063

The tattooed man looked at Gregor for another moment as if reevaluating him and then walked away seemingly satisfied. Gregor stood unmoving and watched the man walk away. His heart was pounding in his chest with a violence that was audible to his ears. he remembered to breathe and his breath came back to him in ragged gasps. The giant horses looked at him with impassive eyes, not moving and yet seeming to give him space.

After a few moments Gregor began to take stock of the scene that was unfolding around him. His captors were breaking camp at a rapid pace. The last man from the Contubernium lay unconscious in a bloody heap by the fire. His arms had been bound behind his back and he had been rolled onto his side. Blood was freely flowing down his nose, and the men that walked around him gathering gear simply stepped over him, as they did the other bodies, without paying any attention.

The rode through the night, making their way deeper into Moss-Head forest cautiously. Gregor and the unconscious prisoner were gagged and bound onto the backs of two separate horses. The large horses amazed Gregor with their night vision and their ability to quietly pick their way through the trees. Gregor found the excitement and fear of the night coursing rapidly through his veins and was unable to sleep.

He watched the men calling out to each other using a flurry of hand signals and occasionally speaking in low whispers when they had slowed for rests. They would slow for these rests when the scouts would return to give word on what they had seen. Gregor was unable to make out any thing that passed between the men but the rest of the night passed uneventfully until Gregor succumbed to exhaustion in th egrey light of the early morning.