The Hidden Fire (Book 2) by James R. Sanford

trail. 
“Here it is,” said Lerica, just as a man came around the bend in the trail.
    He
was dressed much like Kyric, in a plain shirt and trousers, but they were torn
and filthy, like he had been camping in the forest for a month.  He also
carried a short, heavy spear, but it was the hawk nose and jutting chin that
Kyric noticed.  The man was clearly a Syrolian.
    He
was close enough to use the spear, but in his panic he dropped it and reached
for the pistol in his sash, yelling, “Over here!”
    Aiyan
seized the man’s wrist with his free hand, clubbing him over the head with the flat
of his sword.  He fell backward without another word.
    “I
see them,” came a distant call from the treetops.  A stalk of bamboo near Kyric’s
head exploded even as he heard the whistle and the faraway report of a musket.
    “A
marksman in a tree,” said Aiyan.  “Run.”
    “This
way,” said Lerica, plunging into the thick undergrowth.  She tore through the
broadleaf shrubs and Kyric ran after her.  She veered towards some
buttress-root trees where the going looked easier, and Aiyan called, “No, that’s
not the way we — ”
    She
tried to leap sideways as she tripped the line, and the loop only caught one of
her legs.  A tall whip of a tree began to straighten, lifting her and pulling
her along.  Kyric watched in horror as it pulled her toward a wall of bamboo
spikes that had been hiding behind a curtain of tall brush.
    She
mule kicked with her free leg and twisted, reaching out and somehow grabbing an
errant vine.  The vine held.  She bobbed and swayed on the two lines, almost
upside down.  Kyric went to her and jumped as high as he could, but didn’t come
close to reaching her.
    She
drew her knife, grunting as she stretched for the rope around her ankle.  She
couldn’t quite get to it.
    Aiyan
motioned to Kyric’s bow.  “See if you can cut it with an arrow.”
    Kyric
unslung his bow and selected his heaviest broadhead arrow.  Much would depend on
the luck of the spin.
    He
heard the breaking of brush and pounding footfalls.  The rope holding her ankle
drifted up and down.
    The
shot felt true as he loosed.  It severed nearly half the strands, but not
enough to cut the rope.
    Aiyan
had drawn his little pistol, and was about to take his shot at the rope when five
men burst through the bush, machetes in hand, coming at them with murder in
their eyes.  A part of Kyric’s mind calmly reasoned that this should not be
so.  Here were these Aessian men in a jungle wilderness, men who spoke the same
language as he, and they wanted to kill him without knowing who he was or what
he was doing here.  Shouldn’t they talk before deciding on violence?
    Aiyan
shot the closest one in the forehead.
    One
of them came at Kyric.  Holding his bow like a sword, he thrust it at the man,
nearly catching him in the eye as he twisted to the side, slashing wildly. 
Kyric ducked the machete, swinging two-handed at the man’s knee.
    The
blow caught him on the shin instead, and it rang like a wooden bell.  The man
tripped, falling on Kyric and bringing them both down in a heap.  The wrestled
and rolled, Kyric trying to take away the machete while the man gouged him in
the ribs.  They rolled over a vine that looked poisonous, and Kyric pushed the
man’s face into a cluster of white flowers.
    “Everyone
stand still!” a stern voice commanded.
    Two
more men now stood in the clear space beneath the trees.  They were older, old
enough to have greying beards.  The skinny one with the green headband
shouldered an extra-long musket with shiny brass fittings.  The other one
carried a horse pistol in each hand.  He wore a hard leather vest with no shirt
beneath it, knee-high boots, and shark teeth bracelets.  He was well-weathered,
and well-muscled considering his age.  He looked at each of them in turn, his
eyes very hard.  He was their leader.
    The
other three had surrounded Aiyan, one of them getting a deep cut on