First Quest: The Mentalists series Book One

by E. Molloy

  "I'm not scared," he lied.

  The woman scoffed. "Well, then you should probably just stop here so I can get off, and you can get back to your knightly duties. Unless you're not actually a white knight, which would explain why you're so-"

  He interrupted her, insulted that she was even breaching the topic. "Of COURSE I'm a white knight. I'm wearing the shining armor! What is with you?"

  She grinned playfully, noting she'd hit a sore spot. "I'm just saying is all, your sole purpose in life is to save princesses. I can easily get back home the way that I came."

  "And what way is that?"

  She paused. "I walked, obviously."

  "Walked? From Diamondruf?" he asked, assuming she had come from the main city. It seemed impossible, though, that she could have. The city was easily a week away on foot.

  She went silent, and Daveth got curious. The longer she sat silent, the more he wondered, though he didn't seem to have any specific suspicions. After a few moments, when it was clear she was hiding something, he decided it was his duty to pry. "Well?"

  "I...ran away from home. I thought I could make a better life in the city. I was on my way there when my dog...well you know the rest."

  "A life better than what?"

  She shrugged, and he could feel the pull on his armor as her arms lifted then fell. "Poverty. I lived in a small town to the south. Not much money makes it all the way out there."

  "I haven't heard of poverty in the Kingdom," while he wasn't deliberately trying to be argumentative, Daveth didn't feel like her story was adding up.

  She laughed a little, and he was surprised at the childlike sound. "No, you wouldn't. Not unless you went and took a look yourself. Why else would anyone talk about it? It's not like the King in his palace of wealth and riches is going to bat a lash at the thought of people starving when they contribute nothing to his existence. All the food these towns grow is used to feed their families, or traded if a travelling merchant happens by on his way to somewhere else. Nobody wants to talk about that, so why would you have heard about it?"

  The woman did certainly seem to be passionate about the subject, and far be it from Daveth to insist that something he didn't know anything about was obviously a lie. He'd seen a dragon today, and corpses rebuilt. The idea that people within the kingdom were living in poverty didn't seem so far-fetched, though he did think her own biased investment in the topic had caused her to exaggerate some. It couldn't be that bad. King Harry would never allow it. With all of the Havens around, Daveth found it unlikely that anyone could go hungry for long.

  "Did you travel alone?" he asked, wondering how a girl could have made it this far by herself.

  She seemed to get defensive. "Yeah and why shouldn't I?"

  "I was just wondering. It's not often you find a woman surviving in the wild by herself, you know."

  "You were just wondering, because I'm a woman?"

  "Yes," he said, not entirely certain why that was a strange thing to think. When no response came from her, he offered a, "Hello?"

  She burst out in a lecture that he hadn't expected. "I'll have you know that I have more talent with a bow in my little finger than you have with that sword and shield in your entire body, White Knight," she said, the last words spitting out of her mouth like a curse.

  Even though he'd obviously already seen her use a bow before, it could easily be attested to beginner's luck. Women weren't trained like that; they had no need to be. They were trained in dancing and balancing things and how to wear clothes that are impossible to wear. In the same way men were trained in fighting and making things and how to wear armor that is impossible to wear.

  "Did you get separated from your guide or something?" he asked innocently, wondering what details her pride was covering.

  She went silent, then begrudgingly answered, "I had a dog with me, remember? He ran off into that tower area or whatever and that's when we got separated. Happy?"

  It would have made sense, maybe, if it was a hunting dog or something. The most the woman should have had to worry about were wild dogs and bandits, and there wasn't much either would do against a dog trained to kill. But she would have had to have gotten really lucky to survive so long with just her and a dog. Besides, what peasant could afford a trained dog? It was possible that she might have been able to protect herself a little bit sometimes with a weapon, but the idea of a woman fighting to survive just didn't sit right as a mental image in his head.

  "Did the dragon eat him?" he asked, about the dog this time.

  "Eat who?"

  "Your dog?"

  "Oh. Yeah, I guess so."

  "You don't seem too beat up about it."

  He felt her shrug again. "It's just a dog."

  "Dogs are loyal creatures. Apparently women aren't the same," he sighed, and her hand hit the back of his helmet hard enough to set it off-center. "What the-" he started as he removed his hands from the reigns to straighten the helmet.

  "You seriously have no tact, do you know that?"

  "Tact?"

  "You're like a little animal in a big suit of metal. Do you even realize what an ass you are?"

  "I'm sorry; I thought I was the one giving you a free ride to the city. I didn't realize you wanted to walk that badly."

  He stopped the horse, who protested that they'd even stopped moving at all after the day they'd had. The girl went silent. After it was clear that she didn't want to get off the horse, he got it moving again.

  The two travelled in silence for a good while after that. It would be a long trip, made even longer by the fact that they clearly didn't like each other much. Admittedly, Daveth wasn't in the best of moods. Normally, he wasn't this rude to anyone, especially women, but her foul attitude and insults had sent what little positive perspective he had plummeting into the nether.

  "I'm Daveth, by the way," he said, since she'd never asked and he needed it to at least be known who saved her.

  After a short pause, she responded, her voice even colder than before. "Lillian."

  "Lillian," he repeated. "That's a pretty name. Did your mother pick it?" This was his failed attempt at bringing a little kindness back to the conversation.

  "My mother's dead," she snapped back.

  The two didn't talk anymore after that.

  The walk from the dragon's tower to the royal city of Diamondruf would take about 3 days, if they took minimal rest breaks and kept the horse at a steady pace so that he wouldn't wear out. Daveth, however, was in no rush to get to his destination. He should have gone back for the princess, or made the trek back to the Order while there was still some chance that she was alive. A combination of cowardice and bravery were all that kept him moving toward the city. He was afraid to go back to the Order, afraid of what they would say in response to his tale. Conveniently, he also had this woman to deal with, and he couldn't very well just leave her out in the wild with a dragon stalking about.

  While the company of this woman hadn't proven to be much more than a mild annoyance, dealing with her was significantly better than being around all of the others in the Order. Even more so, once he dropped her off to wherever she needed to go, he was going to have to turn around and face them, tell them what happened, and face the consequences and ridicule for being stupid enough to try. Not to mention failing to bring it to the attention of his superiors first. What if the princess died? What if one of them picked up the job, got there, and she'd already been killed because of the time he wasted? That had never happened before, not as far back as the history books went. Knights had an incredibly high success rate in rescuing princesses, no matter the peril. That was the reason they were called upon so readily in situations like this. He could only imagine the horrors that would be wrought upon him if the princess was dead and it was his fault entirely. The punishment would be nothing, though, compared to the guilt of knowing that he had caused the death of their beautiful, infallible, and very single princess.

  Silence mostly accompanied them for the f
irst day, their earlier conversation having left a foul taste in both of their mouths. Aside from the plains which made up most of the body of Navarr, there was an intrusive forest. Unfortunately, this stood between the two and the city, and by nightfall they had reached the scattered trees that bordered the thick of it.

  Lillian had been surprisingly sturdy on horseback. In fact, he hadn't noticed until he dismounted, but she'd ridden the entire way like...a man. Not side-saddled as he assumed women would have to in a dress. No, her frayed garment allowed for a little more flexibility, and she seemed to have very little shame moving about in it. In fact, the dress itself seemed to be rather uncomfortable for her, as she was constantly itching herself behind him, shifting things about. It was part of why he hadn't bothered a glance back at her. The fact that his armor didn't allow for much movement in the neck also played a part.

  Daveth had been certain that entire trip that they were being watched. Call it a hunch, or paranoia, but he couldn't help but feel that something had followed them. There was no basis for this, and perhaps it was just his fear, but their escape had felt all too easy. Perhaps the dragon was only a few steps behind, or had regained his flight and was hovering in the dark sky too far up for them to see. He would feel better if they stopped in the forest for the night, instead of with the open skies above them.

  The horse didn't want to keep walking, though, and as they dismounted it became obvious that the woman was also done for the night. Lillian plopped onto the ground in a pile of girl and fabric, the bow from earlier still on her back. Without proper means to carry it, she had simply wrapped the string around her chest and let the wooden part hang behind her. She must have removed the skeletal hand at some point, which relieved Daveth. The last thing they needed was that thing to pop back to life while they slept and do...whatever skeletal hands were apt to do.

  The woman dropped her head into her hands heavily and rubbed her entire face, then looked up at him expectantly. "Well? Aren't you going to build a fire or something?" she asked, motioning to the open ground around them.

  Daveth looked up to the sky, still holding the horse's reigns tight as if he intended to do something with it. There was nothing off about the sky, nothing abnormal, but there was no way he would be able to sleep out here without better aerial coverage. Wolves, he could handle. Another fight with that dragon, though, neither of them were equipped for and his horse was too out of energy to get them away from him again.

  "Let's walk farther into the forest before we set up camp," he said, turning his eyes down to her.

  "What? Why?"

  He wasn't in the mood to argue. Shrugging in his oversized armor, Daveth started walking. "I'm walking farther into the forest before setting up camp. You are welcome to join me, or stay here, alone." He kept walking, but turned slightly to look back at her to make sure she followed. He wouldn’t actually leave her there alone, but explaining himself to her just seemed pointless. She just sat there, staring after him for a bit, before forcing herself to her feet and catching up with him.

  "Why are we going farther into the forest? That clearing was perfect, and the farther in we get the more wolves there will be."

  He hesitated before answering, and then gave only the most cryptic answer that came to mind. "I have a feeling."

  "Oh great, the almighty white knight has a feeling. What feeling?'

  "Something followed us."

  She grew silent, looking behind them cautiously, then up to the sky. Her voice quieter now than the yell it was earlier, she snapped back in a whisper, "Nothing is following us."

  He grinned beneath his visor, asking knowingly, "Then why are you whispering?"

  Her lips pursed. "I looked."

  "So did I."

  She had no response to that, but when he looked at her again, she was still checking the skies. As soon as she noticed that he saw her doing this, however, she quickly moved her eyes to the forest in front of them as if she didn't want to admit that he'd made her worry, too.

  The farther into the forest they went, the denser the trees became, until finally they were so thick that they blocked out what fading light was left of the evening. Clicks and shuffles could be heard all about, accompanied by the knight's heavy footsteps and the quiet padding of the woman and horse. Daveth wasn't too horribly worried about passing through here, since there was a path. If there was a path, it was clearly a traveled route which likely meant it wasn't horribly dangerous. Fool though he may have been at times, he wasn't dumb enough to go trekking through the woods unguided at any time of day, let alone in the middle of the night.

  "This is far enough," she demanded suddenly, her arms wrapped around herself in a combination of cold and stubbornness.

  Daveth nodded. There was a decent enough covering here that whatever might be following them wouldn't be able to find them easily. He motioned in a direction off the path, and the two walked with the horse in tow a little into the wooded area. If they were being followed, it wouldn't make much sense to be right in the obvious middle of the road, after all.

  Finding a relatively cleared area far enough from the path to not be noticed but close enough to be able to find it again, Daveth pulled the large pack that hung from the side of his horse and dropped it to the ground. "We'll have to sleep in shifts," he said. Turning to look at her, he saw that she was already sitting.

  She raised a brow, her arms still crossed over her chest like a mother lecturing a child. "I'm not sleeping in shifts. I'm sleeping as soon as you set up a bedroll, and I won't wake until the sun is shining on my face. Nothing is coming after us, and if wolves come your horse is going to alert us anyway, so you won't miss it I'm sure." She certainly sounded like she was making the rules here, and she had a good enough point. It wasn't like they were still running from anything, but he just had that itching feeling. Even beneath the trees, it just felt like someone else was there. It wasn't something he could explain, even if he had the motivation to try. He’d already considered that it was the dark figure from the arena, but that felt more like paranoia than reality.

  "Yeah, you're probably right," he resigned, knowing that there was no point in pushing the matter further.

  Finding tinder and starting up a small fire was the easiest thing he'd done all day. The knights were all trained in some manner of wilderness survival, enough to get them through a few cold nights during their adventures. Locating anything more than small sticks and a few fallen branches, however, was out of the question. Not only was it too dark, but Daveth was already exhausted from the day’s events, and from having experienced them all in an oversized suit of armor. Setting up a tent in that suit, on the other hand, was not easy. Like all other things that he struggled with in life, Daveth would somehow pull through. This, of course, meant it took quite a while to put together properly.

  "You have no idea what you're doing, do you?" she chided at one point during his struggling.

  "Of course I do," he replied nervously, carefully bending one of the large poles that went...probably at the front. "I'm just not used to doing it...while someone's watching."

  "You're having trouble pitching a tent because I'm watching?" she said, a more lighthearted tone to the question than he'd expected.

  He was silent a moment, gritting his teeth against the slew of unkind words that threatened to break through. "No," he said, starting again in trying to put it together. The sticks fell from the fatted fingers on his gauntlets. Finally having had enough with that, he yanked them off and tossed them on the ground, Lillian watching incredulously, unable to figure out if she was amused or infuriated. Taking off his helmet so he could see better, he tossed that on the ground, too. This was well beyond maintaining appearances by being the staple white knight, poised and disciplined. This tent was mocking him, and so was the woman.

  Daveth focused hard on the task this time, and Lillian just kept on watching. Just when it seemed he'd almost gotten all the pieces in place, the whole thing crumbled to the ground. Frustrated
, Daveth wasn't about to give up on this until it was done. He paused only because of the same infectiously musical laughter he'd heard earlier, though its sound was not as comforting as it might have normally been. He was torn between the urge to join her in laughing, and the urge to throw the tent's pieces at her judgmental head. Turning his head, he looked at Lillian who was laughing so hard that tears streamed down her cheeks.

  "Oh my...I'm sorry," she choked between laughs, covering her mouth as if genuinely trying to contain herself. "You just...oh wow...you really have no idea how ridiculous you are, do you?"

  Daveth pushed to his feet, scowling at her. His dirty brown hair was a mess, and he looked rather ridiculous with his small head poking out of his huge armor. "What is your problem with me anyway?"

  She let her laughter trickle off, and her amusement turned to condemnation, though a slight grin remained. "You are pathetic, you know that? You are the worst White Knight I've ever seen in my life."

  "I don't imagine many white knights come out to wherever you're from," he snapped back, and she laughed again.

  "Right, right," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "But, let me ask a question, and then I'll make my point," she said, pointing at him as if that would somehow keep him from retorting. It did, in fact, as he was at the very least a gentleman sometimes.

  "You said you went to that tower to rescue a princess. Which one?"

  Daveth stared at her over the light of the fire, and for the life of him he couldn't remember the name. Of course she was the princess of Diamondruf, since that was the only princess in Navarr. Unlike the other countries in Alffa whose regions had different leaderships and royalty, Diamondruf was the consolidation of nearly all of Navarr's wealth, and the King was the land's solitary leader. In addition, he had but one child, whose name Daveth had likely heard a thousand times but apparently he had never retained it. In truth, he had not expected to ever be called upon to save her, so his subconscious had apparently dumped that information.