Rebel, Pawn, King

Thanos heard the laughter behind him.

“Oh, is that the best you can do?” Elsius said. “I’m offended. What were you trying to do, lure me in close so you could strike? Do you really think I’m that stupid? You two, hold him. Prince Thanos, if you move, I’ll put an arrow somewhere painful.”

Thanos felt the arms of the two guards wrap around his, holding him tightly in place. They were strong men, obviously used to dealing with unruly prisoners. Thanos felt himself spun around to face Elsius, who was holding his bow absolutely level, ready to fire.

Just as Thanos had hoped.

Thanos surged against the guards who held him, then, and he heard Elsius laugh.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He heard the twang of the bowstring, but Thanos wasn’t working to break free the way they might have expected. Instead, he spun, dragging one of the guards into the path of the arrow, feeling the shock run through the other man as an arrowhead appeared on the far side of his chest.

Thanos felt his grip loosen as the guard clutched at the arrow, and he didn’t hesitate. He surged into the other guard, snatching a knife from his belt and shoving him into Elsius. With the two tangled together, he grabbed the bow from the dying guard, snatching as many arrows as he could while he ran.

Thanos zigzagged as he made his way over broken rocks, sprinting for the nearest cover. It probably saved his life that he didn’t try to run back in the direction of his boat yet, but instead made for the trees.

“Nothing that way but the Abandoned!” Elsius yelled after him.

Thanos ducked as an arrow whispered past his head. He felt it close enough to ruffle his hair. The killer hunting him was far too good a shot.

Thanos fired back, barely even looking. If he stopped for long enough to aim properly, he had no doubt that he would quickly find himself killed by one of the arrows that flashed past as he ran. Or worse, he might find himself simply injured enough for Elsius to catch up to and drag to the fortified side of the island.

Thanos dove in behind a rock, hearing an arrow skitter off it. He fired again, went to run, then paused, some instinct making him wait as an arrow flashed past.

Now he ran, sprinting for the trees. He tried to make his run unpredictable, but mostly, he focused on speed. The quicker he could get to the cover of the trees, the better. He fired another arrow without looking, sidestepped on instinct as another arrow missed him, then threw himself behind the nearest of the trees just as a shaft pierced its trunk.

Thanos paused for a moment, listening. Over the beating of his heart, he could hear Elsius issuing orders.

“Go and get more wardens,” he commanded. “I will continue to hunt our prince myself.”

Thanos started to creep through the trees. He knew he had to cover ground now before more of the armored guards came. Enough of them, and they would easily be able to surround him. Then he wouldn’t be able to get away, no matter how well he fought.

Yet he still had to be careful. He could hear Elsius somewhere behind him, in the rustle of branches and the occasional breaking of twigs. The older man still had his bow, and he’d already proved just how willing he was to use it.

“I know you can hear me,” Elsius said behind him. His tone was conversational, as though it were the most normal thing in the world to talk like that to a man he was trying to kill. “You’ll have hunted, of course, being a prince.”

Thanos didn’t reply.

“Oh, I know,” Elsius said. “You don’t want to give away your position. You want to stay perfectly hidden, and hope you can stay ahead of me. The people I used to stalk out in the world used to try that. It didn’t work for them either.”

An arrow came out of the trees, barely missing Thanos as he ducked. He fired back, then set off running through the trees.

“That’s more like it,” Elsius replied. “Make sure the Abandoned don’t catch you. Me, they fear. You… you’re just prey.”

Thanos ignored him and ran on, taking twists and turns at random until he was sure he’d put enough distance between him and his pursuer.

He paused. He couldn’t hear Elsius anymore. He could, however, hear the sound of someone cursing to themselves, half angry, half sobbing. He made his way forward carefully, not trusting it. Not trusting anything out here.

He came to the edge of a small clearing. In it, to his shock, a woman dangled upside down by her ankle, caught in a snare. Her dark hair was tied in a braid that dangled down below her, brushing the floor. She wore the rough breeches and tunic of a sailor, tied with a sash. She was certainly cursing like a sailor while she tried to disentangle herself from the rope that held her, without any discernible success.

Every instinct Thanos had said that this was part of some bigger trap. Either this was a deliberate ploy to slow him down, or at the very least, the woman’s swearing would quickly bring the Abandoned.

Yet he couldn’t just leave her like that. Thanos stepped out into the clearing, hefting the knife he held.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded. “Stay back, you goat-bothering Abandoned scum! If I had my sword – ”

“You might want to be quiet before you attract every prisoner here,” Thanos said as he cut her down from the snare. “I’m Thanos.”

“Felene,” the woman replied. “What are you doing out here, Thanos?”

“Running from men who want to kill me, trying to get back to my boat,” Thanos said. An idea struck him, and he started to reset the snare.

“You have a boat?” Felene said. Thanos noticed that she kept her distance. “A way off this gods-forsaken rock? Looks like I’m coming with you then.”

Thanos shook his head. “You might not want to stay near me. The people chasing me will be here soon.”

“Can’t be any worse than what I’ve been dealing with here so far.”

Again, Thanos shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know you. You could be on this island for anything. For all I know, you’ll stab me in the back as soon as I give you the chance.”

The woman looked as though she might argue, but a sound from the trees made her look up like a startled deer and she sprinted deeper into the forest.

Thanos took his cue from her, slipping back into the trees. He saw Elsius come out into the clearing, bow drawn. Thanos reached for the one he’d taken, and realized that he had no arrows left. Without any better options, he stepped out from the tree he was hiding behind.

“I thought you’d be better prey than this,” Elsius said.

“Come closer, and you’ll find out just how dangerous I can be,” Thanos replied.

“Oh, that’s not how this works,” Elsius replied, but he took a step forward anyway.

Thanos heard the snap as the snare caught, and watched Elsius yanked upwards. Arrows tumbled down from his quiver. Thanos snatched them up and set off back into the trees. Already he could hear the sounds of others approaching; Abandoned or wardens, it didn’t matter.

Thanos hurried through the trees, able to head for his boat now that he wasn’t being followed. He thought he caught glimpses of figures through the foliage, and behind him, Thanos heard a cry that could only have been Elsius.

One of the Abandoned burst from the trees near Thanos, lunging forward. Thanos should have known that he couldn’t hope to avoid them all. The man swung an axe that seemed to have been made from the leg bone of a dead enemy. Thanos stepped inside the swing and stabbed him, shoving him away and continuing to run.

He could hear more of them now, hunting cries coming through the trees. He burst out onto open ground and saw a group of Elsius’s wardens approaching from the other direction. Thanos’s heart hammered as, behind him, at least a dozen figures in piecemeal armor burst from the trees. Thanos cut to the right, dodged past a charging figure, and kept running as the two groups crashed into one another.

Some kept chasing, but Thanos saw more of them fall to fighting amongst themselves. He saw the Abandoned crash into the wardens in a wave and break against them. They had the ferocity, but those from the fortified side of the island had real armor and better weapons. Thanos doubted that they had any chance of winning, and he wasn’t sure he would want them to.

He darted around the rocks of the island, trying to find his way back toward his boat. If he could make it there… well, it would be difficult, when the smugglers had betrayed him, but he would find a way off the island.

The difficult part was trying to find his way. If he’d run straight back along the route he’d first taken, retracing his steps, it would have been easy to find, but there would have been no way to evade the men hunting him. Thanos didn’t dare to stop completely either, even though the sounds of pursuit behind him had given way to sounds of battle.

He thought he recognized the beginnings of the path down to the beach, and hurried down it, keeping his eyes open for potential ambushers. There didn’t seem to be anyone there. Just a little further, and he’d be back to his boat, he’d be able to —

He rounded the corner to the beach and stopped. One of the Abandoned was there, massive and muscled. He was standing over Thanos’s boat, or at least, over what remained of it. Even as Thanos watched, the prisoner struck it with a sword that looked like a matchstick in his hands, shattering some of the planks that remained.