-----After his momentary scrutiny, Whisper shook his head. "Too much... chance."
-----Crane exhales with a glum expression. “We still could try to see if we have back up in Black Bog.”
-----“We were thinking about that before we met . . . Whisper,” Jules says, addressing her dwarven companion. “Although at this point it sounds safer in Kulendra.”
-----“Yeah,” the dwarf replies with a smile slowly spreading on his face, “but who said we prefer safer? Besides I still say if they’re free in Kulendra, they’re soon going to see trouble.”
-----Jules looks back at Whisper and says, “All right; your call: What do you want us to do?”
-----Whisper again bent his head to his work. "Go... and see... Black Bog."
-----The dwarf smiles and shakes his fist in a positive gesture. Jules nods and stands, smoothing her cloak as she does. “Should we come back here before nightfall or would you like to meet us inside the town walls?” the girl asks.
-----Just then their conversation is interrupted by the sound of galloping horses. By the sound of it at least two horses are charging along the road that runs through the woods. They seem to have come from the direction of the town of Black Bog.
-----Whisper's head snapped up, and half a breath later, he was up and moving swiftly with his bow in his left hand, and three hastily grasped crude fire-oil arrows in his right.
-----Quickly now he dashes southwest through the trees and the brush. His newest companions left behind, he seems to glide through the woods with hardly a sound. As he goes, a silence takes his surroundings as if the riders pose something to dread. He comes to a place where the land begins to slope down toward the level of the road.
-----Within moments he stops behind a few trees that line the trail road. The urgent galloping is heard off to his left as Whisper peers from behind the tree. Steeling himself he watches as the noise from the horses build. Then he sees them . . .
-----Two human males wearing light leather armor charge forth on sleek riding horses. At this time, they appear to be scouts. In just a few moments they will pass by where Whisper hides.
-----Things didn't leave him with much time for discriminatory decision making.
-----Dropping into a half crouch, his left hand brought up the bow as he dropped two of the arrows point first, nocking the third, drawing back and smoothly releasing at the first rider.
-----The arrow hit solidly in the first rider’s right shoulder. With a yelp of pain, the rider struggles but remains in the saddle as his horse continues. A moment later the arrow bursts into flames! The horse charges on, but the rider, now engulfed in fire falls from the saddle.
-----With no pause, Whisper’s hand dipped down, grasping for one of the hopefully upright arrows. Alas, neither of the arrows landed with their point in the ground! Luckily neither exploded!
-----The other rider quickly stopped his steed, dismounted and, hiding behind his horse, drew his short sword. The man on fire yelled in pain and weakly rolled from side to side to try to douse the flames.
-----Whisper's eyes widened, and he candidly admitted that he was probably as pale as a sheet as his eyes traveled down to where he had dropped the two arrows.
-----Next time he would check to see if he had found regular oil, or the much more volatile substance.
-----Quickly he gathered up the arrows, transferring one to his other hand to be grasped in the same fashion as the grip. The other he nocked, and then patiently waited for one of two things to happen.
-----“Graf! Graf!” the hidden man yells out angrily, “you all right?”
-----With a shriek, the man on fire convulses and suddenly his body lies still.
-----Everything grows silent just before the moment is broken. The man hiding behind his horse yells and suddenly charges at the incline where Whisper is hidden. With deadly accuracy, Whisper’s second arrow is planted in the man’s chest and as his body slumps from the impact, fire erupts consuming him. The man’s horse bucks and edges away from the two flaming bodies.
-----“Wow!” Crane exclaims with a grunt while scratching his head, “We won’t find out what business they were up to.” The dwarf stands a few feet off to Whisper’s left while Jules frowns at what’s left of the two bodies with her arms crossed.
-----Whisper half shrugged in response to Crane's comment. He gingerly held his bow and the clutched arrow away from his body, and snapped the fingers of his right hand to get attention from both of them.
-----First he pointed to Jules, then at the horse, and then over his shoulder to indicate the horse that had fled. He shifted his hand to Crane, and pointed at the merrily smouldering corpse of 'Graf.' He crouched down, and gathered up a handful of dirt, which he mimicked throwing on the body before pointing to his eyes, and then touching his own belt pouch.
-----Then the Wood Elf moved towards the burning corpse of the second outrider. Halfway there, he remembered what he carried, and what a bad idea it would be for it to be even remotely near something approaching open flame. He walked back to the edge of the road, and gingerly placed the arrow down, careful to neither rub, nor jostle the flax-wrapped and oil-soaked head. The bow went on his back, and then he walked over to the corpse.