Before long the four pursuers arrived on the scene. For an instant Kesley thought they would simply keep riding past, but he heard voices commenting that the trail of hoof-prints ended up here. He tensed, knowing they would soon be searching the bushes for him.
"You go that way," someone said.
Kesley tethered his tired horse and backed away a little deeper into the underbrush. Several minutes passed.
Then a figure in the green-and-gold Ducal uniform appeared, a tall, dark-complected man with bare, burly arms. He clutched a drawn pistol in one hand.
"Hey, here's his horse—" he started to say, and Kesley leaped. His attack was the sudden, quick strike and withdrawal of the forest serpent; he sprang from the bushes, clubbed downward with the truncheon, withdrew again as the man fell. He waited a minute; then, seeing none of the other three approaching, Kesley quietly stole out and seized the fallen man's pistol. Now he was armed.
Cupping his hand over his mouth to muffle his voice, he shouted, "I got him in here!" Then he ducked back behind a thick-boled tree.
"We're coming, Gar!"
Three more uniformed figures stepped into the clearing. Kesley squeezed the trigger three times and they fell, their faces frozen in utter astonishment. Kesley felt suddenly unclean; he had murdered three men, injured a fourth. And those three did not know why they had died, either.
He freed his own horse and slapped the weary mutant on the flank. "Go ahead, fella. You're free. You've done your job." He could take his pick from the four Ducal thoroughbreds waiting on the highway.
Sadly he stepped over the fallen bodies. The man he had clubbed was still breathing; he lay in a sticky pool of his companions' mingled blood. Kesley knelt, saw the ugly, raw wound on the man's skull, the welling blood matting the dark hair. Wedged in the soldier's sash was a grimy, folded piece of thick paper. Kesley drew it forth.