“What?! What is it?!” Graham shifted so quickly that it shocked even Samsun and he could only watch as the man stood there, eyes twitching and surveying the road ahead.
“Something is wrong…” he said, looking west, rather than east where they were headed, his vision straining as he tried to see down the edge of the road, even in the pitch black of night.
“Did you hear something?”
Graham shook his head and didn’t utter a response, all in an effort not to look crazy. He slowly crept away from the northern path, seeming as though he would travel the opposite way.
“Graham! Snap out of it!” Samsun yelled, but still the man seemed oblivious to his beckoning.
“Something happened to them,” Graham answered as he swiftly mounted his horse without a second thought, kicking in into a heavy gallop.
“What? How do you know?”
Graham growled, knowing that if he were wrong he would look more insane than he did now. He hoped he was, but deep down, knew that he wasn’t. “Damn it Sam, would you just come on?”
Sam was quick to follow on his much slower, burlier horse—falling a bit behind Graham, who was now well on the way back towards where they had come from.
He didn’t utter a word, not once the entire time; he just kept pushing his trusted horse as hard as it would go. The forest broke and the valley opened up in front of him, but it still didn’t give him any hope. He had turned a casual day’s ride into a two-hour charge. Thankful that morning finally broke by the time he had entered the valley, he would now be able to verify their safety.
When he saw something far off in the distance, too far for even his eyes to make out, a tiny gray speck on the road, his heart jumped. He was completely content with being seen as a lunatic, so long as they were not in any danger.
But as he approached, that hope flickered into something darker: fear. That speck on the road was a horse—one without a rider—standing near the edge of the road, chomping on what little grass there was. As the horizon became clearer, as his vision adjusted to the sunrise, his dread became more and more dominating. Other horses appeared with riders. He stopped and gave his own a rest as he began looking at the ground. Hoof prints, several sets, up until a certain point; then they stopped abruptly—only footsteps, all in a line after that.
“Damn…” Graham muttered as he looked ahead. Off to where the tracks were leading, into the desolate place that King Idimus called his home; the land that held his castle: “Kaldus…”