by Alex Aguilar
When dawn came, the men were up and ready by the time John Huxley walked out of his cottage, wearing the finest leathers he owned and the thickest boots he could fit his feet into. His brown leather vest was buttoned tightly, just lose enough to allow him to move freely. His rucksack was filled with fruit and bread and cheese, and he had secured knives to his belt and hid two in his boots. And the elegant sword that Viktor Crowley gifted to him was strapped to his belt, its aura almost giving him a sense of self-assurance.
He was as ready as he would ever be.
The company was loading the horses and eating their morning meal as the sunrise gave its first light, just enough light to begin their journey. But before John could join them in the field, he heard a loud thump and saw a shadow running after him from the corner of his eye.
Robyn Huxley wore her finest coat, made out of a coyote’s pelt, and beneath it were the hunting leathers that she wore when she practiced her archery in the Blue Hills. When he saw her puffed-up eyes, John couldn’t help but wonder how long the girl had been awake, or if she had even slept at all.
“John, wait!” she shouted, scampering after him, holding her beloved bow Spirit in her hands and a quiver of about 30 sharply carved arrows.
“What are you doing, Robyn?”
“I’m coming with you!”
“You can’t,” John said calmly. “You know that you ca-”
“Don’t!” Robyn snapped angrily at him. “You won’t stop me this time!”
“Mother needs you, Robyn. You need to stay here…”
“I said I’m going!” Robyn tried to push her way out of the wooden fence, but her brother blocked her path and held her back. She tried to pull away and head for the horses, but John simply held her tighter.
“Robyn, you can’t!” he said.
Not only did Robyn continue to pull away, but she began throwing punches at her brother’s arms and chest.
“Let me go!” she shouted. “I said I’m going with you!”
“Stop it! Listen to me!” John grabbed his sister by the shoulders and gave her a strong shake. “You’re needed here, Robyn,” he said. “Mum needs you… The twins need you... You must stay and look after them for me.”
“And who will look after you?!” she yelled. Tears began to build at the corner of her eyes, and this time she did not hold herself back. John sighed, the knot in his throat growing. Robyn threw her arms around her brother, her tears smearing over the sleeves of his wrinkled white shirt.
John held her tightly, hoping it wouldn’t be their last embrace. And Adelina watched them from the cottage window, a mug of tea in her hands. Struggling to catch her breath, Robyn mumbled something that John couldn’t quite hear. “What was that?” he asked.
His sister backed away and wiped the tears from her face.
“We lost father,” she said. “I couldn’t bear losing you too…”
John could no longer help it and allowed his own tears to escape him.
Every single memory began to flash before them.
Every trip to the royal city together.
Every cold winter night in which John would give up his own sheets so that Robyn wouldn’t suffer through the cold. Every scorching hot summer day in which she would unwillingly help John hunt and harvest crops suddenly became the best memories of her life.
When their father had passed away, he was there to comfort her. At the end of a hard day’s labor, he was there to bestow a hug or a pat in the back.
Old Man Beckwit had taught Robyn to handle a bow, but it was John who helped her perfect those skills.
Despite their many disagreements, John and Robyn were more than just siblings. They were best friends.
“You won’t lose me,” John said, using his handkerchief to wipe a tear from his sister’s face. “I promise you.”
Robyn hugged her brother tightly one last time as she trembled, scared for his life.
“Take care of yourself, sister,” he said, looking into her round brown eyes one last time. “And please… do try to stay out of trouble.”
She smiled at him, not noticing she had dropped Spirit on the grass beside her.
“I… I promise I’ll try to,” she said.
* * *
The first few miles were the easiest. The green plains west of Elbon were vast and undemanding to travel through. The only faces the company encountered were travelers heading to the royal city or south to Roquefort. They strode through fields of green, with willows and pine trees growing in abundance by the mile.
The orphan Cedric gazed about in awe as he tried his best to guide the large horse that had been loaned to him by the Huxleys. “Is this it…?” he asked.
“Is what it?” asked Thaddeus Rexx, riding beside the young man.
“Are we in the Woodlands yet?”
There was a sudden mocking grunt coming from their left.
“Something funny, thief?” Cedric asked, trying his best to convey a hardened tone.
“Plenty,” was all the thief said, and then he tapped his horse so as to ride away from the young man.
Cedric scowled. He turned back to the only friend he felt he had and asked, “How do we know?”
“Believe me, lad… you’ll know,” Thaddeus replied.
Cedric silenced himself as if by impulse when a certain figure rode past him.
He could almost sense her presence, and it was giving him a rush of unwanted chills. Syrena sat chained up on a mare that was tied at the nozzle to Jossiah Biggs’s horse. The discomfort was vivid in her expression, and Cedric could hardly bare to look into her hauntingly glimmering eyes and instead stared at her leather-bound hands.
“I don’t trust that witch,” he mumbled when he thought the witch was too far ahead to overhear.
“It’ll be fine, boy,” Thaddeus said. “So long as she remains chained, she’ll be no trouble. You’ll be findin’ worse things to worry about in the Woodlands.”
They gazed at the long journey ahead. They could see the forest grounds in the distance, a large stretch of vibrant green beneath a bright blue sky. John trotted on his horse near them, trying to catch up to the knights leading the company ahead. And when he brushed past the Davenport brothers, they snickered nastily among themselves.
“If this little plan works, d’you suppose the king will let us spend a night with his lovely daughter?” Martyn asked his brother, his snide remark loud enough for the farmer to overhear. But John’s composure and disregard for the brothers only angered them more.
“He thinks he’s so mighty, does he?” Wyll snorted. “What’s that he’s riding, a mule?”
But John kept silent, despite the fact that the brothers’ words were starting to anger him. Cedric was close enough to hear and felt pity for the farmer, having being acquainted with him for most of his life. He made brief eye contact with him and nodded, acknowledging him, though he couldn’t muster the courage to stand up to the mocking brothers.
Hudson Blackwood rode ahead, surrounded by the royal guards, as if they were purposely caging him in. “Please don’t tell me I’ll have to stare at that nappy bundle of dry grass you call hair,” he said scornfully, referring to Viktor Crowley, who was riding at the front, blocking most of the thief’s view.
“Keep talking and I’ll have you put in chains as well,” said the former knight.
And the thief shot a glance at a stern-faced Jossiah Biggs and said, “A man can’t be honest around here without everyone’s feelings getting hurt.”
Jossiah grunted and trotted on ahead, uninterested in any conversation with the thief.
“My point exactly,” Hudson mumbled to the nearest soldier.
They continued to ride towards the greenery in the distance that marked the forbidden grounds of the Woodlands. Everyone in the company, including the thief, was brimming with awe; bearing in mind the approaching dangers that lurked within. They kept their gaze frontward, distracted and unaware of the pair of young brown eyes watching them from afar.
Keeping a safe distance, using the pine trees as shields, she rode unnoticed about a mile behind the squadron, waiting for the opportune moment to reveal her presence...
A moment that would never come…
VI
Unnamed
The nervous knocking on the door, just minutes after dawn, had come as a surprise. Old Man Beckwit nearly stumbled in his robes as he rushed to answer it, looking down at the eyes of a frightened young boy at his doorstep. The boy’s eyes were red and swollen, and there were fresh trails on his reddened cheeks, and the old man knew that whatever was coming wouldn’t be the least bit pleasant.
“It’s Robyn,” the boy said. “Something’s happened…”
The scarred muscles on his leg did not, by any means, slow the old man’s pace; in fact, young Melvyn found himself struggling to keep up for a few brief moments. When they reached the Huxley farm, Mister Beckwit’s eyes were on alert. He did what he often caught John doing, when the farmer thought no one was looking. He observed. And when he did, the signs were everywhere.
The empty corner in the shed where the girl’s satchel of arrows and bow used to sit…
The fresh trail of footsteps in the mud, left there by boots far too small to belong to John…
The empty stall in the barn where the roan-colored pony once stood…
The look of horror and denial in Adelina Huxley’s eyes, well aware of what had happened yet pleading the gods to tell her otherwise. ..
“She’s gone, Abner,” the woman said. “My girl is gone.”
Mister Beckwit embraced his lifelong friend in his arms, letting his cane drop to the wooden floor, using what little strength his leg had left to keep his balance. The twins watched from afar, their own chests pounding with remorse at the sight of their weeping mother.
“Where did she go?” asked the old man.
“Where else?” Adelina replied. “She must’ve gone after John…”
She wept for hours, feeling the air escaping her chest, bit by bit until the image of her became nearly unrecognizable beneath her pallid, horror-stricken expression. Mister Beckwit remained by her side until dusk, sending Larz and Henrik off to fetch food for the grieving woman, which she would then refuse to eat.
“Be strong, Adelina,” he tried to comfort her, but anything he said became muted by her sorrow. Knowing there was nothing left to say that would possibly comfort Adelina, the old man hoisted himself up with his cane and walked out into the sunset.
Margot Huxley watched him from the cottage window, her observant eyes wide and sprightly.
The old man whistled sharply, and not a minute later his faithful black-feathered friend flew towards him, landing on the wooden fence surrounding the cottage, his sharp beak slightly open and his solitary eye looking up at his master.
“Margot, could you fetch mum some tea?” Melvyn said.
But his sister’s mind was clearly elsewhere.
Something very peculiar was happening in their yard.
The old man leaned in closer to the crow, and his lips were moving as if he was whispering something into the crow’s ear. The crow suddenly looked less like an animal… His head was somehow moving in the manner of a nod and his beak was gently opening and closing, like an attentive hound waiting for a treat.
Margot had never seen a bird move in such a responsive manner, and yet there it was.
Mister Beckwit’s lips moved one last time, as if clarifying his words to his faithful companion.
And with that, the crow flew off into the distance, closely following the trail left behind by Viktor’s company and their horses. There was no letter written on a scroll or anything of the sort; only words whispered by the old man. Before Margot could step away from the window, Mister Beckwit turned and caught sight of her.
He smiled at her.
She smiled back, and a slightly warm feeling began to build in her chest.
A feeling of hope…
* * *
Another warm day of spring had arrived. Another sunrise away from home.
The fatigue was so bad it nearly hurt to breathe. And on several occasions, our young princess Magdalena felt what she thought would be her last breath leave her body, and with it her faith for a safe return home.
The march south had been long and rocky just as she had predicted. Her captors appeared to be taking nearly every unstable terrain in their path in order to avoid being spotted by villagers and travelers. Not that they didn’t encounter a few, but when they did they would either recruit or behead them. And leaving a trail of headless bodies behind was not necessarily a tactical approach in a kingdom such as Vallenghard, where the lord of every city and village was sworn to send a raven to Val Havyn, informing the king of any unprecedented incidents.
It had been several days of traveling now, sometimes going with little to no rest, and yet for Magdalena it seemed like weeks since she knew what comfort felt like. Where she found herself in could best be described as a cage with wheels… The rusty iron bars were about two inches wide and were aligned three inches apart from each other both vertically and horizontally, creating a large crate, ample enough for about a dozen people. Such cagewagons were made for transporting equipment or wanted criminals. But princess Magdalena was surrounded by neither.
She was sitting in the corner of the cagewagon, hungry and numb and lost in thought, when they came to an abrupt halt somewhere in the hills between Falkbury and Roquefort. Young Thomlin, inquisitive and clever as he was, leapt to his feet instantly and pressed himself against the bars so as to observe the commotion in the distance.
“What do you see?” Magdalena asked him.
“A dozen men on the road,” Thomlin replied.
“Any banners on them?”
“None. Villagers perhaps, but they look weary. Maybe merchants?”
An old prisoner with grey hair and a sharp widow’s peak sitting on the opposite end of the cagewagon scoffed under his breath. “Boy thinks he’s got the eyes of a bat, does he?”
Thomlin and Magdalena paid him no mind. The rest of the prisoners tried to remain vigilant, but most were too frightened to peer and some had even lost an eye for it. During the previous day on the road they had lost two prisoners, one to starvation and the other for talking abrasively back to a soldier. Yet both Magdalena and Thomlin continued to baffle the rest of the captives in the cage; words of caution seemed only to go over their heads.
Some called it courage. Others called it stupidity.
“Get your bloody head down, boy!” the old man with the widow’s peak hissed again.
“Let ‘im see. What if they’re here to help?” a frightened woman spoke out.
“Y’think a dozen men are gonna do anything to this lot?”
“Might be more coming. Perhaps they’ll send a word out.”
“They’ll kill ‘em first. And then they’ll gouge the eyes out of these two for pryin’.”
Magdalena wanted very much to speak out. She wanted to shout at the old man to mind himself, to tell him that not everyone was as hopeless as he was. If there was anything she still had left it was her perseverance, and the young princess had plenty of it. But she knew that at that moment she was no longer a woman of nobility. She was no different than anybody else in that cagewagon; she may as well have been a farmer or a handmaiden.
Thomlin continued to observe, moving his eyes away only to relay any useful information to the princess. The boy’s clothes had been tattered to begin with, only now they had numerous stains that weren’t there before and they were beginning to reek, only adding to the mixture of foul odors in the cage.
Magdalena was nearly unrecognizable. Her blonde hair was now filthy and tangled, and her fair skin was stained with a layer of dirt. What was once her elegant housedress was now messy beyond repair, filthy and torn and itchy to the point that it was irritating her skin.
“They’re coming closer,�
� Thomlin said suddenly, bending his knees so as to hide among the captives yet remaining watchful.
“Who is?” asked the princess.
“Hauzer and Jyor. They have people with ‘em.”
The husky red-bearded guard walked towards the cagewagon, dragging a prisoner in each of his large grubby hands. Jyor, the mercenary elf, walked alongside him with a set of keys in hand. One of the prisoners was a young man in his twenties with brown skin and thick black hair with decorative braids. The other prisoner was a tall woman with long silver hair who, though she appeared to be in her fifties or sixties, looked as if she had twice the strength of the young man she was being dragged with.
Jyor unlocked the door to the cagewagon.
Hauzer threw the young man inside. But the woman with the silver hair resisted; her hands were bound by rope but she used whatever defense technique she could muster. She spit on Hauzer’s face and landed a kick to his shin, and then she pulled her arm free of his grasp.
Hauzer growled and winced from the pain. And the woman backed away from the cagewagon, as Jyor unsheathed his blade. She looked ready to run, but by then a handful of recruited soldiers had surrounded her.
“Get inside, wench,” Jyor said with his blade aimed at her.
The fury was quite vivid in her glare. Had there not been four other soldiers there aside from Jyor, she would have made a run for it; though she was older, she looked agile and fit enough to outrun most of them except perhaps the elf. But she also looked smarter than that, as if she had been in a similar situation before. She gave in and stepped towards the cagewagon willingly. Jyor tried to grab her by the arm but she hissed at him and pulled away.
Hauzer cleaned the snot from his tattooed cheek as he groaned in disgust.
“The next filth that spits on me, I’ll cut their fuckin’ tongue off,” he said angrily.
Magdalena and Thomlin observed from the other end of the cage. The rest of the prisoners would shrivel in cowardice whenever a soldier was within ten feet from them. And this particular instance was no different. They all cringed except for the princess and the boy; oddly enough, each of them felt that the other gave them the courage and strength they needed to stand up to the guards.