Chapter five
What happened next was fairly anticlimactic. Two boys, identical down to the very cloths and weapons they carried, stepped from the foliage calmly. Sarah and I were still poised in combat stances with our weapons raised, (Sarah had a handful of powder which I assumed caused some unpleasant side effect on whom it was thrown) and we stood in awe as the boys calmly began rifling through their victim's belongings. They were a little younger than Sarah, and had bold adventurous expressions on their handsome faces. Their blond hair was trimmed fairly short, and they wore green hunting coats with the hoods down, as well as green leather chaps. One of them began talking in a manner that suggested he had said the same words hundreds of times.
"Stay calm, we're not here to harm you in any way. The two of us are going to liberate all of the money that these men have stolen, and we would appreciate it if you would go about your business and not interfere. Also if you could not tell anyone about this little operation we have going here, that would be great."
"Incredible," Dean said, looking not at but past the two boys.
"What?" I asked, seeing the awe struck expression he wore.
"They only have one Chi."
"how is that possible?"
"I don't know," he said, and I put the issue out of my mind to make room for more pressing matters.
"Who are you," I said, addressing both twins at the same time, as there was no discernable difference. Suddenly they looked up in unison, as if just acknowledging that Sarah and I were present.
"I'm James, he's John, nice to meet you," he said blandly as we lowered our weapons.
"My name is Duncan and she's Sarah, thank you for helping us with those highway men."
"You're welcome," one of them said without looking up from the gold coins he was counting. I had already forgotten which one was which, considering I had never seen identical twins before. Until then, I didn't even know they existed.
"What are you doing out here in the wilderness, don't you have family somewhere?" Sarah asked. At once, the twins seemed to become interested in our presence, and stopped rifling through the dead men's pockets.
"We ran away from home. You guys don't look to old either, where are your families?" one of them responded, seeming insulted, as if by asking Sarah had called him too young to be living without parents.
"Kane killed them."
"Mine are dead too."
The boy looked apologetic, but before he could say anything, his twin cut in.
"You know Kane?"
"We're on a mission to kill him," I said, watching the effect of this statement on the two boys. Surprisingly, they seemed overjoyed.
"So you know where he is then?"
"yeah, she does," I said, gesturing to Sarah, who looked like she had contracted stage fright in the past three seconds, and looked back and forth from the three of us nervously.
"How?" one of them asked excitedly.
"I've been tracking him," she said quietly.
"well that's great, can we join you?"
"You want to kill Kane also?" I said, taken aback by the offer. The boy rested his arm around my shoulder casually, as a smile grew across his face.
"Duncan, we make our money off of killing criminals, usually petty thugs. This guy Kane, we've heard about him. Word on the street is that some villages pay ten thousand gold for his capture or assassination, so we'll make you a deal. How about fifty percent goes to you and your lady friend, and fifty goes to us?"
"You can keep all the money, I don't want any of it. I'm not even sure what I'm going to do once I kill Kane, but the act of killing him will be reward enough."
The charismatic bargaining smile that the boy wore was replaced by an I-Just-got-a-lot-of-money smile, that he shared with his twin. After giving each other a consulting glance, they agreed to come with us to kill Kane, and slung their bows over their shoulders. As we walked in the direction of the forest, a question nagged me that I felt like a fool for not wondering before. I had happily agreed to follow Sarah at the time, but in my eagerness to kill Kane, I had never asked a very important question.
"Why were you tracking Kane?" Sarah looked surprised by the question.
"The same reason you're on this quest. He killed my grandmother. I want vengeance." She didn't have quite the same fire in her eyes as I did when I said things like that, and I began to wonder, is that what I'll be like once the full realization of my loss hits me? Will I have that same defeated look? I didn't even share these thoughts with Dean, and I again wondered how he was taking the loss of all of the people he knew. If it affected him much he didn't show it.
"Then I guess Kane had better watch his back. With the four of us, he doesn't stand a chance." I responded, wondering why she hadn't told me earlier about her grandmother.
We made it to the entrance of the forest just as the sun began to set, and together we set up camp. The tall trees loomed over us, and I thought of all the stories I had heard about monsters inhabiting those woods. Maybe it would be different than I imagined, I thought hopefully. After all, Sarah turned out to be a lot less creepy than what I had heard about witch doctors, so maybe Blightwood Forest will be a cakewalk, I thought. I couldn't have been more wrong.
