“I can’t see a thing,” snarled one of the Torak soldiers in the gully. “They are just gray shapes moving from tree to tree. No clan colors that I can see.”

“Must be gray bandits,” called another Torak warrior just before an arrow pierced his neck.

“These are not gray bandits,” snarled Hira. “Bandits want to be paid for their work. They don’t intentionally destroy a caravan. Besides, these men have worked together for a long time. You can tell by the lack of orders for the attack. Not a word has been heard since before the attack started. No, lads, we are facing a clan that doesn’t want to show its colors.”

“There will be no surrendering then,” spat one of the Torak soldiers. “The cowards will want to kill us all.”

“Certainly not,” Hira agreed as he slid behind a large rock in the gully. “Their task is to destroy any trace of us before some traveler stumbles upon this fight. We only need to hold out for a while men. Keep them nervous with your arrows.”

Even as Hira spoke, he heard the screams of his dying men. The attackers tried lobbing arrows high into the air to pierce the men in the gully without risking their own lives.

“These bandits are cowards,” shouted a Torak soldier. Why don’t they come out of the woods and finish us?”

The soldier’s words died in a gurgle as an arrow pierced his head. An eerie silence fell over the battlefield, and Hira realized that he was the only Torak soldier left alive. That was when he heard the first words spoken by the attackers.

“Is that it then?” one of the bandits asked.

“Shut up,” growled another voice.

Hira’s mind whirled around the question of why the bandits were acting so cowardly. They were good archers; the results of the ambush had proved that. Judging from the number of arrows that flew in the initial volley, Hira knew that there were at least two squads involved in the attack.