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The dart had felt momentarily like the sting of a small insect. He had not had long enough to feel any worse pain before falling like a stone to the earth. Minutes later, when his consciousness slowly returned, the first thing Thornden felt was a pain at the side of his neck. As he raised himself up on his left elbow, his right hand unclasped the sword hilt and he lifted it to feel the sore area. His fingers touched the area gently, feeling out the welt that was rising around a very small indentation.
Once he had found out what very little he could of that, he shook his foggy head and looked up around him. He looked at Rilef, relieved to see them in the same position that they had been, and then turned to see if the wounded man had crawled away.
An audible gasp, bordering close upon a cry, burst from him as a jolt of surprise shook him. The headless corpse lay but two feet away from his face, and the bloody stump of his neck was nearest of all. He sat up and backed quickly away from it.
How did it happen? Thornden wondered. He stooped forward to retrieve his sword. Who would put me down and then come in and kill him and leave Rilef and me unharmed? His thought stopped there, however, as he lifted the blade, stained with bright red blood, still wet. He had cleaned the sword after wounding the one and killing the other, he was sure. But now fresh blood showed on the blade from half way up it to the very point.
“It was a clean sweep,” he observed, gnawing his under lip. “But with my sword.” He stood up and walked away to where a clump of clean grass grew. He knelt and cleaned the blade once more and then sheathed it. His next object was to get Rilef up on their feet and get them out of this tangled mess of vines, trees, and old ruins.
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