Escana (20 page)

'If
you're not going to light a fire you shouldn't waste your blanket on
me.'

He
stared at her with another question on his lips, then seemed to
decide better of it. 'I gave you that blanket so you wouldn't catch a
chill. I'll not sit in the warmth and have you freeze.'

Ella
laughed. 'Some warmth this is, feel free to try it out yourself.' She
tossed it at him and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

Jakob
flung it back at her in response. 'I told you, take it.'

She
sighed and curled up in half of it. 'How gallant. I'm still not going
to let you sleep without a blanket. We can share.'

He
refused to join her. This time she hurled the blanket to the ground
and curled up with her back to him. 'Have it your way then,' she
muttered.

She
mulled over the words silently, something didn't quite add up in her
mind. She had been expecting the typical responses that she could
work with and dance around but had been given reason to pause on
several occasions already. The speech of others had always been
painfully apparent, yet here she had heard something different. There
was no anticipating the next words, let alone the next actions of the
man she was following. She had afforded him every opportunity to stop
posturing and he hadn't taken a single one.

She felt him watching her back,
waiting for her to doze off. She was still no wiser as to who her
companion was.

J
immy
woke to a boot pressing him face first into the ground. It was still
dark.

'That's
very kind of you to be my wet nurse and all, but it still doesn't
explain what the fuck you were doing out here in the first place.'

He
tried to twist his head round but was ground into the dirt for his
troubles.

'What
possessed you to follow us out here after a murderer? Solomon was no
friend of yours.'

Jimmy
coughed and the boot eased slightly to let him speak. 'Your son,' he
managed to splutter.

Thom
grabbed the boy by the curls of his head and jerked him back, veins
pulsing on the side of his reddening neck. 'Don't you fucking call
him that. What do you know?'

If
he told him of his speculations it wasn't going to end well, not with
the history between those two. He twisted and turned anew but
couldn't break the precise grip Thom had managed to foist upon him in
his sleep. Panicking, he realised he had little choice in the matter.

'I
think he killed Solomon, I wanted to know why.'

Thom
frowned at him, his anger subsiding slightly into confusion. 'I heard
he was your little buddy now, what makes you think he'd kill
Solomon?'

'He
spent the night at the Chipped Flagon with Ella, he told me nothing
happened but I'm beginning to think he lied.'

The
Warden seemed to muse over this new morsel of information for a
moment. 'Makes sense, he came in bragging to me about upsetting some
girl from the inn and fucking up the job I got him there. Damn fool
child never appreciated a thing I did for him.'

For
the briefest moment, Thom's grip softened. Jimmy seized the
opportunity, twisting out of his grasp. He flailed wildly and landed
a punch to Thom's temple, knocking him off-balance.

Recalling
the arrow wound, Jimmy turned and ran, looking back to see if Thom
could pursue. The older man initially struggled to get up, but his
daze didn't last and rage flung him to his feet. He ate up the
distance between the two of them with terrifying acceleration.

Jimmy's
limbs pumped wildly, taking on a life of their own, he could hear
Thom's breath behind him amidst the pounding of feet, it was shot
through with a cry. Thom had fallen, his leg still held him in
thrall.

He
continued racing forward and heard the sound of something cutting
through the air behind him. Thom's sword carved past him and clanged
uselessly under his feet as he leapt over it.

The
howls were all that followed him now as he propelled himself onward
into the darkness in a blind panic. Branches whipped at his face but
only the thoughts of Thom catching him pervaded his every step.

Somewhere
in the back of Jimmy's mind, a small voice was telling him to slow
down and analyse this, to realise that the Warden wasn't some
mythical being that could track him down in the night before he made
it back to Escana.

The
terror soon overrode that, startled by the wheezing sound that
followed him everywhere he went.

It
was his own ragged breath, he didn't know what direction he was
heading or whether he was being followed. There was something out
here that shot arrows out from the darkness and killed all those that
would venture forth into it. He had to run, he had to get away from
it, he had to flee.

He
nearly tripped, staggering and catching himself on an outstretched
branch that tore into the skin of his palms. If he had fallen then
the creature most surely would have got him, if Thom hadn't divined a
way to intercept him.

Again
the voice was insistent, telling him that he had nothing to fear but
fear itself, that the tears streaking his face were blinding him from
the path he chose. A path that led away from Escana rather than back
toward it.

Something
gripped him as tight as any vice, squeezing his muscles into action
long after they should have stopped, forcing him to press forward
against his own better reasoning which was obfuscated by the thoughts
of being caught, of being chased and hunted down and captured by this
creature.

A
branch stuck up from the tree-line and snagged his ankle, sending him
tumbling over head-first into the dirt. Dizziness washed over him as
he tried to lurch to his feet, he couldn't stop now. They would find
him if he stopped now.

He
staggered drunkenly onward, deeper into the safety of the woods.

His
head told him that made no sense, that the woods were precisely where
the creature had come from and that the safest place would be back
home at the Chipped Flagon.

Again
they seemed indistinct, as if someone else was thinking them and they
did not merit recognition.

Screams
sounded from behind, a chorus of wild hollering that sent him
gibbering on deeper into the woods. He knew there was no echo, that
the noises had come entirely from his own head, but it didn't matter,
he had to keep running.

He
stumbled again on an outstretched root and collapsed on the ground,
the muscles in his legs rock hard as if in cramp.

Dark
spots swam before his vision, all to the sound of high-pitched
laughter, before an even greater darkness took him.

E
lla
awoke shivering in the morning sun. Her legs and back stabbed
mercilessly as she groggily remembered the previous night. Too much
ached again in recognition.

She
sat up with a start and looked around for Jakob, had he abandoned her
to her fate in the night? The blanket slipped away from her. Turning
round, she found him as she had left him the previous night. He had
placed the blanket over her and had apparently watched all that time.
The only difference was his back pressed up to the trunk of an old
oak. He gave her a slow nod.

'Good
to see you're up and running. I picked some fruit overnight, it
should be enough to last us until Urial, do you want to eat it before
we get started or have it on the way?'

Ella
shook the cobwebs from inside of her head and stared down at the
assortment of fruit at her feet, it was too early for more questions
or his oddly cheerful demeanour. She picked an apple off the floor
and tossed it wordlessly at him to still his tongue. In doing so she
realised how hungry she was. When had she last eaten? The afternoon
before the party?

Everything
that
had
happened
finally
hit
her.
Solomon
was
dead,
never
to
return,
he
could
never
treat
her
like
that
again,
he had
no hold on her beyond the grave. Instead there was Jakob to deal
with, a totally unknown quantity who seemed either emotionally
ambivalent or deeply caring at times. What want had any man of her
now?

Trying
to quash her stupid doubts, she grabbed the fruit and started
marching off away from it all.

'Well
that makes my life a lot easier,' Jakob remarked from his resting
place. She narrowed her eyes at him in confusion as he tossed the
apple up in the air and caught it, smiling tiredly. 'I didn't realise
you had decided to go back to Escana. Urial's this way.'

She
was glad he headed in the opposite direction so he wouldn't see the
heat of mortification flushing her cheeks. She didn't understand how
he had gained such poise after a sleepless night.

They
initially set a fast pace but the terrain started to slow them, then
Jakob began to stop more often to get his bearings. The fourth time
this happened, Ella knew they were in serious danger of getting lost.

'Why
can't you just admit you don't know where you're going this far from
Escana?'

Jakob
finally gave up staring at the trees, their similarity had bolstered
a false sense of confidence that had led him astray. 'You're right, I
don't know where we're going. I haven't known where we've been going
from the start,' his voice started to crack and he kicked a log in
frustration, sending it rolling down into a ditch. Whatever previous
confidence that had kept him moving had evaporated. 'Sure, we might
just make it to Urial without the road, but even then the only way in
is through the gate, even if we get inside before they can get word
to the authorities, what are we going to do when we get there?'

Ella
conceded the point, neither of them knew what they were doing. 'We'd
be better off heading back to Escana then.' She started retracing
their path back to the river.

Jakob
stood incredulously behind her, not moving. 'Ella, where do you think
you're going?'

She
shrugged. 'You're right, we're better off heading back to Escana and
accepting our fate, we're just delaying the inevitable.'

She
knew from last night that he couldn't tell if she was being serious
or not, that he'd be wondering whether she was just goading him into
continuing or genuinely giving up. It seemed rather easy to provoke
him.

'I
can't believe you'd think that,' he said, waving his arms at her.
'You'd take death over the chance of life?'

She
cocked her head at him. 'You were the one that was making it out to
be pointless, I was merely agreeing with you. It is pointless, we
should head back. Are you going to tell me you didn't mean that now
and you're just uncertain?'

Jakob
rubbed his temples and let out a long yawn. 'I don't know any more, I
want to go back and for everything to be as it was, but I know I
can't do that. I can never go back, I don't expect you to
understand.'

She
pushed the log back from where he had unsettled it.
What
a
symbolic
gesture
,
not
that
he'll
spot
it
.

She
was getting somewhere, he was beginning to open up. 'You don't really
have much choice, you just have to keep going, and I'll keep
following. They might even have not started the tracking if they
haven't found us yet.' She didn't believe that for a second. 'I know
what it's like to be displaced from everything, if nothing else we
can share that.'

The
sun peaked out from the clouds in a faint mockery of fairy tale
imagery.
All
we
need
now
are
some
rabbits
and
a
rainbow
.

'Thanks,'
Jakob said, seemingly at random.

Ella
looked confused. 'For what? I was just telling you what you already
knew, you should listen to yourself more often.'

Jakob
smiled grimly. 'That's exactly what I'm afraid of doing.'

She
chose not to query the meaning behind that particular statement.

The
morning hours passed uneventfully with no sign of pursuit. Whether it
was the river or straying from the path that had thrown the law off
their scent they couldn't tell. Irrespective of this, the growing
unease and tenseness of the silence dogged every step of their
journey.

Ella
finally broke it a second time, if only to quell her growing anxiety.
'How did you escape the dog?'

Jakob
didn't look at her, just as she thought she wasn't going to get a
response, he spoke. 'I ran.'

'You
ran?'

Jakob
nodded. 'Yeah, out of the farmstead, through the forests, out to the
cave, it gave me time to think things over. Time away from everyone
else.'