Dislodging the dagger from the man's throat, Imus glanced above at the Black Dragon.
The beast was standing on the top of a tall tree, looking with a bestial grin. Her black and lustrous scales shined under the glow of the moonlight. The white fur swayed slightly.
The deep and red ember eyes of the creature glistened as she leapt down from the tree.
She landed effortlessly, not producing a sound like an assassin.
"Hey kid, why did you kill the poor man?"
She looked at the corpse and chuckled,
"Ah, what a great show of brutality!"
The boy frowned and wiped the blood of the dagger.
"You know it yourself, haven't you been following me since you told me to come here?"
The beast didn't say anything and shrugged indifferently.
"Hmm, do you know why I called you here?"
Not giving an answer, the boy walked towards the two fine horses and paused for a while.
"Wait for a moment."
He gripped the leash of the horse and and started to lead it somewhere far away. The mighty beast followed him, leaping from one tree to another.
The boy stopped before a cliff.
The cliff was a famous attraction which the boy deducted from when he noticed many people chatting around and admiring the view from above.
He grew closer and closer to the edge and...
...pushed the horse with all his might.
The horse violently neighed as it desperately tried to free itself, it had almost gotten free when the boy slashed the heel of the horse as it descended down, tumbling down from rock to rock.
The horse thrashed around like a ragdoll as it finally lost its breath.
The boy was still a teenager as his muscles ached and he struggled to get up.
The Black Dragon looked at him in amusement.
Reaching deep into the forest, he arrived at the spot where he had buried the corpse of both Maya and Rav.
The lifeless corpse of the old man was still smiling, staring at the direction where he last gazed upon when he was alive. The boy leapt up into the horse and lifted the man on the mount.
There were two horses. But, he threw one off so there was only one horse.
As he mounted the corpse Imus remembered fragments of a conversation between his friend where the fat boy had told him how to ride a horse.
'Put the legs into the stirup, grab the leash and pull it into the direction you want to.'
Suddenly, the horse shot up almost yanking off Imus.
He almost crashed down into a large tree but he grabbed on as he went to the direction of the cliff.
He wanted no one to notice him and know of his existence that's why he had killed the man.
"You are quite merciless."
Looking at the towering figure looming over him, the boy sighed.
"This is what I had to do."
The beast stared at him and laughed.
"Ah... You are amusing, indeed."
As the horse galloped further and further from the crime scene, his heart rate started to stabilize. He didn't try to go at full speed as it was very difficult to do so.
The corpse was at front, dancing around as the horse trotted across the pavement.
As the boy rummaged through the body, he managed to find 7 gold and 18 copper coins. Looking at the shiny metal, his eyes glistened as he hastily put them in his make shift wallet.
Soon, he had reached the edge cliff, he leapt off the horse and dragged the body through the mud.
His stance changed, as he utilized all his muscles in his frail body and threw it from the cliff.
"Why drop the horse and the man from the same place?"
The mighty creature asked while licking it's paws.
The boy didn't answer as he groaned while climbing the horse.
#
A group of masked individuals marched through the forest, following the pavement as some of them kept their guard.
The moon shone above them causing white light to fall over them. The owl hooted in the distance, it's sound reverberating through the surroundings.
Startled by the hoot, a person winced as a bead of cold sweat ran down from her forehead.
"S-sir, Have we found it?"
The scared girl asked while shivering with fear and the cold.
"No! Keep searching!"
The captain of the search party barked while crouching down to examine the marks left by their carriage.
'We are getting close.'
The captain thought while going forward.
After a good one hour, they had reached deep into the forest. A fox stared at them and ran away.
Due to the rainy weather in the past few days, searching was much easier. There were visible and deep marks formed by horses and a carriage seemingly engraved in the wet mud.
What they saw before them confused them.
The driver was nowhere to be seen but a horse was sleeping soundly.
The captain soon noticed a empty carriage in the distance.
He scratched the back of his head as he contemplated something in his mind.
The captain could clearly remembered that there were two bodies recovered from the buildings and loaded onto the carriage.
The leader of all division had told him to keep a close eye on the carriage and make sure the corpses were not lost.
But both the driver and the corpses were not seen anymore.
The captain's face grew tenser and tenser as his worry multiplied.
Then two voice called him from behind:
"Sir! There are a new set of tracks that lead to the direction of the cliff."
"Sir we have found two graves!"
The man mobilized half of his entire troops to stay in the area and dig up the two graves while, another half was to accompany him and examine the new set of tracks.
A group of men and women alike atop on horses treaded across the dirt path leaving dust and dirt flying everywhere.
At the front of the horde was the captain himself, his gaze determined and filled with grim desperation.
They soon reached the famous cliff and came down.
The footprints of the man and horse were leading dangerously close to the edge. It seemed like the man wanted to be close while the horse didn't.
The captain paused for a while and shouted:
"You! Go to the end of the cliff."
His voice resounded pure authority as the members scrambled to get onto the horses.
The matter sounded seemed so strange to the man.
Why did the driver went into the forest and even if he did so, why did he stop at the cliff?
And the graves.
It just seemed so unnatural.
As thoughts brewed in his mind, the arrival of his members alarmed him.
"What is the status?"
A terribly battered and roughed corpse of the driver was dropped onto the ground. His spine was utterly broken and his joints were dislocated.
The captain hissed as he took a look at the body.
"Sir, the horse was in a similar condition but it couldn't be carried so we brought him."
A plethora of emotions burst in the captain's mind.
They had been acquainted for almost a decade now. The old man had been a father figure for the man. Since, the fact that he was his uncle caused his feeling to ignite even further.
But the most prominent of the feeling was the feeling of denial.
The man was energetic and happy earlier so what caused him to take his own life or... was it even him?
The last nail hit in the coffin when he inspected the neck of the corpse.
He had been stabbed.