Chapter 8 | Part 4

The road crossed a dry stone culvert half a league later.

Dulint stopped.

“What?” Balin asked.

“Experiment.”

“That word sounds expensive when you say it.”

Dulint pulled the cube from the pack. It was hotter again.

He wrapped it in his spare cloak, then in the oilcloth from their food bundle. The hum dulled beneath the layers but did not stop.

“Help me.”

They wedged the bundle beneath the culvert between two flat stones and covered it with gravel.

Then they left the road.

Fifty paces into the scrub, Dulint found a low ridge with enough stone to hide two dwarves. They crouched behind it.

His knee objected loudly.

Balin peered over the edge.

“If this gets us killed, I’m haunting you.”

“If you die first, you’re carrying the pack.”

The pursuers reached the bend.

They did not follow the footprints leaving the road.

All four turned toward the culvert.

Straight toward the buried cube.

Balin lowered his head.

“Well.”

“Aye.”

“That answers that.”

Dulint counted distance.

The men were still above the bend. Once they reached the culvert, Dulint would have no chance to get the cube back.

“Go.”

They scrambled down the back of the ridge.

Dulint’s knee nearly folded under him. Balin caught his belt and kept him upright.

They circled through thorn brush, came out below the culvert, and reached the buried bundle while the pursuers were still approaching from the road above.

Dulint tore away gravel.

The moment his hand closed on the wrapped cube, the hum jumped through the cloth into his bones.

“Got it.”

“Wonderful. Run.”

They did.

A shout came from behind.

The first voice they’d heard from the pursuers.

Then boots struck the road faster.

Dulint risked one look.

Two stayed on the road.

Two entered the scrub.

“Splitting,” he said.

“I can see them,” Balin said.

“They learn.”

“So do we.”

Balin pointed toward a dark band of trees ahead.

“Forest. Half a league.”

Dulint straightened his bad leg and nearly fell. Balin was already moving toward the trees.

“Riverhold is still east of that wood.”

“Assuming Xandor is there.”

“Then you can help me find him and complain all the way.”

Behind them, a man shouted from the scrub. The others answered from the road.

End of Chapter 8.4 —> 8.5: The Road from Zuraldi: The Decision