I caught the stench of horses, sweat, and fear from the canyon ahead. Steep walls and its boulder strewn bottom hid many things from sight, but did little to block the wind.

“Amateurs and children, out to die this day. May their widows, sons, and daughters build a wreath to lay”.

I quietly hummed the battle song, setting the beat of my horse as the cleft in the cliff enveloped us. The sides rose up steep, but did not hide the sun glinting from the nocked arrows of my would be ambushers.

The boulders were plenty enough to obscure my path and sew doubt within the mind of the archers. My pommel felt smooth against the callouses of my palm, and I tried to guess which rock the first ambusher would try from. A cry from above heralded the attack as a woman in earthen rags leapt from atop a boulder. My knife swept her legs away, and her screams accompanied the war horn held to my lips.

“Children! By Talos come for me and face a proper death! You should have tried me while sleeping, you would have doubled your chances!”

With a kick I drove my horse deeper into the canyon, keeping the rocks between the archers and seeking prey on foot. Two came for me, with spear and sling. I landed hard from the saddle, rolling into a cut which broke the spear. My mount rammed the sling man, biting and kicking where it could, painting the surrounding ground crimson. The once spearman came with stick and dagger, trying to tangle my legs. He did not see me grab the handful or dirt, nor expect it to erupt into his face. His pigment joined the others in a fresco of their failure.

A horn on the wind from my men was the death kneel of this failed band. Grinning, I hunted for who remained.

The sun beat down upon the box canyon and its hidden band of mercenaries. Their horses tied out of sight, four crouched with bows upon the edge, and six hid on the floor behind boulders with weapons drawn. The sound of hoofs on stone echoed from the canyon mount and Trangar, a bare-chested mounted barbarian entered, a smile on his face and a tune on his lips.

His path was circuitous and made for poor targeting by the archers. His horse was often hidden, his body mostly obscured, showing barely for enough time to train a bow, nethermind to loose and hit.

Nethelana, a grizzled veteran of many bounties, quietly climbed on top of a boulder in the barbarian’s path. With a yell she leaped with dagger drawn, ready to make a plunging strike into the man’s chest but, quick as a viper, his long knife cut through her middle and a curved horn reached his lips to sound a long and clear note which echoed through the hills. Nethelana’s painful screams cut off as the barbarian’s horse trampled her broken remains.

With a loud cry in the barbaric tongue, Trangar rode deeper into the canyon while two more mercenaries tried to capture him in a vice between them. Leaping from his horse, he clove a spear in two, and threw dirt in the face of its wielder. While his horse trampled and bit its own assailant, Trangar quickly ended the blinded man’s life.

A horn call carried over the wind from deeper in the hills, as the archers turned to try and cover their own escape. The job had failed, and the those in the canyon now hid from their own death as it hunted them.