“Why do they have all that hay stacked in the back of that dray?” asked Keagan. There was a line of children waiting at it as well. Ralik and Doran recognized what it was, they had been on one several times back in their home village.
“That’s a hay ride, Keagan. Come on, let’s ride!” shouted Doran and rushed to get in line, Ralik and Keagan close behind.
Everywhere Ralik glanced, small children raced, all of them dressed as goblins, trolls or other creatures. Groups of them would run up to a house, past the goblin lantern leering out of the darkness, and knock on the door. When the door opened they would beg for sweets and toys from the houses owners. The children from Ralik’s village did this as well. The only time Ralik had ever dressed up for Goblin Eve, he had run into Studus and his gang. Studus had stripped him of the costume his grandmother had made for him and covered him head to toe in sticky jam. They then proceeded to throw pieces of candy they had stolen from other children at him. Ralik finally made it home, dripping in jam and melting candy. He never went out again on Goblin Eve.
“Come on Lelana, it’ll be fun!” Ralik came back to the present at the sound of her name. She approached the dray with several of her friends. They pulled her along by the arms, and from the stricken look on her face,she was not following by choice. Her struggling ended abruptly when she noticed Ralik and his friends watching her. She tossed her honey blonde hair and joined her friends in line behind Ralik, but the cloud of dread did not leave her eyes.
The driver appeared at the back of the wagon to announce that it would cost one shekel per rider. The apprentices dutifully dropped the small silver coin into the drivers open leather bag, then climbed onto the dray to find seats on top of the hay bales. Lelana and her friends sat several spaces away from Ralik, however, as more riders crammed themselves onto the wagon, Lelana was continually shoved closer to him. Soon they were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the hay.
Ralik offered her a weak smile, but a toss of her hair told him she was in no mood for conversation.
“Ya know, I have been on sumin like this afore in me home town. We all rode carts inta a mine. During the ride a few people got pulled off’a the carts and were not heard from fur a week,” announced Keagan.
Lelana shifted uneasily beside him. He considered telling her that Keagan was probably just joking, but he thought that hair in his face would be all he would get for his troubles.
With a lurch, the wagon began to roll down the road, away from town and into the night. The moon was bright and lit everyone’s faces with a whitish sheen making them appear as ghouls with glowing white eyes. The ride was quiet but for the occasional squeal let out by a girl who had been grabbed suddenly in an attempt to scare her. The rhythmic clip clop of the horse’s hooves on the dirt path was the only discernable sound breaking the silence around them.
The soft breeze from the moving dray felt good on Ralik’s face. Next to him, Lelana’s breathing had become more rapid, as she sat quietly beside him, and he could only imagine the apprehension still etched on her face.
With a sudden lurch, the wagon gained speed. Ralik was about to yell something to the driver to get him to slow down when, several girls screamed, their voices echoing eerily into the night air.
“Where is the driver!” He had vanished!
“Did you hear something?” asked Doran, grabbing Ralik’s shoulder to get his attention. Ralik didn’t have time to listen for imagined noises, he had to get up there on the seat and slow the wagon down. He tried to get up and make his way to the front of the wagon, but Doran grabbed his shoulder again and yanked him back down.
“No, listen. You can hear it,” he whispered harshly in Ralik’s ear. Ralik concentrated on the sounds around him. He needed to filter out the excited babble and Lelana’s labored breathing. There it was. He could hear it! Something similar to the hoof beats of the wagon’s horse, but fainter.
He half-stood and squinted into the gloom behind the wagon, but there was nothing there but darkness.
“There it is again,” hissed Doran! Ralik could hear it clearly now, hoof beats, several of them, and they were coming up the path behind them. Ralik stood up again and this time he saw them. Three riders rounded the bend behind them and spurred their mounts toward the wagon. Something didn’t seem right to Ralik about these riders. They were different, but in the gloom he couldn’t make it out. Then, through the overhanging trees, a shaft of moonlight illuminated the them. It was only for a brief second, but it was enough for Ralik to see that all three of the riders had no heads!
A girl at the back of the wagon screamed and pointed at the approaching riders. Ralik saw Lelana flash him a plaintive glance. She stood up to see what had alarmed him and he heard her suck in her breath in fright.
The riders had caught up to the wagon and now galloped along right behind them, three abreast. The wagon lurched again, gaining speed. He had to get to the reins. Without a driver, the dray could fly off into the woods or tip over if they rounded a corner too fast.
One of the phantom marauders broke away and reined his horse around the wagon on the opposite side from Ralik, barely an arms length from the dray’s spinning wheels. Like the strike of a serpent, the rider’s arm shot out and grabbed the nearest apprentice. The rider hoisted the screaming girl off the hay bale and slung her over his saddle in one motion. Most of the apprentices on that side of the wagon dove for cover. Some threw handfuls of hay at the her captor, but such feeble attacks had little effect. The rider reined his horse away and sped off into the darkness with his captive.
Ralik watched, frozen, as her screams faded into the night. Feeling hot breath on his back, he spun around to see another headless attacker right behind him, only inches away from the wagon. He could hear the violent snap of the phantasm’s black cape flicking in the wind, and the harsh breath of the horse as it sucked in the cold air.
Before Ralik could react, the rider’s black-gloved hand shot out and took hold of Lelana’s shirt. Lelana let out a blood-curdling screech and threw her arms around Ralik, pinning his arms to his side in the process. Ralik found it hard to draw his breath as she squeezed him tighter. He had to get his arms loose. Lelana’s grapple weakened for a moment as she struggled against the attacker’s strength, just enough for Ralik to free himself. He slapped hard at the rider’s forearm. The headless rider’s strong grasp did not loosen.
Lelana’s grip was becoming weaker, and at any moment the wraith would be able to haul her onto his horse. Ralik reached out, dangerously far, grabbed hold of the rider’s undulating cape and yanked as hard as he could. The horseman lost his grip on his reins and his captive and toppled over backwards out of the saddle, hitting the dirt path with a thud. The third phantom was forced to pull up to avoid riding over his prone companion, and the wagon quickly out-distanced him, leaving his horse rearing up in protest as the darkness closed around him.
Lelana still held onto Ralik, her eyes shut and her breathing ragged.
“Is everyone ok back there?” It was the driver; he had reappeared and was slowing the wagon down. “It’s ok, we are heading back to town.”
“What about Jessa? That thing took her!” yelled a boy from the other side of the wagon.
“She is ok. She will be in town when we get back, everyone just relax.”
Several minutes later, the wagon came to a halt at the edge of town. Lelana’s friends pried her from Ralik and helped her off the wagon. She was visibly shaken as she turned once to glance back at Ralik, her hair hanging in disarray around her white face. Ralik lost sight of her quickly however, as people piled off the dray behind her.
Ralik turned around to see stunned looks from both Doran and Keagan.
“What are you two looking at?” he asked with a scowl. Both boys burst out laughing.
“Come on, les ga get sum chocolate ale,” said Keagan. “An toast Ralik’s rescue o’ the fair damsel!” Even Ralik had to smile, as he hopped off the wagon onto shaky legs, and followed them back into town.
