Her stomach rumbled restlessly.
Unexpectedly, Annabeth found an arm around her tender stomach. She winced as he pulled her to her feet. Her hands found his arm and tried to push it away.
“Hey,” his voice was soft and slightly reproving.
Annabeth knew she was too weak to fight and let her body sag against him. Ransom placed the canteen to her lips.
“Take only a sip,” he warned.
The cold water trickled down her throat and hit her stomach with a twisting pang that threatened to send it back up.
“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, his voice hovering softly next to her ear. There was a touch of tenderness in it that pulled at her heart.
Annabeth shook her head. She was too weak to get her head clear. Her heart shouldn’t feel anything. She needed to silence whatever that flutter was.
“Do you refuse to tell me?” he whispered, a sternness entering his voice. That Annabeth knew how to handle.
“Two days ago.”
“I have some bannock in my bag. You can have that.”
“I can’t eat anything right now. I would only lose it.”
Annabeth pushed away his arm from around her waist and walked shakily to the tree, leaning her back against it. Slipping her hands behind her, she dug her fingernails into the papery bark.
“Well, you should change, at least, and get out of those miserable clothes,” he said with a nod towards her shirt.
Glancing down, her stomach wrenched again. Blood stained it. A chill ran through her spine, and goose bumps ran down her arms. “I have clothes in my saddlebag,” she thought out loud.
“I’ll get them for you,” he said, turning away.
“I can do it,” she said, moving from the tree.
But he was already there, kneeling down and freeing her saddlebags from beneath the body of her horse.
Annabeth looked at her horse. She was already gone. Tears rose in her eyes. The hours they had spent together—the memories floated through her mind’s eye. She blinked them away.
Where was the armor that was supposed to protect her heart?
She placed her head against the tree and looked up into the sky. It was blue, the color of her father’s eyes. Suddenly, the armor slipped into place. She, Annabeth, would survive. For him, she would go on, and someday maybe he too would be free. Maybe someday she wouldn’t have to run from the “law.” The energy of pure will surged forward through her veins.
I will be strong. I will go on.
RANSOM REACHED INTO her saddlebag. What he pulled out surprised even him.
“A dress?”
“You know I am a girl, so what’s surprising about that?” The tenderness that had been in her voice as she rested against him was gone. She was the boy he had met in the square, bold and daring.
“I just thought you would have gotten rid of all the evidence. Wear this for now,” he said, coming to her side, trying to look into her eyes that were fastened to the forest floor. “We’ll tie our fortunes together. You need a protector, and I am available.”
“I couldn’t accept.” She half laughed, half sighed, taking the dress and slipping sideways away from him.
“Why on earth not?” he said, sidestepping and putting his arm against the tree, blocking her escape.
Her eyes raised to his, clashing with a glittering revolt in them. For a moment, she challenged his; then she dropped them again. “It is just that I...you don’t know what you are dealing with. I have been on the run for over six months. He won’t give up until I am caught or dead.”
“And who is he that won’t give up?”
“If you don’t know, he can’t harm you.”
“They could have.”
“’Cause you stuck around. If you hadn’t been around...”
“You would have been captured by them.”
“I would have been long gone if you hadn’t delayed me with all your chatter by the river,” she said, slipping beneath his arm.
He caught her and spun her to face him, holding Annabeth’s arm firmly but not sternly.
“Annabeth, I don’t think you realize it, but a girl should be held in a man’s arms and loved and cherished, not on her knees with a sword to her neck. What are you doing out here with a sword by your side and a bounty on your head?”
Annabeth blushed hotly at his words. “Turn me in, and you will find out,” she challenged him.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then go away. This isn’t your battle to fight. It is mine.” She turned from him and walked away.
“How do you expect to win a fight if you aren’t willing to kill?”
“I was ready to kill you earlier.”
“Ready to kill is not willing to kill. You might have harmed me for attempting to unmask you, but you will never kill those who already know your disguise.”
“When you kill his men, you make him angry.”
“Who is he?”
She turned and walked further away. Ransom followed.
“I asked you a question.”
Annabeth whirled around. “And I suppose you will expect an answer.”
“How do you expect to win a fight if you aren’t willing to kill?” he asked again.
She cocked her head to one side.
“I’ll disarm them,” she said with a shrug of her shoulder.
“So you will disarm three men that come after you, and none of them will retrieve their weapon while the others close in? How long can you fight? There were three of them. How long do you think you could have lasted against them?”
Annabeth refused to look at him.
“Really, how long?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t give me a chance.”
“Give you a chance—what kind of chance were you looking for? Death? That is always a great opportunity; it comes only once in a lifetime, you know. You can’t outrun them and you can’t outfight them. What do you really expect to do?”
“I don’t know, I—There were four!” The sudden high note in her voice, her eyes wide in fear, told him there was a problem.
Ransom didn’t hesitate; pulling out his sword, he whirled around, his blade ready to catch whatever came his way.
The sword of the fourth man was upraised, descending down on him, ready to separate Ransom in half. A moment later, the man lay dead and Ransom’s sword was crimson with the tide of someone else’s life.
He turned back to Annabeth.
“I am going to get changed,” she whispered, stepping away from him.
Ransom nodded in approval. He would get the horses ready.
Chapter 3
When Annabeth returned, she was carrying her clothes gingerly. The bloodstain was well hidden. Ransom had taken all the horses to the riverbank to be watered.
“I thought that horse would be close to the one you had,” he said, with a nod to the white horse that stood at the end of the line.
Annabeth tried to hide her smile. That was the one she would have chosen for herself.
Going to her saddlebags, she prepared to hide the bloodstained clothes from her sight.
“You aren’t going to put your clothes in there like that, are you?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You’ll never get the blood out.”
“I don’t plan to wear them again.”
“Just the same,” he said, coming to her side. Taking the clothes from her hands, he went to the river and submerged them, then nodded to his horse. “There is bannock in the saddlebag. I suggest you eat some before we get under way.”
Annabeth reached into his saddlebag and found a white cloth wrapped around the bannock. Pulling out a piece, she nibbled carefully at it. She didn’t trust her stomach much yet.
Leaning against the tree, she watched him curiously.
“What are you staring at?” Ransom asked.
“I have never seen a man wash clothes before.”
“Really? We do it all the time when there
are no women around. Or at least when we need to.”
“That must explain it,” she said, sinking to the ground, closing her eyes, and resting her head against the tree. She was worn clean through, but she had to keep her eyes open...
“Tired?”
Annabeth forced her eyes open. “Not really.”
“You can say so if are, you know.”
“I know.”
RANSOM TURNED BACK to the clothes, fiddling with nothing for a time. When he turned back to see how she was doing, her eyes were closed again, shoulders relaxed. He returned to his washing and began to wring out the clothes.
In a moment, Annabeth got to her feet. “We need to go.”
“What?”
“We need to go.” Her voice was explicitly urgent. “Don’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“You’ll know. Now, if you value your life, I suggest you come. He’ll want you dead the moment he finds out you killed his men,” she said, swinging with ease into her saddle.
Annabeth took the wet clothes from his hands and tucked them into her empty saddlebags. “Are you coming? Because I am not waiting.”
“I don’t get what all the fuss is about.”
“Stay here and you’ll find out,” she said, glancing around. She pushed her horse forward into the river and started up the stream.
Something about her words unsettled him. He glanced around the forest; everything seemed normal. Just the same, he wasn’t about to let her slip through his grasp. If she felt like moving on, he would follow. Mounting, he followed her into the river, pulling one of the guard’s horses after him—it could come in handy.
For a long time, they rode up the river, emerging several times. They traipsed through the forest only to come back to the river. Weaving on and off the roads and trails, Annabeth kept leading them to the river.
“Is it your purpose to drive whoever you are running from absolutely mad?”
“He already is,” she whispered, and continued on. Coming to a branch in the river, she took it. Suddenly, the river disappeared into the ground.
“Where are we going now?”
“We follow the river.”
“Are you crazy?”
Turning to him, she smiled “There are steps. Just be careful; it is easy to slip. It’s best if you lead the horses,” she said, slipping to the ground.
Her horse balked as she led it forward. “I know you don’t know me, but I need you to trust me,” she whispered. “Come on.” The horse followed with great hesitance.
In a few minutes, they were walking in complete darkness, following the sound of horses’ hooves on the floor. He was glad that she had a white horse, since even in the darkness he could somewhat see it. Or was that some ghostly shadow that was leading him to his death? Water soaked into his boots, much to his great discomfort.
In a few minutes, she halted. There was the sound of steel and flint striking together, and a light slowly flickered to life. Annabeth lit a small torch, and his eyes almost hurt adjusting to the light.
He watched as Annabeth shook her head, as if a shiver ran through her shoulders and down her spine. She didn’t like the darkness.
She led the way. Ransom suppressed the question. “Do you know where you are going?” It was obvious she did, even if he felt rather lost. He was dealing with something he had never known before. No wonder the girl had a reputation for slipping into thin air. He would have never guessed that she could disappear into a hole in the ground.
They walked for a considerable distance, a new torch appearing just before the old one died out. How long has she been here? How does she know this area so well?
In a little while, the last torch died and they walked forward. The light grew until they came around the bend. There was light: full, rich, blinding, and hot after the cool dampness of the cave.
Annabeth swung easily up into the saddle and rode out of the cave. The water had all but disappeared, and they rode out into a thick forest. She pulled to a halt and waited for him to come alongside.
She looked up at him. “Where are we going to go now?”
Ransom raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘where are we going to go now’? Don’t you know where you are going?”
“I am not going that way,” she said with a nod towards the southeast.
Her demeanor was relaxed; there was nothing tense about her. She seemed almost as if she could laugh.
“I have one question. Where did the river go?”
“There is a place where the river splits away. You don’t want to end up there, unless you want to swim for a lifetime—or what is left of it.”
“Did you discover that by yourself?”
Annabeth didn’t answer as she looked vaguely about, then turned to him. “Where are we going?”
Ransom smiled. “All right, if you insist.” He led her directly north.
The ride was silent. Annabeth was too busy watching the countryside for Lord Raburn’s men to speak, and Ransom was content to let it be that way, although he did have to look back once in a while just to know she was there.
As night began to fall, he looked for a place to camp. Ransom found the perfect place in a small wooded hollow behind a gently sloping hill. When he stopped, Ransom was surprised that he didn’t need to speak a word before Annabeth dismounted and began taking care of her horse. Smiling, he dismounted and did the same.
“Do you want to light a fire?” he asked her.
“It’s too warm, and there is no need to let people know we are here. I don’t think the wild animals will bother us.”
Ransom nodded. It seemed reasonable enough. Gathering leaves, she made herself a bed beneath a pine’s low spreading branches. Laying down the horse blanket, she took out her cloak and made as if ready to go to sleep.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“A little, I guess.”
“I still have bannock.”
“But there is no knowing how long we’ll be hiding. We may need all that we can spare.”
“Have you forgotten I have coin? I can buy anything we need.”
“If there is someone willing to sell.”
“Have you ever met anyone who isn’t willing?”
“If they are afraid that Lord Raburn...” She dropped her sentence and looked off into the distance as if she heard something.
“You were saying something about Lord Raburn?” Ransom said pointedly.
“Hmm? Oh, I forgot what I was going to say. You said something about food?”
"Yes, I did."
“It sounds good,” she said with a smile.
Ransom looked at her skeptically, and handed her a piece of bannock. Going to her tree, she sat down and leaned comfortably against it. He sat on a fallen log. “It would feel much more like I was actually in company with someone if you sat out here.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Ransom gave her a look that said, Why not?
“I like trees,” she answered with a shrug.
“So, who is this Lord Raburn? I have heard him spoken of, but I really don’t know who he is.”
“What have you heard about him?”
“He is Prince Alfred’s lord protector, a goodly noble, left in charge of the kingdom while the king is off fighting in the crusades.”
“You are a foreigner, aren’t you?” she said, her eyes narrowing slightly.
“What would make you say that?”
“You speak the same language, but you know nothing of what is going on.”
“I travel a lot.”
“Well, that is no excuse. How did he become Lord Protector? Do you know?”
“They say that Lord Gambury died of a heart trauma in his sleep, or something like that.”
Annabeth’s eyes slitted as she examined him. “That is the common belief.”
“Do you know better?”
Annabeth opened her eyes wider. “I said it was common. I did not say I knew better—but there are ru
mors,” she said, lowering her eyes but still meeting his. “Rumors that are only sung by Song Lark.”
“And does anyone know who this Song Lark is?”
“For that, there are rumors too. Some say he is a ghost, but I prefer to think he is real. A minstrel fool, without a brain, but really a master of disguise with a mind. That is why I like to think no one has found out who he is.”
“Ah, and that is why there is a price on his head.”
“Wouldn’t you want someone dead who is spreading false rumors about you? And such hideous ones too, like...
Oh, fear the wrath of Raburn,
Or he thy blood will churn.
He hath no heart but a stone,
And when he singeth, he hath no tone.
Isn’t that ridiculous?” she almost laughed.
“Quite. I would want someone dead if they sang that about me, too.”
“Now, sir who asks me so many questions, may I ask you a few?”
“I doubt that I will have many answers, but I’ll see what I can manage.”
“How do you know I am not willing to kill?”
“Your eyes.”
Her brow wrinkled, her eyes asking for an explanation.
“Life is precious to you; you’d rather your own life was taken than someone else lose theirs—but you will fight to the death to live.” Ransom paused. “Would you really let him kill you today?”
“The ransom on my head is for me alive, not dead. He was threatening idly. He is—was—a coward. If it ever changes to dead or alive, then I will have to worry. But why have you chosen to live by the sword? You are obviously skilled. Why don’t you go into the army or some sort of notion?”
“All they want is a war for the Holy Land. I’ll give up my life for no religious promenade. Some people claim it is a worthy cause, but...” Ransom shook his head.
“So, you have no faith?”
“What is there to have faith in?”
Annabeth didn’t answer the question with her words, but her eyes spoke and a tenderness rose in them. It was a tenderness that knew something—something she guarded carefully.
Annabeth's War Page 3