Captured

Dareios regained consciousness to find himself splayed out on his back in a bed, his wrists and ankles being tied to the bedposts.

Once the three women with whom he travelled had followed his advice and fled only a few minutes passed before the first of the six riders coming at him came charging up the hill, swinging a mace consisting of a large, smooth iron ball mounted on a shaft, with cloth wrapped around the blunt head of the weapon.

Avoiding the raider?s swinging mace by deftly stepping out of its way, Dareios kept from stroking until the horse had almost charged past him before chopping at the animals right back leg with his sword, striking a blow so fierce that it almost cut the limb in half at the knee.

This naturally caused the suddenly terrified animal to collapse, going to the ground with its head first and with such speed that its hapless rider was slung off it and into the bottom of the wrecked wagon.

Dareios paid no attention to what was happening behind however as the next rider came at him, this one a brutish hulk of a man like the one before him, but swinging a heavy axe instead of a mace.

The second raider let out a guttural as he steered his steed towards Dareios, who responded to the man?s obsessive waving with his axe over his head by throwing his sword to strike the man just under his breast-bone, the blade hitting him with such **** that the tip of it went straight through on impact to stick out of his back between the shoulder-blades.

Dareios had thrown the sword with enough **** to cause the raider to lift from his saddle and plunge through the air to land on the soft ground while his mount mindlessly kept charging up the hill.

The third and fourth riders? were apparently planning to both take advantage of Dareios suddenly being unarmed and avoid the mistake that their predecessors had made by charging at him alone, and so came bursting at him lined up with two feet between them.

Tumbling in between them and managing to avoid the downward blows with which they aimed to strike him, Dareios rolled up on his feet not far from his recently stricken animal, and grabbed first his axe, then stopped to avoid the fifth rider?s attempted attack, and then finally pulled his sword out of the dead raider?s chest.

Now armed with both sword and axe, Dareios took the opportunity to calm his adrenaline-fuelled pulse down a bit while his four adversaries dismounted.

The raiders warily approached him, and then a bloody dance was begun, with Dareios swirling around in the centre, parrying or avoiding his enemies? attacks.

The marauders proved poorly adapt at fighting, and Dareios had soon dwindled down their numbers to a mere two through first chopping the first one over his right shoulder, then avoiding another blow by spinning out his way, parrying another with his sword and returning the favour by hitting his latest attacker in the side of his head with the axe, then arching his back to avoid a spear being thrust at him, and finishing off by driving his sword into the belly of the man whom he had just damaged in the shoulder.

One of the two leather-armoured figures remaining upright and non-bleeding was a woman, which handed Dareios the opportunity to demonstrate his belief in equality between the genders by thrusting his sword into her left thigh, running it through and stepping in closer to her so as to get a chance to strike her head with a powerful blow from his axe.

Now, only the spear-wielder remained, and he responded to the **** of his fellow ruffians by tossing his weapon away and bolting for shelter behind the wagon.

He didn?t get there though, as Dareios threw the axe after him and scored a solid hit, the long edge of the axe being buried in the man?s back.

Just then, Dareios felt a sudden sharp pain erupt in the small of his back as something blunt and hard hit him there with full ****.

Gasping in pain and dropping his sword as he tumbled forwards to land on his belly, Dareios could hear hooves hitting the ground behind him, and gritted his teeth to keep from screaming with pain as he rolled round onto his back.

A metal net was then thrown over him, hindering him from moving, and Dareios could do little do avoid the blunt end of a lance which a rider now sent to come down and strike him.

The blow, dealt out from a mounted figure which Dareios could only hazily make out, knocked him ****.

And now here he was, tied down in a bed in a room which had apparently been stocked filled with loot, for several bottles of wine and hard spirits were lined up on a drawer not far from him, while a pile of silver and gold trinkets gleaming from its position in the middle of the room.

Further, Dareios had not only been bound but also disarmed and disrobed, and it was just as he realized the latter that a sudden grating noise announced that the door to the room was being pulled open.