The Chosen

by K. J. Nessly

  Natalie felt the arrow strike Sebastian, could feel his body shudder with the impact. As she felt him drag her backwards she struggled to free herself. His dead weight plunged them both over the side, as they fell Natalie grasped blindly for handholds along the bank. Her hand snagged a root and she held on for dear life.

  The sudden stop, brought with her grasp of the root, loosened Sebastian’s arm around her neck and he fell into the water.

  Natalie gasped as the root began to part from the embankment, causing her to swing in an arc, she needed to find another support. Kathryn’s head appeared over the bank.

  “Hold on, Natalie!”

  “I’m trying!” Natalie called desperately. She could see Kathryn looking around frantically for a vine or stick that she could use to pull her up. The root slid some more. “Hurry Kathryn!” Natalie begged. “The root won’t hold much longer.”

  Kathryn fumbled at her waist for the sash she wore. It wasn’t much, but hopefully better than the root Natalie held. She threw the end down and Natalie grabbed at it just as the root gave way. The sudden addition of weight nearly sent Kathryn over the edge.

  Desperately Kathryn tried to regain her footing as she began sliding closer to the edge. “Natalie!” she called, “is there any sort of ledge available for you to stand on?”

  Natalie looked around, three meters below her was a small outcropping no more than a half a meter wide. “Yes!” she called back. “But I don’t know how steady it is.” Her foot found a small rock sticking out of the dirt and she braced herself on it.

  Kathryn wracked her brain for other options, but they didn’t have any. At this rate she’d be over the edge in about a minute. “We don’t have a choice, I need you to stand on it.”

  “It’s three meters down,” Natalie called back, suddenly the tiny foothold she’d found collapsed and she dropped downward, pulling Kathryn with her.

  Kathryn felt the jerk but was powerless to prevent herself from tumbling over along with Natalie. Keeping a death grip on the sash in one hand, Kathryn’s other hand frantically sought roots and outcroppings as she plunged down the side of the bank. Her hand snagged a thick root and their combined weight nearly wrenched her arm from its socket, but their fall had been stopped. Natalie was about half a meter below the ledge she had found and managed to pull herself up onto the ledge, where she collapsed, sagging against the wall. “Thank you,” She gasped.

  Kathryn carefully dropped to the ledge. “You’re welcome.”

  They were silent for a moment, catching their breath, and then Natalie said softly, “It’s my fault Sebastian broke free.”

  Destiny called from somewhere above and Kathryn answered her with a whistle. To Natalie’s comment, Kathryn’s reply was surprisingly gentle. “We know.”

  “Then you also know why he chose me as a hostage.” Natalie’s tone was bitter as she thought of the way he had taunted her as he dragged her through the forest.

  Again Kathryn’s reply was calm. “We guessed why.” Well sort of. The Princess would still have been an easier hostage, but Roseanna had been kept far away from the Duke and within a protective circle of Guardians. Destiny appeared in front of them and perched herself on Kathryn’s knees.

  Natalie looked at Kathryn in disbelief as she stroked her bird. “What, no lecture on the proper procedure for tying criminals? Or about how a Guardian needs to be attentive at all times?”

  Kathryn shook her head. “We all make mistakes,” She said quietly, and then looked at Natalie. “The important thing is that we learn from them,” she said sternly.

  Natalie, who had been expecting a lecture, wished she’d gotten one instead of grace from the person she had hated most. “I don’t deserve your mercy,” she said miserably. “I’ve treated you horribly.”

  “That I won’t deny,” Kathryn agreed, shifting her arm slightly to relieve some of the pain that was beginning to throb in her wrist. “The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

  Natalie paused a moment. “I don’t suppose a simple apology will do it for you?”

  Her lieutenant snorted. “After what you put me through? I don’t think so. But it is a start,” she said after a pause.

  Natalie swallowed hard. “Did you have something in mind?”

  Kathryn thought for a moment. Natalie could almost see the vengeful wheels turning in the younger girl’s eyes. Whatever she decides, I’ll bear it, she vowed. I deserve it.

  “I’ll discuss it with David,” Kathryn said finally.

  Natalie felt wretched. Instead of taking the opportunity to humiliate and ensure that a strict punishment was enforced, Kathryn was willing to temper her feelings about the situation with David’s far more impartial judgment. Natalie knew that she could never have been so gracious. Abruptly she realized just how wrong she had been.

  “I truly am sorry,” Natalie said quietly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kathryn replied, her voice a little brusque, as she gingerly examined her wrist which was beginning to swell slightly.

  “No!” Natalie exclaimed. “I won’t let you brush it off. I was cruel and insufferable to you, I wouldn’t have treated a servant the way I treated you. I hated you. I imagined trying to replace you as the second in command. I even broke the rule against invading privacy. I was even mad at you for being assigned the room I wanted.”

  Kathryn sighed, and shifted uncomfortably against the embankment. “It’s alright Natalie, I’ve been treated worse.”

  “No it’s not alright!” Natalie insisted vehemently, and then added more slowly, “I’m sorry Kathryn, I was wrong to treat you that way. You are the best choice for second in command. This mission proved that to me. The night you went scouting, Matt, Jenna, and Daniel all made it clear that they blamed me for your reclusiveness and that they thought I was a bloody idiot. And then Matt refused to partner with me…” she trailed off. “I hurt my own standing in this family more than yours. You had our best interests at heart when all I wanted was everyone else to look at me.”

  “I forgive you Natalie, I’ve never held it against you.” Well, maybe a little, but Kathryn felt that it wouldn’t do Natalie any good to know that.

  Natalie slumped back against the embankment. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Unexpectedly, Natalie flung her arms round her old rival in a hug. Kathryn was so startled at the sudden contact that she almost slipped from the ledge. Then Natalie suddenly pulled back. “What did you mean when you said were treated worse? Who would dare mistreat you? Besides me that is…”

  Kathryn took a deep breath. She supposed that it couldn’t hurt to tell Natalie the bare basics. “I was abused as a little girl, Natalie. Treated like a slave in both my uncle’s home as well as the manor I was brought to afterwards.”

  “Oh Kathryn!” Natalie cried, “I am so sorry! I didn’t know.”

  Kathryn smiled sadly, her gaze locked on the distant horizon. “There are very few who knew.”

  Natalie paused for a moment. “I envy you, you know.”

  Kathryn’s own low self-esteem couldn’t comprehend what Natalie was saying. “What?”

  “I envy you,” Natalie repeated. “You fight like you were born for it. I’ve never seen you hesitate in battle, and you never miss. I couldn’t even manage to effectively kill one knight back at the castle. Yet you killed probably twenty or thirty men and when Sebastian had Roseanna you didn’t even hesitate when you shot him in the arm, and when we went after the outlaws you and Amy killed three of their leaders on your own. All I did was watch from the sidelines…and David was always focused on you, I could never manage to get his attention. No matter how hard I tried,” she added.

  “Don’t envy me, Natalie,” Kathryn said quietly. “Confidence in battle and an ease of killing men is not something you should admire.”

  “In this job it is,” Natalie replied firmly.

  Kathryn was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded. “In this job, yes, confidence in battle is essential, but kil
ling men should never come easy. And I’m fairly certain that the only reason David was paying so much attention to me was because he was imagining painful ways to kill me for being so uncooperative.”

  Natalie studied her. “I’m not so sure,” she said slowly.

  Now Kathryn was confused. “What do you mean?”

  Natalie thought back through all of the times she’d studied David, only to find him studying Kathryn—with a look that was only partly with frustration. She suspected that her leader didn’t even realize it yet himself. An idea popped into her head…Kathryn was going to kill her for this but it was going to be so much fun. And it would help make up for what she’d put Kathryn through.

  Seeing that Kathryn was waiting for a reply, she began to reply but noticed a movement over her companion’s shoulder. “There’s a spider on your shoulder,” she said quietly. The reaction she got was the last one she would have ever expected.

  Kathryn turned, almost frantically, to look at her shoulder and came eye to eye with a spider roughly a hand span in size. She shrieked and the sudden, and totally unexpected, noise nearly sent Natalie off the ledge.

  Meanwhile Kathryn, whose movements were usually smooth and effortless, was frantically trying to brush the spider off herself and only managed to topple both her, and the spider, over the edge of the ledge.

  Natalie grabbed at Kathryn and managed to catch her hand while holding onto a root to keep herself from falling.

  “Is it gone yet?”

  Natalie looked down and noticed that Kathryn’s hysterical movements and fall had indeed managed to dislodge the spider. “Yes,” she answered honestly.

  Intense relief filled the younger woman’s face as they worked together to pull her back up. Once Kathryn was back on the ledge she turned to Natalie, “If you ever tell anyone, I swear I’ll kill you.”

  Natalie grinned and nodded. “Understood.”

  After a few moments Natalie’s shoulders started shaking until she could contain herself no longer. Letting out a snort she started giggling in uncontrolled waves.

  Puzzled, Kathryn stared at her. “What’s so funny?”

  Natalie responded by mimicking Kathryn’s frantic arm waving while attempting to dislodge the spider.

  “That’s not funny,” her companion growled.

  Natalie recovered her composure and twisted to face her in an attempt to apologize for her insensitivity.

  As soon as she made eye contact, she giggled and was soon laughing so hard she could hardly see because of all the tears. Dumbfounded, Kathryn continued staring and finally shook her head while rolling her eyes.

  David followed the trail until he reached the river. He saw the scuffed ground where a small battle had obviously taken place and he saw where Kathryn had shot her arrow, but there was no one to be seen. “Kathryn!” he called out. “Natalie!”

  As he neared the bluff, he saw her bow and could hear a bellowing roar reverberating down the canyon from the scene below. He listened intently, but the crashing of the river drowned out all other sounds. If they’d fallen into the river they were going to have a rough time of it, Kathryn’s gift notwithstanding. Who knew where they’d manage to escape the current? He knew that if they had fallen in, Kathryn would get them back to the glade. But the idea of leaving them, especially with Natalie’s vendetta against the younger girl, made him cringe.

  “Kathryn! Natalie!”

  Kathryn voice called out, “down here!”

  Quickly he crossed to the edge and looked down. There, a good five meters below him, sat Kathryn, Destiny, and Natalie, perched on the smallest outcropping possible. “What in the kingdom are you doing down there?” he asked.

  They glanced upward. Kathryn was cradling one of her arms in her lap, David guessed that at the very least she’d sprained it and he was very interested to hear the story of how they’d ended up down there. However it was Natalie who was confusing him the most. Even though he could barely hear it from his location above the noise of the river, Natalie, after glancing from him to Kathryn had started laughing hysterically and from the tear tracks in the dirt on her face, she’d been laughing for quite some time already. Either that or she’d had a good cry before he’d arrived. What had happened?

  Natalie paused in her mirth and flashed a smile at him. “What does it look like? We were waiting for you.” He was as confused as he’d ever been. Two days ago they’d been enemies. Now they were sitting together like old friends. Women. He would never understand them.

  David managed to rustle up some thick vines that the two girls could use to climb up the sheer embankment. Tossing the vines over the edge, David ended up pulling both girls up. As he had suspected Kathryn had strained her wrist when she had grabbed the root and Natalie had pulled a muscle in her leg. Climbing was possible—their training demanded that— but it would have been painful. David, unwilling to cause either of them any more pain had argued at length with both girls in order to persuade them to set aside their professional pride and let him help them.

  Natalie went first and helped David as he pulled Kathryn up. The entire way up the cliff Destiny refused to move from Kathryn’s shoulder making the trip up awkward, but eventually both made it.

  “You know,” David said as he studied Destiny. “You have one bizarre bird.”

  As they made their way to rejoin the others, Natalie confessed everything to David. When she’d finished he was quiet for a long time. Finally he turned to Kathryn, but the question he asked wasn’t the one Natalie had been expecting. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “Not my style,” she replied, hacking at the dense foliage that seemed to have already swallowed their initial path.

  Natalie watched his jaw work and wasn’t entirely sure whom he was more annoyed with, her or Kathryn.

  After another minute, David sighed. “Fine, we’ll work on that problem later. We still need to figure out what to do about Natalie’s actions.”

  Kathryn was struggling with one particular bush that seemed determined to ensnare them in its thorns. “I figured that I’d leave that up to you.” With a grunt she snapped off several of the branches directly in her face.

  David couldn’t hide his surprise. “You want me to decide the punishment?” He brought out one of his own knives and began hacking at the stubborn bush from the other side. Whatever the thing was, it caught on everything. He could feel the thorns snag in his tunic.

  “Her actions were against me,” Kathryn reminded them as she continued doggedly forward. “I’m not exactly impartial in this case. And you are our leader.”

  The conversation would have been serious if the two most powerful Guardians in the Dragons hadn’t been fighting a losing battle with a plant. Natalie knew that she should have been acting contrite and humble, but she was fighting a losing battle with her laughter.

  David must have heard her because he sent a glower her way. “This isn’t funny, Natalie.”

  Oh, but it most certainly was. About thirty or so thorns had been hooked into his clothing on all sides, rendering him essentially motionless. She couldn’t help it. She braced her already aching sides as her laughter bubbled out

  David struggled to free himself from his captor and only succeeded in hooking more thorns into his clothes.

  By this time, Kathryn had stopped her trail blazing and was staring at him, a slight smile raising one corner of her mouth. He turned his glare on her. “Get me out of here.”

  “Oh, I think you’re doing fine on your own.”

  Natalie was bent over double, her hands wrapped around her waist, she was laughing so hard. “You look so ridiculous!”

  “Kathryn, do something!”

  The Dragon’s lieutenant walked over and inspected the situation. “As far as I see it we have two options. I can cut the branches that are attached to you and you can walk back to the campsite with thirty branches attached to you, or I can saw the branches off at the base of the thorns and you can spend this evening’s campfire digging
them out of the cirin.”

  “Can’t you just pull them out?” Natalie asked.

  Kathryn shook her head. “The thorns are barbed,” she explained. Reaching up she snapped a small twig off the bush and walked over to her. She held up the twig for Natalie to observe.

  Natalie held the plant between two of her fingers. The thorns appeared to be comprised of several smaller thorns that had grown together and were hooked at both ends with points that reminded Natalie of a ship’s anchor. “Yikes.”

  “If you’re done with your examination of the local plant life, I’d like to be on our way…soon!” David called out sourly.

  Natalie grinned at Kathryn. “He’s grouchy today.”

  “And bossy,” Kathryn agreed.

  “Anytime today, ladies!”

  Kathryn turned to face him. “I gave you the two options. I haven’t heard you pick one!” She returned sharply.

  “How about option three?”

  “And just what is option three?” She returned sarcastically. “We dig up the bush and you carry it?”

  “Convince the plant to let me go.”

  She stared at him. “How in the kingdom am I supposed to do that?!”

  “Your gift!”

  “What gif—?” Kathryn began angrily, but then abruptly stopped. “Oh. Right.”

  David let out an exasperated sound, but wisely didn’t comment further. After a few moments, the bush began to retract its branches slowly. Thorn by thorn, David was finally released.

  As soon as he was free, he stepped quickly away from his former prison and inspected his uniform. As far as Natalie could tell, there were a few puncture holes, but nothing serious. “Thank you,” he said dryly.

  “You’re welcome,” she returned sarcastically.

  Natalie forced her smile down. This was the most she had ever seen Kathryn interact with anyone and she had a snarky sense of humor that made Natalie want to grin with every word. She would have to remember this.

  They skirted around the thorn bush and continued on toward the campsite. After they’d gone about a kilometer, David continued their earlier conversation. “Natalie, I know that you’ve apologized to Kathryn and that she’s forgiven you, but I can’t ignore your actions.”