“Behind the shutters back there…?” She asked, hastily changing the subject and pointing toward the rear of the barn.
“I’ll wait here and keep a lookout for y’ – ‘just in case’…” he nodded, turning his back and making a show of assuming an ‘at ease’ pose that was stoic enough to seem both comical and just a little bit impressive at the same time.
With a thin smile and a faint nod of her own, she tucked the clothes under one arm, picked up her duffel bag in the other and made her way to the far end of the barn, threading a path around wooden barrels, sacks of grain and a clutter of other random, farm-related items, all scattered about in haphazard fashion. She found the shutters easily enough and true to Godfrey’s word, they stood upright against one of the central pillars, forming almost a cubicle of sorts up to neck height that was more than sufficient for her purposes.
That it was also further from the fire and bathed in partial shadow was an added bonus as she carefully craned her neck to check once more that Godfrey was still standing where she’d left him, and that Lester was nowhere to be seen. With a deep breath, she placed the duffel on the ground, carefully laid the clean clothes on top of it, and shrugged off her damp jacket.
It was only a few moments before she was out of her damp clothes and slipping on the replacements Godfrey had provided. A little short for her legs, the tan dungaree pants matched her boots well enough and were complimented by a long-sleeved tunic of faded khaki that was a little baggy but was otherwise serviceable. As no stage did she consider removing her underwear: although still vaguely damp, there was no way she was going to take them off in the present company… not for all the good intentions in the world, whatever world that might presently be.
Over the tunic, she pulled on a long, sleeveless leather vest with deep, flap-covered pockets sewn into the front and sides of its lower half, along with a matching belt to draw it all in at her waist and at least accord her some kind of figure. With all that done, the last item was a long, flowing cloak of dark green that tied about her neck with a braided cord and also provided a deep hood that was large enough to cover her face in poor weather and hung in loose folds at her shoulder blades when pushed back.
Delving into her bag, she managed to locate a brush and hair tie and tried to work out the multitude of knots she’d accumulated in her flight from the clearing, the dampness of her hair making hard work of it. Reaching a point that wasn’t perfect but close enough, she used the hair tie to secure it all in a pony tail of her own, clenching it tight behind her head. It was difficult to gauge properly without a mirror, but she was fairly confident that the ensemble wasn’t actually too bad considering what she had to actually work with.
“Oh, God… I look like Aragorn…!” She realised suddenly with a little dismay, not even the thought of an unshaven Viggo Mortensen enough to make her feel better.
She pulled and prodded at the bits and pieces, trying to make impossible adjustments, before finally giving up and deciding there was nothing else to be done. The wet clothing had felt disgusting and cold, and if she was being brutally honest, anything was better than that at the moment. Sure, the material was rough and a little itchy, but it was otherwise comfortable enough, and she was surprised how much freedom of movement she possessed as she gathered up the wet clothes and carried them back out to the fire.
“I’ve put up a line for you to hang your gear,” Godfrey offered as she appeared form the rear of the barn. He’d taken some cord from his pack and tied it off at eye level between two of the central pillars, only a few metres from the crackling fire. “Should dry faster like that.”
“Thanks,” she managed with a thin smile, feeling very self-conscious about her new attire as she slung each damp garment over the line and spaced them out neatly. “Aren’t you going to change too?”
“Been out in the field long enough to be used to it,” he shrugged simply, as if that was all that needed to be said. Having turned around for her benefit, he’d taken the opportunity to warm his back and legs in the heat of the crackling flames. “Fire’s nearly dried me off already, anyway,” he added. “Come… sit…” he continued, gesturing to the stool as he moved to collect his crate and bring it around to her side of the fire while she finished hanging her washing.
“How do I look?” She asked eventually, scared of the answer and not entirely sure why.
“Sure don’t look like a… stranger… that’s for sure,” he began, correcting himself pre-emptively and earning a softly-whispered “Nice save…!” in response from a faintly-smiling Nev. “Look more like one of us… a scout, maybe…” he continued with another shrug. “You certainly look more normal now, although we’ll need to do somethin’ with that hair if you’re to go out in public.” He caught the flash of dismay in her eyes and, thinking quickly, added: “Definitely look the part though… almost ranger material…”
Aragorn: I knew it…! Her ever-vigilant self-doubt muttered silently as she returned to her seat. He must know about Lord of the Rings, surely…?
But that thought then led on to other thoughts about home and the world she’d lost, and that in turn led to thoughts of her father. Drake would’ve been home for hours now and he’d have called the police the moment he’d found the house empty. She knew he’d be terrified, not knowing where she was, and knowing her dad, she also knew that he’d blame himself whatever happened. She fell into a funk, staring into the flames and fighting desperately not to cry as she struggled with renewed feelings of loss and confusion over the unbelievable situation she’d been dragged into.
“I’m not a witch…” Nev murmured in a small, weak voice after they’d been alone with the fire for a few moments. With the tension of the chase now gone, a change of fresh clothes and the chance to relax a little, the mental strength she’d been holding onto to keep herself going had now run out, and all that was left was a tired, frightened teenager who badly needed her town, her school and – most of all – her dad. More than anything at that moment, Nev Anderson just wanted to go home… the one thing that above all others currently seemed impossible.
“Aye, I’ll admit… you’re not like any witch I’ve yet seen…” Godfrey conceded, trying to give a comforting smile as he recognised the sudden fragility in her tone.
“How many witches have you seen…?” She asked carefully, arms folded protectively across her chest.
“Including you and the ‘Blue Hag’…?” He asked, receiving a silent nod. “Two…” he answered, again no longer able to keep that cheeky grin from his face.
She knew she should have been angry that he kept teasing, but somehow she could sense innocence behind the jokes and at the very least, his laid-back manner was helping to put her a little more at ease. This time, she didn’t try to cover up the fact that he’d managed to make her smile, weak and fleeting as it had been.
“…Never seen much of anything before now…” he went on to explain. “Waitin’ for you ‘s been my first big mission in the Blacklands.” He gave a faint shrug, as if conceding another point. “Guess I seen a bit of fighting up in Swales when I was a young’un… but that was only a border skirmish: clearin’ out a few sell-swords and the like… nothin’ like a real war or anything.”
“What is this place?” Nev asked finally, again fighting back tears as so many unanswered questions fought for their turn to be asked. “Where’s my home gone? What about the other towns… the cities…? Melbourne… Sydney… Canberra…? Surely, they can’t all be gone?”
“Don’t know nothin’ like those names,” he answered with apologetic honesty, “and I’ve been all over the Osterlands the last few years. We’re just north o’ Crookhaven at the moment, maybe three miles south o’ One Thug. From here, it’s a day’s hard ride to Castle Black and maybe the same to Welshport. More than a hundred miles to Eidon, though, but Harald only stays there in summer and no one likes heading that way if they can help it…” He was trying to be helpful, as always, but the place names he’d just reeled off
sounded just as unrecognisable to her as the cities she’d mentioned had been to him.
“Hard slog to get there from here, up through the Black Spur from Hell’s Town, unless you take the western roads,” he went on, hardly missing a beat, “but they run too close to one of The Darks for my liking… no one likes getting too close to them…”
“I don’t know any of those places…” she admitted sadly, confusion fogging her thoughts. “You carry swords and crossbows and you talk of kings and wars and witches…” She shook her head in exasperation, as if trying to clear an overload of bewildering information. “There’s no such thing as witches,” she declared in a desperate, quavering tone. “There shouldn’t be… but… my own friend… ex-friend… she used magic…! It must’ve been magic! It’s impossible… but I saw it! One minute, I’m standing in the middle of a nature reserve, four ‘kays’ from my own house, and the next…” She paused for a moment, overcome her own frustrated inability to explain what had happened. “The next… I’m stuck in the middle of Sherwood Forest, running away from sword-swinging nut-jobs and getting called a bloody witch by a bunch of Tolkien fanboys! I just want to go home…!” She wailed finally, her shoulders sagging as she burst into tears, sobbing quietly. “I want to go home…”
“You made her cry already, Westacre…?” Lester called out nastily from upstairs. “That was quick, even for you…!”
“You just keep eyes open and your mouth shut, Toadface…!” He barked in return, the sharpness of his tone making it quite clear he wasn’t kidding as he glared up at the closed trapdoor. The boy in the loft above for once showed excellent judgement by not saying another word.
“I – I suppose they burn witches, do they?” She croaked haltingly between sobs, unable to look directly at Godfrey as she instead stared woodenly into the glare of the fire, hoping in vain that she might see something to ease her growing despair.
“Aye… aye, they do…” he began, knowing that wasn’t the best possible answer but unable to lie, and instantly wincing at her expected reaction.
“Oh, my God…!” She moaned softly, burying her head in her hands again. “Is that what you’re going to do to me…?”
“No, lass…!” He stated firmly, for the first time not even thinking about using the word ‘witch’. “No… we’re not here to harm you… that I swear on my life…”
“Then… then why were you waiting out there in the bush… for me? Why were they trying to kill me?” She lowered her head to her hands once more, fighting against the tears that so badly wanted to come. “My best friend tried to kill me…!”
“That hag at the clearing was your friend…?” Godfrey asked quickly, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “I’d be thinkin’ you need better friends, if that’s the case…”
“Yeah, thanks for the heads up on that one, Captain Obvious…” Nev replied sullenly, cheered up just a tad by the discovery that her sarcasm was still in working order.
“Ain’t no captain… just a ranger,” he replied in an instant, opting for ‘Captain Oblivious’ instead. “You can say you’re no witch, but that one definitely is.” He continued, returning to the subject of Persephone Koutroulis. “Seen her here a few times already, like I said earlier, and she just comes and goes as she pleases, vanishing in and out o’ there like some bright blue will o’ the wisp. The days she’s here, there’s usually one of The Brotherhood lurkin’ about in those robes o’ theirs as well, and she’s usually got a few of the Blackwatch about, too, but they’re easy enough to hide from if you’re worth your salt.”
“You said before that this was only the second time you’d seen her bring someone else through…” Nev asked sharply, the analytical side of her mind taking over as she recalled that piece of information. “What happened last time she did that?”
“Well, it was maybe two months ago…” Godfrey began, thinking hard. “Most times, she comes in the early evening, usually regular as clockwork. She was earlier today, though – lucky for both of us I’d only just got there meself when this all went down.”
“Yes, yes… but the other person…” She persisted, trying to keep on topic. “Who were they?”
“Well, we weren’t formally introduced…” he grinned in return, displaying his own capacity for sarcasm. “Some older fella… lot older than me or you… He weren’t any happier about turnin’ up there than you were…”
“What happened to him?”
“They took him away,” he replied simply. “She did somethin’ to him with a Shard Crystal – one just like The Brotherhood always carry – and he fainted dead away. They carted him off with the witch following on behind.”
“They killed him?”
“Not dead, just knocked out…” Godfrey frowned, as if she’d not been listening to a word he’d said. “He was still movin’ and moanin’ a little as they put him over the back o’ one of the horses.”
“And…?”
“And what…?” He shrugged. “Dunno what happened after that: never saw him again.”
“Why didn’t you help him?”
“Weren’t me job to,” Godfrey shrugged again. “Contract was to wait for a witch… a girl. He wasn’t a girl, far as I can tell, and unlike you, he was too stupid to try and run. Weedy little bugger he was, too – like Toadface but with grey hair…”
“I heard that…!” Lester called out faintly from above, sounding unimpressed.
“Aye, and you were supposed to ‘n’ all,” he shot back with a sly grin. “Might o’ helped him – maybe – if he’d been lucky enough to have run my way, like you did…” he went on, turning back to Nev. “But he just stood there instead, acting all brave and raising his fists to the Blackwatcher that came to tie him up.” He snorted with laughter at the memory. “Silly bugger actually tried to protect the hag, pushin’ her behind him and acting like he was defendin’ her honour or some such silliness.”
“He didn’t know?” Nev whispered, remembering the shock of her own experience with betrayal. “So Percy tricked him as well…”
“He hadn’t a clue…” Godfrey nodded in confirmation. “‘Percy’, her name is…? Well, she just reached up and touched the back of his head, real gentle, and that was it: down he went.”
“Why, though…?” She demanded again. “They wanted to capture me, then decided to kill me – and you two were waiting for me as well.” Her eyes narrowed as she realised he’d not answered her original question. “Why did you save me from them? Where are you going to take me?”
“The ‘why’ part’s easy,” he conceded with a tilt of his head. “Got orders from my mob – The Oster – to come and wait here for you to turn up. Collect the ‘witch’ and make sure she ain’t hurt: that was my orders. The where part’s a bit trickier… that, I don’t know… yet…”
“So we’re supposed to just sit around in this barn and chat?” She asked with a half-smile and a raised eyebrow of her own.
“Just for tonight,” he grinned back. “We’ve transport ready, and at dawn tomorrow we’ll be making tracks for Welshport – about a day’s good ride east of here. We’ll be meeting a ship there, but only the captain knows the destination after that. It’ll be somewhere safe, though.”
“That still doesn’t tell me why…” she pointed out.
“They didn’t tell me that, either…” Godfrey admitted with another of his characteristic shrugs. “That way, there’s no danger of me givin’ anything away if I got captured.”
“Well, none of that matters,” she declared suddenly, sounding determined. “First thing tomorrow, I am going back up to that portal or ‘wormhole’ or whatever the hell it is and I am going home.”
“Not a chance,” Godfrey said simply, but this time there was the faint hint of steel in his voice. “Too dangerous for a start, and my orders are to get you to Welshport by tomorrow night to meet that ship. They only come once a month, so we’ve been lucky there, and I’m sure as Dragonfall not waiting around another month because we missed this one. Going back wou
ld do y’ no good anyway: they only open it up when that hag comes and goes, and that ain’t every day.”
“I have to!” Nev argued desperately, rising to her feet and barely holding onto her tears again as she stomped a few steps away, turning her back to him. “You can’t keep me here… you just can’t…!” She continued, whirling to face him again. “I’m going home!”
“That ‘port-hole’ thingy won’t be open,” he insisted, calm but firm in tone, “and there’s the danger of running into the Blackwatch again…”
But he caught the look of desperation in her eyes in that moment and allowed his words to trail off. She was a strange one, that was true enough, but she wasn’t unpleasant to talk to in her own, weird way and Godfrey was already fairly sure she wasn’t a witch. Awful pretty too, truth be told, although that had nothing to do with anything, of course. He could also see that she was right at the end of her physical and mental reserves at that moment, and pushing her over the edge into hysteria wouldn’t make things easier for any of them.
“Tell you what…” he mediated, forcing a more relaxed tone back into his voice. “You’re tired… I’m tired… why don’t we both get a few hours’ sleep and talk some more about it in the morning. I can scout around first, check if the coast is clear, and maybe then we can have a look at that clearing if everything seems all right. How does that sound?”
Nev stared him down for a long time, eyes boring into his as she dared him to show any hint of falsehood and was met only with honesty and openness. She wanted to go back there right now, but she was smart enough to realise that that wasn’t going to happen, and although she didn’t really trust him yet, perhaps a morning trip was a reasonable compromise. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that she had to go about it the way he was suggesting.
“Um… okay, I guess…” she began slowly, making an effort to sound sincere in her desire to meet him halfway. She then stretched rather overdramatically. “I am really tired, now that you mention it…”
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