I withdrew, armed myself, and returned to keep watch until the appointed hour.
For hours I lay in vigil, patiently waiting for the sun to die and be swallowed by darkness. In those tormenting moments I learned the enemy’s dispositions; when night fell I melted into it and began my onslaught.
I moved like a shadow, knocking sentries aside and slipping toward the huts. With the courtesy of a stalking predator I ranged deeper, and where need forced, I pushed my blade through flesh to keep my presence secret.
I remained that silhouette until I found the stables. Hours of concealment had given me a clear picture of the gathering’s layout; the stables, I judged, were the place to begin.
Under that thatch roof and mud-brick wall, I stood among beasts as they munched on hay. Quietly I gathered straw, seized a torch left within a hut, and cast the flame among the piled fuel. Before the fire could be blamed on chance, I had vanished.
The little spark fed upon thatch and straw until it became a blaze. The fire chewed at the hut like a blade through cloth; panicked horses plunged into confusion and broke out in a stampede, throwing the camp into uproar.
Exactly the chaos I needed.
Men abandoned their posts and surged toward the conflagration. While they converged, I slipped from the darkness and rushed Dakor’s hut. I had already felled a few of his men; my purpose sharpened with every step.
I meant to reach him, to be alone with the maniac and answer my oath with steel. But as I neared, he burst out of the hut—abrupt, furious—and at his heels his cruel comrades lined up like wolves.
“Dorack!” he snarled. Fear laced the name.
I was wedged between Dakor’s inner circle and the host still streaming toward the blaze. They would be upon me in an instant; I had one moment to strike.
They came hard, but I was harder. I disarmed two and drove my blade home—one throat, one beneath the jaw. Their dying cries rang the alarm.
Dakor stood stunned, then he hurled a blade and turned to flee. I closed fast, drove a dagger into his thigh with savage precision, and he fell. I rushed to finish him—
—but Dakor thrust a firearm at me. A shot flashed; luck let me escape the blast. His fist connected with my chin, and again. The blows blurred the world, but I fought back, drew a blade from my thigh, and pressed my advantage. He fought like a cornered beast, desperate for life.
Footsteps and guttural cries rose behind us; others were charging. I wrenched free of the struggle, hurled a blade that felled the first man who reached me, and swept to meet the next. A blade cut my brow; the edge missed my eye by a hair.
There was no time to return to Dakor. Four men closed on me, more bearing down in the dark. The first lunged; a sidestep and my blade found his throat—blood spouted hot upon my hand. I took his sword and readied myself.
I fought them briefly, hoping to break free and finish Dakor, but then a horse neighed behind me. I turned and saw Dakor scrambling to mount and flee. Rage drove me through the last of his men; I seized the rifle he had dropped and gave chase, but what was I to that fit beast?
Before my eyes he rode away into the night, his men calling and firing behind him.
Frustration hollowed me. I could not face the reformed throng who craved gore; like Dakor I melted back into the dark and ran.
I had been so close. I had almost ended the coward — and like a fool, I let him slip into night again.