by Rex Foote
Accepting the bowl, she gave him a quizzical look and said, “Where did you get the rabbit meat and herbs from?”
“I packed them,” he replied, helping himself to a bowl. “I knew we wouldn’t get far on the first night and that I wouldn’t have time to hunt, so I came prepared.”
As he talked, she raised the bowl to her lips and took a sip. Thankfully the sip was only small, as boiling hot liquid scalded the inside of her mouth and throat. She swallowed as she almost dropped the bowl. Coughing, she reached for her waterskin while Hark, in an entirely neutral tone, said, “Careful, it’s hot.”
Glaring, she tried again, this time blowing on the stew before drinking. While she did this, he asked, “So where are we heading?”
She swallowed the mouthful of rabbit and herb stew, which, she noted, as it was now no longer burning her mouth, tasted faintly of grass, before replying, “Well, there are a few places that come to mind. Mymt Lagoon for one, the Western Border Mountains for another.”
“Pick one for now,” Hark replied. “We don’t have the time to visit more than one if we want to get you back to the Guild within the year.”
Esme’s heart sank as she realised that she had assumed that she was now done with her old life. But now it occurred to her that this trip could never be anything more than a vacation, a break in her routine that would have to end one day to allow her normal day-to-day life to resume. They had both been eating in silence while she had considered this, so when Hark cleared his throat, she gave him a startled look and asked, “Yes?”
“Where are we going?”
She only had to think about it for a few moments before answering.
“Mymt Lagoon. I was told that it looks like a lake of fire at dawn.”
“So hot, deadly, and lifeless?”
She threw her now empty bowl at him and he ducked, laughing. Retrieving the bowl, he said, “Okay, okay. Mymt Lagoon it is. Come on, we should get going. The more distance we put between the city and ourselves, the better.”
Getting to her feet, she joined him in packing away her gear and collected her staff. She settled the pack on her back with a grunt as she realised just how heavy it was, and turned to see Hark looking at it.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take some of that?” he asked in a casual tone.
“No,” she said, “I can manage.”
Taking the lead, she headed up the rise and so failed to notice Hark’s amused expression as he fell in behind her.
***
Exhausted, Esme fell face first onto the ground in the shade of a large tree. It was sun’s peak and Hark had decided to call a short rest, for which she was eternally grateful. He had been leading ever since midmorning when her optimistic pace had started to falter, slowed by her generally unfit state and the small storehouse strapped to her back. Hark had made no comment at all as he overtook her; neither had his face revealed anything as he passed, but she did notice it was rigidly set, as if he was fighting to keep it that way against an outbreak of emotion. After that, it was all she could to do to focus on his back, using it as an anchor to drag herself onwards. It hadn’t stopped the blisters from forming on her toes or ankles, nor had it stopped her back and legs from aching savagely, but it had helped her carry on all the same. Now she lay face down on the cool, dusty ground, moaning at the dull, throbbing ache that came from all over her legs, feet, and back and generally lamenting her choice to leave the comfort of her home. She groaned as Hark lifted the pack off her, then she rolled herself onto her back as he handed her a waterskin. As she drank great gulps from it, spilling quite a bit over herself in the process, he said, “Perhaps we should have taken this day a bit more slowly. Eased you into it a bit more.”
She let the waterskin fall empty from her hand and lay there, the water forming muddy pools around her back and head. Tilting her head forward to look at him, she gasped, “You…could…have said…something.”
He nodded his head in agreement.
“I could have, but this way is better.”
She glared at him from where she lay and he went on.
“This way you will never again set such an aggressive pace. and you won’t overstuff your pack, either.”
She closed her eyes as he walked over to the tree trunk, set down his own pack, and withdrew items from within it. She could feel the slight breeze chill the muddy sweat that coated her skin and soaked her clothes, and she welcomed the scant relief it brought. She felt something land on her stomach and opened her eyes to see a small bundle of dried meat lying on her midriff. Aching, she propped herself up on her elbows.
“No, can’t eat, too tired,” she said eyeing the food warily.
“You need to,” Hark replied as he sat with his back propped up against the tree. “Traveling all day takes a lot out of you if you are unfit, and even more so if you decided to weigh yourself down with half a pantry.“
Grumbling, she picked up a piece of dried meat and nibbled from it. As she started the long process of chewing the tacky dried meat, he carried on.
“Now that any desire to set the pace or lead from the front has been walked out of you, I should probably tell you where we are going.”
She paused and eyed him before replying, “I thought we were going to Mymt Lagoon.”
Nodding, he said, “We are. But how are we going to get there?”
He brought forth a map of Esmor from his pack and laid it on the ground, securing its corners with stones. Picking up a stick, he pointed to a spot not far from Caladaria.
“We are here, roughly. When we reach the fork, we head for Dimfell,” he said, tracing their intended path from Caladaria up the right branch of the road at the fork and onwards to Dimfell.
“Once there, we head for Mymt Lagoon. After that, we take the same way back.”
Esme had recovered enough to raise an eyebrow at that.
“I thought that would have been plain, seeing as the road from Mymt to Caladaria was kind of well known.”
“Always have a plan,” he said pointing the stick at her. “If you don’t have a plan, then you are done for; even the obvious needs to be planned.”
“That makes no sense,” she replied, letting herself fall back to the ground, and sighed when she remembered that it was muddy. Carrying on, she said, “Are you telling me that anyone who ever did well always had a plan?”
“Yes,” he replied, coming over to collect her waterskin. “Now I will fill this up while you rest for a bit longer, then we will be on our way.”
Her reply died on her lips, and she closed her eyes in a wave of exhaustion at the very thought of ever standing up again, let alone walking.
***
The rest of the day was pure misery for Esme. Her sweat-damp clothes and her backpack, lighter now that Hark had taken some of the supplies from it, chafed her back, hips, and numerous other places. Her feet hurt and her hair, damp with sweat, kept falling into her eyes. The rest of the day passed in a monotonous blur as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. By the time they found a place to camp for the night, she didn’t quite fall over. Instead, she sat heavily on an old tree stump. As she took her backpack off, Hark did likewise and took out his bow. Seeing this, and hating herself for even daring to ask, she said, “Can I come?”
Hark turned to her, a look of surprise on his face.
“I would have thought you would have wanted to rest after today.”
“Yes, I should,” she said as struggled to her feet. “But I need to learn how to survive out here, how to live off what I can hunt or forage. And since this is only a one-off trip, I may as well take every chance I have to learn.”
His answering smile filled her with warmth, and when he clapped her on the shoulder, she almost fell over.
“With such a will to learn, how could I say no? Come on, we can leave our stuff here; no one will take it.”
They set off into the gathering gloom of evening. As they walked, Hark began to teach her about surviving in t
he wilds, and she tried to take it all in while also fighting off the urge to lie down and sleep.
***
Watch Sergeant Anita Storkhelm looked at the two sitting on the other side of her desk and considered her options. Her day had been going well up until this point; no one had tried anything at Caladaria’s northern gate and traffic had been low, meaning a slow, relaxing day for her and her guards. Now, however, it seemed that all that was about to change, and what’s more, these two were too important to have thrown out.
Sighing, she said, “Look, I understand that your daughter going missing is very distressing. And I am sure that if you asked the Caladarian City Guard, then they would send someone to look for her. But the Gate Guard has one job: to guard the gates.”
The woman, a tall, straight-backed, middle-aged woman with a narrow face and, most importantly, wearing the grey fur-trimmed knee-length blue robe of a full member of the Caladarian Mages’ Guild, replied in an icy tone, “Kidnapped, Gate Sergeant, not missing. She would never have run off on her own. That Elreni boy kidnapped her, and I want you to go and get her back.”
“Then why not go to the city guards? Why ask us?” Storkhelm countered.
“Because,” cut in the short, fat man dressed in that way the merchants do to show off their wealth, “we are talking to you, in your office. If we went to the city guard, then that’s more time for that Elreni to escape with our daughter. And besides, you have horses on hand ready to go.”
Growling, the Gate Sergeant replied, “Those are for a city guard squad set to leave from this gate shortly for a patrol. They are not for gate guard use.”
“Then I suggest you requisition them, Sergeant,” said the woman, who spat the last word out as if it left a vile taste in her mouth. Deciding it was worth the risk, she was about to shout for her guards to get the pair out when the fat man put a hand on the woman’s shoulder and said, “Averie, allow me.”
He drew out a small, bulging leather bag from his clothes and placed it on the table. It rested with a soft clink.
“I understand that those aren’t your horses, and this isn’t your regular job. But you are able to act faster than any other guards we could speak to, and it would mean a lot if you did this for us.”
Storkhelm eyed the bag and weighed her options. She never considered herself to be the most dutybound of guards; after all, why would such a person settle for being a gate guard? And by refusing, she would only annoy a member of the Mages’ Guild and a wealthy, probably powerful merchant. And all she had to do was go out there and find one eighteen-year-old girl and an Elreni of similar age. If she did this, not only would she get paid for it, but she would also have one over these two, and who knew how useful that would be in the future. She doubted that the Elreni had actually kidnapped the girl, but that didn’t matter to her much; she would arrest him and let her superiors deal with it. She nodded her head slowly.
“Alright, I will see what we can do. We will leave tomorrow at first light.”
His gaze fixed on her, the merchant drew out another, slightly smaller bag and placed it next to the first.
“It would be best if you left right away.”
She whistled at that and said, “She must mean a lot to you.”
Staring right into her eyes with a look of utter sincerity, he replied, “More than you could ever know, Sergeant.”
***
Storkhelm strode out into the gatehouse compound yard followed by four other guards. She stopped just before the stables, turned to face her men, and said, “Here is what is going on. A young Elreni male has kidnapped an equally young Human female. Both are eighteen years old, and neither are to be harmed; we are to recover the girl and arrest the Elreni. I am understood?”
The yard echoed with the report of “Sir, yes sir,” and with a gesture, the patrol mounted up. As they were leaving, the couple emerged from the compound’s main building and regarded the departing patrol with grim concern. As the patrol exited the yard and departed out the north gate, a cloaked form detached itself from the shadows of a building opposite the compound and hurried off into the city. Envoy Ulaneiros would want to know that his son was now a wanted Elreni and a suspected kidnapper. As he hurried through the streets, the figure went over all the implications of this in his mind and was deeply concerned by where this led him.
Chapter Five
30th Day of Axnera. The Season of Dawn. Year 250
Storkhelm shielded her eyes against the bright light of dawn as her patrol drew up around her. They had ridden through the night from Caladaria hoping to catch their quarry asleep and preferably camped not far from the road, but it was clear that they had either passed them by in the night or that the pair had taken a detour, which meant wandering into the wilderness of Esmor—an unlikely scenario. As she considered her options, one of her guardsmen came up alongside her.
“Sir, we have to go back. If we are gone too long, someone might think we have deserted, or worse,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Rhime’s breath.” She cursed. She had been too focused on finding the pair to think about the consequences of what she had done. The guards she’d left behind would have informed the captain of the City Watch that she and her patrol had set off in pursuit of fugitives who had fled the city, but this was a flimsy excuse, and one she knew wouldn’t hold up for long under scrutiny—the exact kind it would receive if they stayed out too long. Snarling in frustration, she turned her mount and shouted, “Form up, we’re going back.”
“What about the gold, and two that paid us?” asked another of her guards. Though she was a sergeant, she couldn’t have expected her guards to follow her out of the city and into the night on orders alone, so she’d had to tell them about the bribe and the two that had paid it.
Spurring her mount forward, she replied, “I will deal with that when we get back.”
Her guards fell in double line behind her as they started back to Caladaria.
***
The first thing Hark saw upon waking was the sun’s bright light streaming directly into his face and, groaning, he rolled over to see Esme sitting on the other side of last night’s campfire looking into the east and the burgeoning dawn. They had camped at the base of a slope just off the road, desiring a small degree of privacy from anyone who may be using it during the night. She turned her head and regarded him as he sat up.
“I wish I could wake and see every morning.” she commented to him.
“I doubt it,” he replied as he stood, while she withdrew a small bundle of dried fruit from her pack.
“Why?”
“Because after long, you would go blind, then you wouldn’t see anything.”
Unwrapping the bundle, she sighed, “Oh Hark, you have no sense of beauty.”
He came over and nicked a small piece of fruit from her, grinning as he popped it into his mouth.
“Course I do; I just value my eyesight more.”
She returned his grin with a weary smile of her own, her dirty face and dishevelled hair given a faint orange glow in the dawn light. It occurred to him how tired she must be, what with always taking dawn watch and the amount of walking she had done in the last two days. His musings were interrupted when she spoke.
“I heard horses on the road last night, just after moon’s peak.”
This gave him a small boost of pride; after all, camping off the road had been his idea, one that she had argued against.
“Well, it’s a good thing we were down here,” he replied, trying, and failing, to keep some the smugness out of his voice.
“Fine, it was a good idea,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Should we be worried?”
“No, it was probably a messenger and escort. Nothing to do with us.”
Satisfied with this and seeing that it was nearing time to set off again, Esme stood up and collected her gear, trying to mask the slight grimace of pain from tired and sore limbs. Seeing her discomfort, he said, “Don’t worry, we will go slowly today.”
For a moment, she looked like she was going to protest, then relief flooded her face and she nodded gratefully. Then they ascended the slope and started off down the road.
***
It was late evening by the time they came to a stop underneath a nearby tree. As Hark set his pack down and helped Esme prepare the evening meal, he was startled by her willingness to help. This was only the second day out of the city and she should have been slumped against the tree taking the time to rest. Instead, here she was helping him make the evening meal and learning how to cook over a campfire while doing so. It was almost as if she planned on doing this herself one day. As the stew cooked over the fire, he sat down against the tree and watched Esme as she took off her shoes with a grimace. Despite the strain her general lack of fitness had caused her during the journey so far, he was impressed at her lack of complaint. Yes, she might stagger along like a drunk behind him and slump exhausted at the end of the day, but she did it all without a single complaint, whine, or any comment of discomfort. And on top of all that, she somehow managed to drag herself to her feet each evening and come with him as he gathered herbs, set snares, or scouted the area. Her desire to learn about surviving in the wild in spite of her exhausted state was inspiring. He had always respected her, but now he was learning of her hidden depths and never ceased to be amazed by them. As she pulled off her socks and wriggled her toes, she saw him looking at her and gave him a sheepish grin.
“I couldn’t stand being in those sweat rags a moment longer.”
“No, by all means, wriggle away,” Hark replied with an answering grin.
They sat in silence a few moments longer, Hark taking the chance to tend to his gear and Esme just glad to finally relax. Dinner came and went, and Hark was just putting away the cooking gear when Esme glanced up, her brow furrowed at something behind him, and she asked, “What is that?”
