As Fire is to Gold (Chronicles of the Ilaroi Book 1)

by Mark McCabe

  They both busied themselves then. While Rayne laid out his bedroll, Sara began taking out everything she could find from the stranger’s gear.

  “Cold supper tonight I’m afraid,” said Rayne, pulling from his pack some dried meat to add to the wild roots he had found. “We can’t light a fire. If they’re anywhere close by it would draw them straight to us.”

  His reference to their pursuers startled Sara, who looked up from what she’d been doing and began nervously scanning the trees that surrounded them. “Do you think they’re close?” she asked in a whisper.

  “No. It’s okay,” replied Rayne, leaning across and placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think they could have caught up to us yet. It will take them some time to figure out what went on back there and then get back on our trail. Besides, I did all I could to make it a difficult one to follow. We should be all right for tonight. It’s just that we can’t take any chances.” Sara visibly relaxed as he spoke, but continued to glance around, eyeing the trees suspiciously.

  “So, what did you find?” asked Rayne, trying to distract her attention from the darkness that surrounded them.

  Although the sun had set some time ago, the moon had risen and was casting enough light through the trees for them to still be able to see what they were doing. They both turned their attention to their new acquisitions. Sara had already taken the soft leather water pouch and the bedroll which had been tied to the back of the man’s saddle and had placed them beside her. The bedroll was particularly welcome, as Rayne had been gallantly letting her use his since the night they had first met.

  Turning to the saddlebags, she began to rummage through their contents as well, drawing out the items she found one at a time so that they both could examine them. First out was a little tan-coloured cloth bag with a drawstring top. Opening it, she quickly confirmed that it was, as she had guessed, full of coins, mainly bronze with the occasional glint of silver. Passing it to Rayne, she dug down further, producing in quick succession a tinderbox, a pipe, a pouch of tobacco, and some dried meat wrapped around with cloth. Rayne took the last item. Holding it up to his nose before examining it more closely, he declared it a much-needed addition to their supplies.

  Moving to the other bag, Sara found a pair of linen trousers and a shirt, bigger than those she had borrowed from Rayne, but definitely usable. Beneath that she found a small, wooden shovel, a long leather coat rolled up tightly into a roll with a hat of similar material and, right at the bottom, a coil of rope. Rayne said the coat was a weather jacket, similar to one he had. Its tanned exterior would keep out the rain. Taking the rope from her, he examined it closely, measuring it by looping it, as one does with rope, from elbow to palm.

  “This is good rope,” he pronounced, “and a decent length to boot. I’ve got some of my own but this extra length may come in handy.”

  While he was doing that, Sara produced the last of her finds, a grooming brush for the horse and, wrapped in a small leather pouch, a cake of soap and a comb. Sara smelt them both gingerly. She expected them, probably unreasonably, to give off some strange odour, but was pleasantly surprised when she found that they both seemed quite usable. The soap was nothing like the cake Rayne had loaned her a few days previously but would certainly come in handy.

  “Not a bad haul,” said Rayne as Sara finished and began putting the items back where they had come from. To her surprise, he began to lay out the new bedroll alongside his.

  “Mmmm,” replied Sara, her hands busy with the saddlebags but her mind on what he was doing. On previous nights they had slept on opposite sides of the fire, with Sara curled up in the bedroll and Rayne stretched out on the bare ground with his saddle for a pillow.

  “Is this okay?” asked Rayne in a low voice, interrupting her thoughts. With a start, she realised she had been staring at what he was doing.

  “What? Sorry.” Sara looked up at Rayne, noticing that he had stopped arranging her bed and was looking directly at her.

  “I just thought that, without a fire, and it being dark, and you being a little bit jumpy and all, that you’d feel a bit safer with us next to each other, and not leagues apart. I’ll sleep over there somewhere if you’d rather.” Rayne pointed vaguely in the direction of the horses.

  “No, no, of course not,” said Sara. “I . . . I just . . . n-no . . . that’s fine, really, no that’s fine, really. Oh . . . I mean . . . hell . . . don’t mind me. I’m just a bit shaken up by everything. It’s a good idea . . . and very thoughtful of you.”

  She focused her attention on the saddlebags as Rayne went on with what he was doing. Once their two beds were laid out, he placed a saddle at the head of each one, but at opposite ends so they could lie head to toe, beside each other. Sara suspected that he had decided on the latter at the last minute in response to her reaction to what he had done.

  Once their beds were laid out, they both sat down on their blankets facing each other. While they chewed on the dry rations Rayne allocated for their dinner, they began to chat. “I know this is a bit distressing, Sara,” said Rayne, “but I think we should talk about what we’re going to do now. We have to have a plan after what happened today.”

  “I know,” said Sara despondently. “I’m sorry I got you into this, Rayne.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she spoke. Although she was aware she would have no chance at all without his help, she felt terribly guilty that his life was now as much at risk as hers was.

  Rayne reached out and placed his hand over hers as she nervously played with the rope belt at her waist. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You didn’t ask for this trouble either, remember. We’re in it together now, so let’s just concentrate on getting out of it.”

  Sara nodded, afraid that if she spoke she might cry. She simply couldn’t believe the kindness Rayne had shown to her. It stood out in such contradiction to everything else that had happened to her since she’d arrived in this place. Luckily, Rayne seemed to sense her feelings and recognise her need to contain her emotions for the moment. Withdrawing his hand, and sitting back, he went on.

  “I won’t try and kid you, Sara. We have to understand what we’re up against. Things don’t look too good. From what I saw, there are at least three of them after us, and they’re not likely to give up the chase easily. You already killed one of them, and now I have too. They aren’t going to call it off after that, if they ever were going to, anyway. What’s more, they’ve tracked us over a fairly long distance, which means they know what they’re doing. We won’t find it easy to shake them. Quite frankly, if we hadn’t found that second horse I don’t think we would have gotten this far.”

  Sara fought down her emotions and tried to contribute to the discussion. She knew what Rayne was saying was true. “So what can we do?” she asked. “Isn’t there anywhere we can go for help?”

  “The problem,” said Rayne, “is that we’re a long way from help. The wilderness is a big place and we’re a fair way into it. There are some small settlements here and there, but they aren’t places you can count on for help. This is a pretty wild place, Sara. The people we’re likely to meet in the settlements may be just as likely to hand us over to the men who are after us as they would be to help us. For all we know, the men who are chasing us have come from one of those settlements.”

  “But Rayne,” cried Sara, her alarm clear in her rising voice, “if that’s the case then we don’t have a chance. We can’t fight three of them and . . .”

  “Hang on, hang on,” interrupted Rayne. “Don’t give in so easily.”

  Sara drew a deep breath, reminding herself that his advice was the same she had given herself back in her cell. Now was not the time to give up. “Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry. What do you think we should do?”

  “That’s better.” He paused before he went on. “Okay, I think we have no choice but to continue to run. Only, we’re going to have to change our goal. I’ve already been steering us in a new direction. If we keep going d
irectly for Algaria, we’d never make it. It’s too far to get through the wilderness that way. I think we should take a more southerly route that will get us out of the wilderness much more quickly. It will still take us about six or seven days. Once we’re out of the wilderness, we can find a town and a militia post and then we’ll be safe.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” said Sara, much more relieved now that she knew Rayne had a plan. “Six or seven days sounds like a lot, though. Can we keep ahead of them that long?”

  “Not without a lot of luck. I said I didn’t want to fool you about this Sara. I know it upsets you, but we won’t make it through this unless we both understand what we’re up against. Quite frankly, I don’t see how we can keep ahead of them for very much longer. My guess is we’ll be lucky if they don’t catch up within three or four. But we’ve got to try. We’ll just have to deal with whatever happens when it happens.

  “It’s not all bad,” he went on. “I know the area we’re making for a lot better than where we’ve been. My dad and I did some trapping there a few years back. And hopefully the further we go the further we get away from the parts the people following us know.”

  “Thank you, Rayne,” said Sara, after a few moments. She was grateful, not just for his honesty but for the fact that he was treating her like an adult. “It does scare me to hell, but you’re right. If I don’t know what might happen, then I won’t be ready for it when it does.” She knew her words sounded braver than she felt. She also guessed that Rayne was probably more scared than he was actually letting on to her.

  Rayne smiled back at her, once more reaching out and touching her arm to comfort her. “Good. Now, some practical things. We’re not going to be able to have a fire at night any more and we won’t have much time for one during the day. I’ll cook us something in the morning if I can find any game. But that’ll probably be our last fire for some time.”

  Sara nodded. She suspected she would quickly come to hate the taste of dried meat and raw roots.

  “You can have the bow we took from that man at the falls,” he continued. “I want you to make sure that you’ve got it and your knife with you, or within reach, at all times. Unfortunately, we won’t have time for any more practice. From what you showed me, you know what you’re doing anyway. Just remember, if you have to use it, do so. Don’t hesitate. Don’t let what happened at the falls fool you. I got lucky with that shot. Those men are killers and they know what they’re doing. If you hesitate, they won’t.”

  “Okay,” said Sara. She was glad now that she had pushed him to show her how to use his bow. She’d only had two practice sessions but felt much better for them. Her archery lessons at school might serve some purpose now after all.

  They had already proven their usefulness when Rayne had given her his bow one morning after breakfast and told her to have a go, pointing to a tree about twenty paces away. She’d beamed with pride when she had hit it with three out of five arrows. Although he thought the way she held the bow was downright strange, he’d told her he wasn’t going to ask her to change anything while she shot like that. “You’re a regular Rolfe Harkinson,” he had said. When she asked who Rolfe Harkinson was, he told her he was a famous person who’d won an archery contest and saved his son’s life. Sara thought he’d probably been trying to build up her confidence, but was quite happy to take the compliment anyway.

  “We’ll be okay for tonight,” continued Rayne, “but from tomorrow we’re going to have to take turns sleeping. And we’re going to have to pick our campsites very carefully. We’ll need spots where we can’t be ambushed very easily.”

  “What if they keep going through the night?” asked Sara. “Won’t they catch up very quickly if they do that?”

  “They won’t be able to do that. They can’t track us in the dark. We’ll be twisting around a bit so they can’t be sure where we’re headed. They’ll have to wait for daylight to follow us. I’ve also got some tricks in mind that will slow them down and help us to get some of that extra time that we need.”

  “Like what?” asked Sara.

  “I’d rather not talk about them,” said Rayne turning his face from her as he fumbled for something from his pocket. “I don’t feel too good about it, but I don’t see much choice. Just leave it to me.”

  Sara looked on in fascination as Rayne averted his eyes to cover his obvious embarrassment. She was intrigued at what he might do that would make him too ashamed to talk about it. Rather than pursue the subject, she sensed it was better left alone.

  “Okay,” she responded, raising her hand to cover a yawn. She had forgotten how tired she was. “Anything else?”

  “No. I think that’s enough for one night. Except . . . I think you’re the bravest girl that I ever met. I just wish we’d met under different circumstances.”

  Now it was Sara’s turn to be embarrassed. “Thank you,” she said, not really knowing how to respond. After the briefest of pauses, she continued, deciding it was best if she changed the subject. “We’d better get some sleep. I gather we’re going to have to get going as early as possible tomorrow.”

  “Yes, I guess so.” Rayne’s subdued reply indicated that he was equally as embarrassed as she was by what he had said.

  They both silently went about preparing for bed. Sara noticed Rayne smile when she put the bow and arrows on the ground beside her and placed Tug’s dagger under the blanket she had propped up against her saddle for a pillow. Within a few moments, they were both lying back quietly, tucked into their bedding.

  Sara went through Rayne’s comment again in her head. It occurred to her he might have been trying to say more than he had. She quickly rejected the idea. She had known for some time she had a bit of a crush on Rayne and could see she was just projecting her wishes onto his actions. Although he had made a few gestures of affection towards her, he was probably just feeling sorry for her. He was clearly an innately kind person after all. She was carrying on like a silly schoolgirl to think it was anything more than it was. She also felt she wasn’t being fair to Rayne, who had been so wonderful putting his own life in danger to help her. Rather than responding like a child, she decided that behaving more like an adult would be a better way to show her gratitude in future.

  Putting those thoughts aside, Sara lay on her back for a while, staring up at the stars and listening to the sounds of the forest. None of the constellations looked at all familiar to her. The moon, which had been almost overhead earlier, was now low down on the horizon, a thin sliver of silver dripping light into the valley below them. Her thoughts, which had drifted to home and the family she knew would be distraught at her disappearance, were rudely interrupted when an owl hooted suddenly from somewhere close by, back in the direction they had come from. For a few moments, Sara’s heart pounded as she wondered what might have disturbed it. Was the owl sounding out a warning?

  “Rayne,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

  “Yes. Why?” came the whispered reply.

  “Do you hear anything?”

  “Only you keeping me awake.”

  That does it, thought Sara. Throwing back her blanket, she stood up and bent to pick up the saddle that she had been resting against.

  “What are you doing?” asked Rayne, lifting his head and looking around.

  “I’m not sleeping like this. I’m scared.” Sara lifted the saddle and placed it at the opposite end of her bedding, beside the one Rayne was lying against. She then proceeded to turn her bedding around so it lay the same way as his. Having completed the rearrangements, she lay down again. This time she was lying right beside him, though on her side and with her back to him. She had taken the opportunity to move her bedding closer to his.

  As she settled into place, she felt his hand on her waist. “It’s okay Sara,” he whispered from behind her. “It’s just the noises of the forest.”

  “Thank you,” replied Sara softly, feeling comforted by his proximity.

  A few minutes later, the quiet of the night w
as broken again. This time it was the harsh call of a bird from the trees above where they had camped, answered a few moments later by its mate further up the slope. Noticing that Rayne’s hand hadn’t moved from her waist, Sara reached up and put her hand into his. As he gently returned her soft grip, she slowly eased her body back towards him, pulling his hand down around her waist as she did so and clasping it to her stomach with both of her hands.

  “Is that all right?” she whispered in the darkness.

  “Yes,” Rayne answered. She felt his arm gently embrace her waist as he spoke.

  Sara smiled contentedly to herself as she felt the tension in her body slowly dissipate. Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep with Rayne’s arm securely enfolding her waist and his hand firmly clasped within hers.

  Chapter 7

  The settlement looked peaceful enough. A thin trail of smoke from a chimney was the only sign of life Sara and Rayne could see. Two days had passed since the incident at the falls and they had still seen no sign of their pursuers. Now they sat on their horses, just behind the tree line, watching the four cabins that straddled the banks of a small stream.

  From what he had told Sara, Rayne knew precious little about the settlement other than its location. He and his father had passed through this area a few years earlier and his father had mentioned its presence then. He had told Rayne that, although it had a small store where trappers could sell a few pelts and re-stock their provisions, he preferred to avoid it. Apparently, he had been there many years earlier, before Rayne had been old enough to join him on his trips into the wilderness. He had said that he had no desire to go back. The family that lived there looked to him like they would be just as likely to knock you over the head and throw you in the river if they thought there was going to be any profit in it as they would be to help you.

  Luckily for him, his trip had been a lean one and he didn’t have anything on him that would make it worth their while. They’d had a damn good look though, as he told it, particularly when he pulled out a few silvers to pay for some fresh flour and a few vegetables. Then, when he’d come out of the store, he’d caught one of them having a good look over his horse and his gear. He’d made good time getting out of there and had never gone back.