when they didn't, his attention moved back to what he could see of his own tradehouse.

  He could see no movement outside, at least, not around the side facing the highway, which was the only area visible to him. But he knew it was well locked and secured. Even the tunnel had a locking mechanism and could only be opened by someone who knew how.

  Perhaps he should have stayed there, not answered the door to them but just holed up and waited for them to leave. He then remembered why he hadn't, one of the reasons anyway, he was late for a meeting with Croneygee as it was.

  He grew impatient. Not only that, being alone in the woods was beginning to unnerve him.

  It was obvious where the men had got to, they were in Cawney's store and browsing his merchandise. They had to be, there was no need for him to hang around. He would press on, but would be careful all the same. Staying off the road until completely out of sight. Tansley knew that when he got closer to Demedelei Town, and the Serfacre workshops further along, he would feel a lot more at ease.

  He had managed to move quietly up until this point, but as he started off again, and with his attention still on trading posts, he stepped on a rotten branch hidden beneath some fallen leaves.

  It cracked, not too loudly, but enough to startle a brace of birds in the trees above. Large wood pigeons, their wings beating powerfully as they shot out of the branches and away into the forest.

  He cursed his clumsiness, before deciding it was his turn to take flight, too, and set off again.

  17

  The dead leaves crunched loudly and his footsteps landed heavier than he would have liked. Silently stalking his quarry it wasn't, but he felt he had no choice. Decarius had decided his priority was to catch up with the fleeing merchant, even if it meant the man realizing he was onto him.

  The simple act of the man running had sent his plans awry. The most important thing now was to recover the stolen gauntlets and return to Coralai. The possibility that they would not be recovered had never occurred to him. To lose the Eagle Standard would be disastrous, yet he was now desperately searching for it through the back woods of the northern foothills. Chasing after someone trying alight with them to who knows where.

  Not only were the gauntlets a rare and valuable relic, they also carried important symbolic meaning for Coralainians. Could the tradesman know their true value? Was he aware of what they were? Or that they had been stolen? If he did, it might explain the man's eagerness to avoid being found in possession of them, and the fact that he was running meant he must know.

  Decarius made his way through the trees, pushing aside some of the lower branches as he went, trying to find an unhindered path. The embankment he was traveling along started to level out, and at the same time, brought him closer to the road. While the small stream that ran alongside, picked up a different undulation and bent to the right, disappearing into a culvert in the hillside.

  He stopped and listened. There wasn't much to hear and there was no sign of the man he was after.

  The small amount of information he had about the merchant came from Gregario, who had more knowledge of the highway's trading posts than he. Apparently the man's name was Tansley and he specialized in the procurement and sale of surplus military goods.

  The man's enthusiasm for adding to his extensive collection meant he didn't ask questions and would buy anything for the right price. His trading post had seemed a logical place for anyone looking to offload the gauntlets, but if the man had even the faintest inkling of what they were, persuading him to give them up again might not be so easy.

  Decarius had to try and anticipate where Tansley might have fled to after leaving his hut. Searching for him randomly was not going to work.

  From this point there were two directions he could have gone. To the right, a path ran up and around the hillside and into the glades to the east, it was the same route he and his two companions had arrived by a short time earlier.

  It lead into an area familiar to trappers and woodsmen, not a bad place for someone who knew the terrain to escape into. He imagined that the merchants here did know those glades well, they practically lived among them as it was.

  The other way was for the man to travel down the Regis Highway. Decarius knew it lead to Tivitay, had a turning to Demedelei town and another to Serfacre. Would Tansley seek refuge in town or forest?

  Suddenly, and out of the silence of the forest, came the sound of a branch breaking from the among the trees not far ahead of him. It was followed by the sound of birds taking to the wing.

  Within seconds he saw two large wood-pigeons, visible through the branches, flying from directly ahead. The pigeons must have seen him too, as they immediately veered eastwards, between two hills and into the glades beyond.

  He was now sure he had his answer. The merchant was traveling alongside the highway in the direction of Tivitay.

  Decarius set off again, keeping a fast pace but taking up a stealthier running style. It might help if he could approach Tansley unseen and unheard.

  Somehow he was going have to determine if the Plautius Gauntlets were indeed in his possession. There were various ways it could be done, but the method that most readily came to mind drew on his military training. If he chose that option, it would not be subtle. But the question of what he would do with Tansley, was moot until he found him.

  As Decarius continued alongside the road, the trees started to thin a little and he worked his way up the hillside to get a clearer view. As he rounded the next hill, he suddenly had a much better view down a long stretch of the highway and several things caught his attention.

  There were people visible, just a quarter of a mile further down and near a junction that lead to Demedelei Town. But it was the man nearest to him that interested him the most. He was wearing a blue hooded jacket and was carrying a white sack over one shoulder.

  He was heading downh
ill, with his back to him, while looking around furtively. From the direction of his travel and Gregario's description, there could be no doubt, it was Tansley.

  18

  "No, you first," Aegis replied.

  "I'm holding the door."

  "I'll hold it." Aegis took the weight of the door from him and pushed it a little higher.

  Gregario sighed apprehensively, removed his cloak, looped it on his belt and climbed into the hole. He descended the wooden steps and once satisfied he could pull himself out again, turned, knelt down and started to crawl along on his elbows and knees.

  His initial progress was helped by the light coming through the hatchway, but that light was diminishing rapidly. Aegis had joined him in the tunnel and as the door closed behind them, they were submerged in total darkness.

  He stopped.

  "What's wrong?" Aegis asked softly, sensing that any loud noise would bring down a hail of dirt from the roof above them.

  "Nothing," he gasped, almost inaudibly.

  "Move then."

  Gregario could tell from Aegis's tone that they shared the same feeling. Neither of them wanted to be in this hole in the ground any longer than necessary, but he couldn't move.

  "Are you stuck?" Aegis asked, a hint of panic in his voice.

  "No," he lied, before realizing he couldn't leave it at that. "Not exactly," he then had an idea, "If the door, or whatever is at the other end, is locked or can't be forced, we're going to have a hell of a time coming back again."

  "Yes, but do we have any choice?"

  "Maybe we can do it a better way. You stay at the trapdoor, keep it open so I have some light. If I can get though at the other end, I'll call you."

  "Good idea, let's do that."

  In the darkness, he heard Aegis scramble back and start up the wooden steps built into the end of the tunnel.