by Raven Bouray
“Oi no’ ta scare ye,” his rumbling tone echoed in the space between them.
Emmaline scoffed, “If that were true, you would have left me alone to begin with. You have done nothing but frighten me since the moment I first saw you.” She pulled her wrist from his grasp and set it down upon the bed. “You hurt them! Broke that man’s hand! And they were only trying to help me. What sort of a monster does that?”
This time she heard him scoff, “Oi keep ye safe.”
“Safe? How?” Her eyes narrowed and her tone was incredulous.
“Them men. Ye thin’ tay ‘elp ye?”
Emmaline nodded. “Of course. They were talking of taking me from you, bringing me to their home so they could contact my father, who would have given them quite the gift for bringing me safely back to him.” Her looks were odd enough that they would have garnered attention at least when they would have gotten her away from him.
He rose suddenly, spooking Emmaline, and strode away from her, back facing her before speaking, “Is tha’ wha’ go on?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it?” Emmaline smiled at his back. “They were trying to help me. Even thought that you were a slaver. And that’s been outlawed for at least 100 years.” She spoke matter of factly to his back. If he was truly an elf, he might not know how the human world really worked.
“The men,” he made a noise of discontent at that, “were no’ ‘elp. A sack o’ coin tha’ ‘ad show ta me.”
Emmaline felt a flash of confusion. “Why would they show you coin?”
He turned back to her slowly. “Ye leave ye wit’ tem. Fer coin.”
“Leave me with them but not to help me?” Confusion laced her tone, and she felt an uncomfortable pressure begin in her chest. “But buying people is against the law.”
Her captor moved slowly back toward her but did not take long to kneel beside her bed once more. “No. No’ ta aid ye.” He shook his head.
“But…” Her voice was small now. “Why?”
“Ye ‘ave no’ world ken. Tis no’ goot.” He lifted his hooded face, and she saw a glimpse of skin.
Emmaline watched as he stood and took a brief look at dark green eyes. Her vision swam and tunneled at the sight but she shook it off fairly quickly. “I know that.” She uttered softly in reply.
“Ye ken but ye no ken.” He turned away from her, “Sleep. We go early.” And with that, he climbed up onto the window frame and up to the roof. She heard his body hit with a thud and spared a look at the locked door. It would be best for her to rest, but that would be a difficult journey. With a relatively full belly and a heavy ache in her chest, she lay down upon the thin straw and pulled the threadbare blanket over her small frame and tried to sleep.
Chapter 15
Emmaline opened her eyes and the still mostly dark room wavered blearily in her field of vision. Her back ached, and she shifted stiffly to try to find at least a somewhat comfortable position. But her search was cut short as a sound from the roof and subsequent opening of the mostly closed window announced the presence of her hooded captor. As a last effort, she shut her eyes again, as if that could block him out.
Instead of taking her cue, he walked over softly and bent at the knee next to her bed. “Up ye ge’. We go soon.”
“What?” It was far too early, and she had gotten far too little sleep to be able to puzzle out his speech as of yet.
“Up,” he said simply and pulled the threadbare sheet off of her. “Boots on.”
“I didn’t sleep. And my skin is itching. What is this made of?”
“Up,” he repeated, and she gave a growl of dissent but lifted her body off of the frame and searched for the boots that she had put at the end of the bed. When her hand finally met with leather, she hefted them up and pulled them on clumsily. As soon as that task was done, she felt his hand on her upper arm to pull her up and forward. She nearly fell into him as she tried to gain her balance. The lack of a good and restful sleep for the past two days was getting to her. Also the lack of a good bed and clothes that didn’t turn her skin red and drive her nearly mad with the texture.
They deftly avoided a collision, mostly due to his part, and once she was balanced enough, he led her out the door after unlocking it. This time he carried a bag on his shoulder which shifted and clanked suspiciously. Despite being unable to focus, she navigated the steps downward successfully and celebrated a short and small victory once her feet touched the floor of the tavern.
The scent of breakfast teased her nose, and her stomach rumbled in reaction. He tugged once more on her arm to get her feet moving when a voice came from the kitchen. “I figured you would be gone early. After that commotion last night. Here. Take these. My husband charged ya too much anyway, and ya look like ya need it.”
Emmaline took a moment to focus on the plump, kindly faced woman standing to the side of her. She gave a grateful smile and held out her free hand. “Thank you, good lady. I am sorry for that event last night.”
“Those brutes got a good walloping, if you ask me. And ya are very welcome, child. I hope ya have a safe journey.” She felt a calloused but warm hand placed over her own cool one and the innkeeper's wife gave it a quick squeeze before Emmaline was tugged back away from the woman with a small sack of food in hand.
In short order, Arya was taken from the small stable that she had been housed in, and Emmaline was lifted onto her back and the village was behind them as the light of dawn really began to crest over the horizon. The chilled morning air blew softly around them, and she shivered in answer.
Her captor pulled from his sack a length of cloth and flicked his wrist to place it over her shoulders without slowing and she grabbed at it to draw it further around her. “What is this?”
“A cloak. ‘Ood up,” he replied, and she did as bid, mostly because she was still tired and didn’t have the energy to argue. However the hood did not want to go over her head in a way that would draw it down.
“I need something for my hair.”
She heard a sigh before a length of twine was placed on Arya’s shoulder and she used it to pull her hair back. It was still tangled and greasy and resisted her manipulations, but she managed to get it mostly pulled back and the hood over the mess.
Emmaline tried to doze on Arya’s back, but the uneven dirt road made that task difficult. She kept her eyes closed just in case she managed to catch a few winks. Some unknown amount of time later, she opened them and found they were no longer following the dirt road. Instead they were in the middle of a field, and the sun had chased away the moon and stars.
From her rudimentary sense of direction, she knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west. She also knew from her father that if the sun set on her left then it was north. It was then that she surmised they were still travelling northward despite there being no road to give her a clue as to her whereabouts.
Emmaline remembered the sack of food that the innkeeper's wife had given her and looked down to find it safely nestled in her lap. Stiff fingers unlaced the knot keeping it closed, and she reached in and pulled out the first thing she found. It was a small chunk of bread that when she put it up to her face smelled fresh. With a hum of small delight, she bit into it and found the buttery taste and light texture to be nearly divine. Within a short time, she had devoured the savory treat and reached in for seconds. This time an apple appeared, and she bit into the fruit and relished the taste.
Only eating half of the treat, she clicked at Arya, who turned her head inward and stopped her plodding. Her soft muzzle tickled Emmaline’s palm as the horse bit into the offered treat and snorted after she had finished, looking for more. When none was offered, Arya gave an offended whinny and started walking after her captor again.
During their trek, the only way to measure the amount of passing time lay in the journey of the sun across the sky. And as the day progressed, the wind grew warmer and brought the scent of fresh grass and water along with snippets of sound from nearby. Most of birds tha
t flew and flapped around or of various grassland denizens making their living in the brush.
Emmaline’s throat was dry and she licked her lips to keep them moist in the arid day. She searched for a water flask in the sack that she had been given but found none and she didn’t know how to ask her captor either. It was only when she started clearing her throat and coughing a bit that she heard him sigh in annoyance, and he veered their course from northward to what might have been west. They continued on until Emmaline spotted a small pond from her vantage point. When the grasses parted and they stood at the edge of the pond that really was no more than a couple of body lengths wide and probably no deeper than her waist, her captor knelt down. He scooped up a handful of water and took a drink of it. Seemingly satisfied with it, he let Arya down to take a long drink of the necessary liquid. Emmaline slid down her back and knelt at the edge of the a fair distance away from her captor and Arya.
Emmaline opened her satchel of food and found a few small blocks of cheese in the mix of fruit, bread and a few vegetables.
They sat at the water's edge silently for a time, and as Emmaline finished her small meal, she joined her palms together to make a bowl and dipped her cupped hands into the water. Her pale hands filled up with liquid and she frowned as small specks of grass and moss also swam within but she was thirsty.
About halfway from the water to her mouth, a hand closed around her wrist and pulled her up short. The water sloshed and most of her drink fell onto her woolen pants. She glared at the wet spot for a few moments before turning her gaze up to the hood above her. “Why did you do that?” It was a properly irate tone, and her accompanying scowl was one that her parents would be proud of. Instead of speaking, he pulled out a waterskin from the folds of his cloak and dropped it in her lap. She yanked her wrist out of his grasp. “You could have just said something. Now I’m all damp. And I do not appreciate you grabbing at me all the time. I’m not a child and I won’t be treated like one.”
She heard a snort as he pulled back from her to sit down next to Arya.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” She lifted the tan skin from her lap. “You could have given this to me earlier.”
“Drin’ it,” he deadpanned.
She uncorked the top and bent down to put it into the water, and he let out a clipped noise of alarm. “What?”
“No tha’. Jus’ drin’ it,” he told her exasperatedly.
“Why?” Suspicion laced her tone. “Did you drug it?”
“No. Ye don’ drin’ tha’ water ‘ere.”
“You did,” she argued and put the water to her nose. It smelled fresh and clean, and her parched throat gave a cry of need.
“You, no. No safe. No’ goot.”
“Won’t Arya get sick if it’s not good? Or you?”
“No’. Strong. Now drin’.” He gestured at her with a gloved hand impatiently.
Emmaline wanted to say no and stick her tongue out like the child that she denied she was. Instead it would be better for her to not fall over from thirst or illness, so she could keep strong for her escape or her father’s rescue. So with a nod in his direction, she lifted the waterskin to her lips and took a long draught. The water was cool and delicious and soothed her dry mouth and throat. When she had taken her fill, she placed the top back on and held it out to him.
He waved it off, “Kee’ it.”
Emmaline shrugged and lifted the rope that encircled the top of the skin over her head to let the water skin rest at her hip across her body. She took another look at her captor and wondered once more who he was and what his end goal was. He was kind to her at times and rough at others, ordered her about but worried for her safety. It was an enigma, and there was little that Emmaline enjoyed more than satisfying her curiosity. Except for her warm bed and family near her. That was far more important than anything she could learn about or from him.
Chapter 16
They sat by the makeshift pond for a while, each absorbed with their own thoughts while Emmaline nibbled on her rapidly depleting food store and drank from the waterskin that he had given her. But before long, her hooded companion shifted and rose from his seat, and Emmaline knew that the impatience that marked their journey would once again rise to the forefront. She sighed, and he gave a gruff command for her to mount up. Emmaline obeyed with surprisingly little resistance and that lack probably perplexed the hooded male who then, after she was settled, led them away from the small pond and back northbound. Golden and green tall grass continued to surround them for as long as she could see.
While they rode through the area, she wondered and worried that they were tramping all over someone’s harvest, but it didn’t look like corn or wheat or any grain she knew. It was merely wild grass. But land that was fertile wasn’t often left to its own devices, as food and fiber made coin. Coin was the only thing that mattered to most nobles and by necessity, to the poor and destitute as well.
Emmaline had decided to break the silence between them with a question as they walked. “Are you really an elf?”
He stopped and turned toward her for a few moments before turning back and leading them on once again. “Why?”
“If you were really an elf, why would you venture so far south? The northern forest borders the Icy Wildlands. We are almost as far south as one can go, any farther and you would be underground with the dwarves.”
“Why oi go ta place tha’ oi no’ safe?”
“Well, yes.” If one could simplify it as such.
“Duty.” His answer was clipped and a little harsh.
Emmaline answered him with silence until another question came to mind. “How is it that no elf has been seen in years? Master...Telgrin--.” She swallowed and found a tightness that had not been there mere moments before and the accompanying pressure in her chest that thinking about her favorite teacher now evoked. “He said that elves were normally reclusive but they would come to villages and cities to trade and they were often seen in the capital cities. Are there still elves? Are you the last? And--.” Her sentence trailed off when she felt a shift in the air. As if a cold wind had made a home down the back of her neck and trickled down her spine to rest in her chest like a heavy weight.
They had stopped.
Her captor was standing frozen on the spot, and it seemed as if he were the origin of the cold feeling that suffused her body. His body language was stiff, locked, and she could swear she heard the hard set of his jaw and see a fine tremble in the hand at his side.
“Are you--...”
“Quiet. No mure tal’ elves.” Again with the harsh tone.
She shivered and shrunk away from him in response. “Fine,” she agreed. “No more elf questions.”
His posture relaxed, and she heard him take a deep breath and let it out slowly before they began moving again. When the last of the chill fled her chest and bones, she glared at his back. All she did was ask a question, and he nearly bit her head off for it. Were the elves all dead? Is that why he acted so closed off and intense all of the time? Or was it something else? She probably would not find out anything soon if he kept changing faces so often. Telling her one moment that he did not wish to scare her and the next doing just that.
They were plodding along the imaginary path ahead when she heard a familiar voice. A deep, very familiar tone flitted along the edge of her hearing. She tensed involuntarily and at once she cursed herself thoroughly for it. Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind as it had many times over. Never let anyone else see what you are thinking. But she had and hoped that he hadn’t noticed.
Instead she forced her body to relax again and turned her attention to her keen sense of hearing. They continued to walk, and Emmaline had started to think that she had merely imagined the deep voice.
But it happened again. The rumbling tone that brought a smile to her face every time she heard it. Her father. He was coming for her. The very hope that soon she would be going home raised her spirits. She would get a decent meal and soft clothes
and a bath. What she wouldn’t give for a bath and someone to brush her hair out. If she could just go home, she would marry whatever man she had to. Have as many children as was needed and live happily. If there was one thing that she had learned from this, it was that adventure was better in imagination. The reality of it was far harsher than she had ever really thought. But why wouldn’t it have been? There was always food in her belly and a soft, warm bed, and anything she had ever wanted. She wasn’t a warrior or anything special and she didn’t want to be. All she wanted was to go home.
She heard it again and realized that he must have heard it too. Their pace quickened. Instead of the slow plod that it had been for days now it changed to a near trot through the grass. It only solidified her belief that she wasn’t just wishfully thinking, that something was about to happen. Perhaps he thought that she couldn’t hear them or perhaps he just wanted to put enough distance between them that she would give up.