“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, lightly touching the side of her head. “Just a bruise.”
“Well here,” he said, motioning her over to the table. “Let me look at it.”
Norabel sat down, and Mica narrowed his eyes on the red skin, lightly touching her temple and brushing a few strands of hairs away to make sure that the mark didn’t reach any further.
“Did you bump your head on the kitchen table or something?” he asked.
“Something like that.”
He took her wrist and checked her pulse. “How are the lungs?”
“They’re alright,” she answered.
A movement across the room caught her attention. The boy with the bandaged leg hobbled over to the window at the front of the building, yelling at someone he spotted outside.
“How many attacks since you last came?” Mica asked, drawing her eyes back to him.
“Just…just one,” she answered, “and it stopped before it got too bad.”
He nodded and took in a satisfied breath of air. The boy at the front of the room stopped yelling and came away from the window.
“Have you told anyone about…” he trailed off, careful to keep his question open-ended.
“One person actually,” she said, glad that she could give a positive answer.
“Good. That’s good. There should be at least one person that knows in case…”
Norabel looked down at her lap, curling her fragile fingers in towards her palm. She didn’t like the feeling that came with talking to a person that knew she was going to die young. It made her feel weak and pitied.
Standing up from the table, she was about to bid him a goodbye, when a thought occurred to her. “Doctor Mica, do you remember meeting a lady called Wren? Her mother fell ill, and I believe she lives in your sector. I was wondering…”
She stopped when she saw the remorseful expression on his face.
“She was red-flagged, as I recall,” he answered.
“Do you know how her mother is doing? Wren isn’t able to visit her, and I was hoping you might…”
Mica placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’m afraid I’ve been…asked not to see her,” he explained.
“Asked?” she repeated in confusion. “But why would they do that?”
He shook his head. “The price that comes with the red flag. If I were to treat her, I would soon find myself working in the Steel Works. My job here would be commandeered, and someone less knowledgeable would take my place.”
Norabel furrowed her brow. “But then…she’ll die.”
Mica’s expression softened. “Wren’s mother is suffering from a bad bout of the flu. With her advanced age, it’s hard for her body to fight it off. But, there is an herb that might help her. If someone were to have a little knowledge about plants, they might retrieve some from the forest and bring it to her.”
Her face brightened, and she gave an eager nod of her head. Mica smiled and left to retrieve a book from a nearby shelf. When he brought it back, he opened it to a page that contained a drawing of a clump of leaves.
“This is called Timber Ivy. It’s a deep green color, almost black. You’ll find it wrapping up the bottom of a patch of Mulberry Trees not too far from our eastern border.”
“I know the spot,” she assured him, already hurrying for the door. “Thank you so much Doctor Mica,” she called out over her shoulder.
Valor forest was alight with whispering birds, butterflies and bugs when she ventured in. The woodland world was buzzing with gossip at her arrival, and Norabel could feel the curious gaze of a hundred eyes watching her. Travelling down the road a little ways, she spotted the patch of Mulberry Trees Doctor Mica had mentioned, and hurried over to inspect the bottom of their trunks. Sure enough, weaving in between the trees like a thick underbrush, was the dark green leaf of the Timber Ivy. Gently reaching her hand inside, she plucked a few of the vines from the tangle, coming away with several bunches of leaves.
She had just put the ivy in the pouch around her waist when she heard the sound of someone approaching through the trees. She looked to the road, but the sound was not coming from that direction. Whoever it was probably did not want to be seen, and so had chosen to stay off the path. Deciding that it was probably best that she not be seen either, Norabel quietly stole behind a large tree, waiting in silence for the person to pass. The crunching of the forest floor underfoot was a soft thud as the person grew nearer. Whoever it was, they were light on their feet—not something characteristic of the Pax.
She chanced a look around the tree and immediately felt foolish. It was Ashlin. She must be walking these woods on her way home. She was about to call out to her and announce her presence, when a thought struck her. She had no idea where Ashlin lived. Was it just out here in the trees? With no house and nothing to eat but what she could kill with her bow and arrows?
Fueled by curiosity and a slight hint of sympathy, she decided to follow Ashlin’s trail home. Of course, she knew that the girl that had so suddenly become the “New Face of the Rebellion” would notice if she was being followed, but Norabel didn’t need to see her in order to follow her. Back when she was a kid living up in the mountains, her father and grandfather taught her how to read signs in the forest to make sure no one was lurching nearby, planning to steal from their trees.
Giving Ashlin a few minutes head-start, she headed into the forest the way she had gone. Travelling slowly, she used the little signs of broken twigs and depressed grass to tell which way she went. Her trail took her a half mile further into the forest, then over a river, where she turned to the east, going until she reached a meadow. Ashlin’s tracks showed that she circled around the meadow so that she would not be seen in the open, and then continued travelling north east.
Finally, a few minutes later, Norabel saw a wooden structure through the trees. She made sure to stay hidden as she approached, for she imagined that Ashlin would not take kindly to having been followed, especially since she didn’t seem to like Norabel all that much in the first place.
Inching closer, she realized with a surprise that the structure in the woods wasn’t just some spindly shack that had been abandoned long before the Pax. This was a strong, comfortable cabin, with a smoking chimney, front porch, and even a horse tethered to a tree nearby. Her eyes were drawn to the smoking chimney, and she wondered why Ashlin had kept it burning while she was away. It was dangerous, and that kind of carelessness didn’t seem characteristic of her.
Then, through the walls of the cabin, she could hear Ashlin speaking. She couldn’t make out the words, but the situation became that much clearer. Ashlin was not living here alone. Norabel’s heart pounded against the wall of her chest, and she hugged the tree in front of her a little tighter. It seemed as if there was another secret that Ashlin was keeping from them. But why wouldn’t she tell them that she was living with someone? Unless the person needed to be kept secret.
Norabel wanted to leave right then, but she forced herself to stay. She had jumped to conclusions about Ashlin once before, and she wasn’t going to do that again.
A man’s voice spoke from inside the cabin, and a moment later the front door opened. Ashlin strode outside with a man that looked to be in his early fifties. Maybe this was the guardian that had found her in the tree as a baby. But Ashlin had said that her guardians had died a few years ago.
“What did you catch for dinner,” she asked the man, taking a step forward on the porch.
“Found a rabbit,” the man said, pointing to a string that had been tied between two trees. The limp body of the rabbit hung upside-down from it.
Ashlin turned back to him, a look of anger on her face. “One rabbit?” Her hand came up and lightly hit the man on the side of the head. Norabel stifled a gasp, her own bruise stinging in sympathy.
“I’m gonna need more than one skinny rabbit,” Ashlin complained. “Starting a rebellion takes a lot of strength.”
“Very good,” the man nodded subservientl
y. “I’ll see what else I can find.”
He went back inside the cabin and returned with his bow and arrows. As he disappeared into the forest, Ashlin walked towards a large chair on the porch and slouched down inside it. There was a wooden beam that came up from the end of the porch, and she took out a dagger and expertly embedded it in the wood with a swift flick of her wrist.
“Rela!” she called out, reaching for another dagger that was stored up her boot and embedding it in the beam as well.
The cabin creaked, and a woman appeared on the front porch a second later.
Ashlin stared at the wooden beam, sending a third dagger into it as she said, “The fireplace needs more wood.”
“Yes, you’re right. I’ll get on that right now.”
Norabel watched in stunned silence as the woman came down from the porch and went around back to the pile of wood. She began to chop away as Ashlin sat on the front porch, throwing the same three knives at the wood again and again.
Norabel could hardly believe what she was seeing! Ashlin seemed so passionate about life, seemed like she was such a hard worker. But when it came to menial tasks like wood chopping and hunting, she turned downright lazy.
Stealing away from the scene, Norabel didn’t know what to do. Should she tell someone? But if she did, what would she say? That Ashlin lives a double life as a lazy person that likes to hit her supposed “dead” guardians and make them do all the work. It sounded absurd! She wouldn’t have believed it if someone had tried to tell her. The best thing to do, she decided, was to say nothing and keep a close eye on her. There could be any number of reasons why she kept this part of her life a secret. However, as she went over the possible explanations in her head, none of them sounded good.
*
The sunset swayed through the trees and danced in Hunter’s eyes in bright orange and deep red waves. He hadn’t been asleep, but he had closed his eyes for most of the day, realizing that if he was going to die by the end of it, he would rather spend it inside the fantasy in his head rather than tied to a tree.
A few of the branches of a nearby ash tree rustled. An archer had been sent in secret to watch him in case he tried to escape. Hunter only knew because the man had climbed down once to relieve himself when he thought that Hunter was sleeping. The tree rustled again as the archer dropped down from it, racing back to camp.
He could hear shouts of alarm coming from that direction. Something had gotten them spooked. At first Hunter didn’t know what, but then he heard it. Hoof-beats. Not just one, but a whole pack of them. They were moving too fast for any Pax convoy he had ever seen. The only thing it sounded like was the gallop of horses into battle.
Through the trees, he heard someone yell, “No riders!”
Hunter’s forehead scrunched in confusion. Why would the horses have no riders? Was the Pax really there, or had a pack of their horses simply escaped?
As these thoughts ran through his head, two men came sprinting through the trees towards him. He recognized the father and son that had spoken with him earlier. They both had their swords drawn as they raced up to his tree.
The older man tried to catch his breath as he pointed his sword down at Hunter, saying, “There is a pack of horses coming this way with no riders on them. Explain that.”
Thinking quickly, Hunter decided that he could use their confusion to his advantage.
“I let them out,” he answered. “I figured, if I was stealing one horse, why not let them all go.”
“Really?” the son asked, impressed. “You nicked the whole Breccan horse-supply!”
Hunter turned to the kid and noticed that something on his ankle was catching in the sunlight. There was a knife sticking out of the top part of his boot. It hadn’t been there before. He had probably grabbed it when he heard the horses coming their way.
Earlier that day, Hunter had managed to loop his legs through his arms so that his hands were bound in front of him instead of in back. His chest was still bound to the tree, but if the boy could just get close enough, he might be able to grab the knife. Luckily, both father and son were too flustered by the sudden appearance of a whole fleet of horses to notice that his hands had changed position.
“If you’re trying to trick us!” the father warned, looking down at him through the shaft of his sword. Hunter noticed a strange inscription going up the steel of the blade. It was unlike any of the swords he had ever seen in Galerance. And there was a three pronged swirl at the top that he knew he had seen before.
“I’m not trying to make you do anything,” Hunter said, trying to calm the man down. “I’m just telling you the truth. Those horses don’t have riders because I let them go. So you can either stay here with me chatting about it, or you can try and capture them for yourselves. It’s your choice.”
“Dad,” the son urged, growing impatient. “He has to be telling the truth. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“No,” the man said gravely. “You know what else makes sense. An ambush. They wait for us to take the horses and then slaughter us from behind.”
“With all due respect sir,” Hunter said, “that makes no sense. If the Pax set their own horses loose, they would have no way of telling which way they’d go. And that’s assuming they even know that your group exists and exactly where you were going to be today. If you ask me, it makes no sense to set a pack of horses free on the off chance that they might drum up a few rebels hiding in the woods.”
“See dad,” the son said, taking a step closer to where Hunter was tied. “We should be going after those horses right now before they get too far away. Just imagine how much faster we could travel with a whole fleet of them in our camp!”
His father paused to think about it, and Hunter took the opportunity to reach for the boy’s leg, carefully grabbing ahold of the tip of the knife.
“Come on dad!” the son urged again, stepping towards his father.
Hunter immediately let go of the knife, but it had been out of the kid’s boot far enough that its weight caused it to fall out and onto the floor.
“We have to go now!” the boy said, unaware that his knife was missing.
Hunter’s body was blocking it from both their views, and they would only notice its absence if the boy actually bent down to retrieve it.
“Alright,” the father relented. “But we’ll leave the second I spot anything suspicious.” They both started to jog back through the trees, but the man looked over his shoulder at Hunter. “If something happens to my boy,” the man called out. “I’m coming for you!”
Hunter gulped, hoping that the abandoned horses weren’t, in fact, an ambush, and he had just sent both of them to their deaths. Though they had captured him, he didn’t want them to die. Even though they were enemies of the Pax, they didn’t deserve that.
When the father and son were no longer visible through the trees, he stretched his hands out, hastily grasping onto the knife. First he cut the bonds around his hands, accidentally nicking his wrists a few times in the process. When those bonds were finally cut, he sliced the rope around his middle with a few quick motions, and was up and running to his horse.
With a stroke of luck, he found that his pack was still strapped to the back of his saddle. No doubt it had been searched and all that had been found were food provisions, a blanket, and a bit of Snapper to start a fire. Nothing bore the seal of the Pax, which was perhaps why they hadn’t taken it away yet. Maybe they really were in doubt about whether he was an official or not.
Untying his horse, he mounted up and decided on a heading. The fleet of horses were coming from the west, and luckily he had to keep travelling east. Kicking his horse into action, he began to gallop away. He kept his eyes peeled for any stray arrows that might be flying towards him, but after several minutes of hard riding, he did not see any sign that the rebel camp had followed him.
Hunter shook his head at his good fortune. Not only had the horses been an opportune distraction to help him escape, they had a
lso provided the perfect sound cover so that no one could hear him galloping away.
Travelling east at a rate that any horseman would be proud of, he kept off the road and put as much distance between him and his captors as he possibly could. He figured it wouldn’t be long until they discovered him missing, and now that they had horses, they would be able to travel much faster. Of course, none of them had been taught to ride as he had. He should be safe as long as he kept riding until night fall.
Chapter 15
For the next few days, Hunter kept himself to a rigorous schedule of riding and staying alert. He had already lost a day’s ride, and he was determined to make that up and then some. A strong determination and longing to return home fueled his steps, pushing him nearly to his breaking point. The only thing that kept him from travelling straight to his destination was knowing that his horse couldn’t take it. Every stop he forced himself to take was not because he longed for a rest, but because he couldn’t stand making his horse suffer any more.
It was on the fourth day after he had escaped from the rebel camp that he spotted a mountain in the distance. It was a lone mountain with a uniquely curved snowy peak at the top. This was the land-mark he had been told to look for so he would know the forest of Liadrel was nearby.
Dismounting from his horse, he rummaged in his pack and took out the white flag he had been given. Then, tying it to his horse’s tail, he got back on and searched for the main road that led into Liadrel. A few minutes later he spotted a wooden sign through the trees. Riding over to it, he found the road. He had not been riding on it for five minutes before he heard the sound of a horse coming down the path in front of him.
Hunter chose to dismount so that the white flag on his horse’s tail would be more visible. As he stood there, holding the reins in his hands and waiting for the horseman to appear, he looked down at the dirt path underfoot and noticed something strange. There were deep rivets in the ground, indicating that something heavy had been carted through on several occasions. There were also signs of heavy horse traffic coming to and fro, and even the mark of boot prints. For a forest that was supposed to be forbidden, there sure seemed to be a lot of people streaming in and out of it.
Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) Page 18