Last Knight (The Champion Chronicles Book 2) (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Conner fought off the urge to shout their names.  He actually cupped his hands at his lips and was about to call out, when he realized that would only draw attention to himself.  If they were gone, then the bandits were likely nearby and his shouting would only bring them right back into the clearing.

              They had camped in a small clearing with a thick, thorny hedge along one side and an opening into the forest on the other.  He thought about racing into the trees to try and pick up their trail, but then he took a second look at their supplies and the unburnt wood sitting in a pile.  Things were too neat.  There were no signs of a struggle or any evidence that they were taken against their will.  Conner let himself take a deep breath.

              With his heart no longer beating hard in his ears, he thought he heard the sounds of giggling.  At first he was not sure that’s what he was hearing, but after keeping himself still for a moment, he picked up the unmistakable sound of high pitched giggling.

              “Steven, Laurin!” Conner called out in a voice just above a whisper.  He moved closer to the thorny hedge, where he thought the giggling was coming from.

              He was greeted with silence.  Conner moved even closer, right up to the hedge, turning his head so that he could hear better.  Still as a stone, he kept his ears perked for any sound.

              Suddenly there was a burst of laughter from right behind the hedge.  It was too thick to see through, but it was clear that at least one person hiding behind it.

              Louder, Conner asked, “Laurin, is that you?”

              Stifled laughter answered him at first and then, Steven said, “Yes, it’s us!  We’ll be out…in a minute!”

              Relieved, Conner returned to the center of the camp and started working on the fire.  Hopefully they would be able to make good use of it.  The forest was teeming with small game, so surely a rabbit or squirrel would get caught by his trap.

              A few minutes later, Laurin and Steven came out from behind the hedge.  There was a wide smile on her face and her cheeks were flushed as she kept glancing over at Steven.  Steven sat down next to Conner to help start the fire.

              “What was that all about?” Conner asked.

              Steven grinned and shrugged his shoulders.  “You know, heat of the moment thing.”

              Conner glanced at Laurin, who was unpacking dinner supplies from their packs.  “I thought you said she was with a child.”

              A rosiness came to Steven’s cheeks as well.  “Someday you may understand.  What about you?  Do you have a girl back in Karmon?”

              “No, not really.”

              Conner looked up from the small fire and caught Steven and Laurin glancing at one another again.  As their eyes caught, their smiles grew wider.  He wondered if that was love.  He thought he had been in love with Elissa, but he was sure it was just infatuation.  She was pretty, he liked being with her, and she seemed to like being with him.  There was also an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought about her.  But he wasn’t sure all of that constituted love.

              But he did miss her.  Even when he couldn’t talk to her every day, or even see her every day.  At least when he was living in the castle, he was near her.  But now, he was far from her, and it was getter farther by the day.

              “No, or not really?” Steven asked.  “Those are two different answers.”

              “Well, there is a girl.  A woman.  Lady.  Whatever you call her.”

              “But you like her?”

              “Of course,” Conner said.  The words came out quicker than he expected.  He really needed to get Elissa off his mind, but Steven’s questions weren’t helping.

              “Laurin and I have liked each other for a long time.  Since we were little kids.  It was destiny that we were to be married.  Not only did we fall in love, but the marriage was agreed to by both our parents.  Many of my friends were forced to marry someone they didn’t really like.  Or even hated.  But we are in love.”

              “I can see it in your eyes,” Conner said.  “The way you look at one another.”

              “She is the love of my life.  I could never live without her.  I don’t care where we have to go, but wherever it is, we will be together.”

              “Tell me about your girl.  What’s her name?”

              “Elissa,” Conner said.  He paused a moment, and then added, “Queen Elissa.”

              “What!” Laurin exclaimed from behind them.

              The two men glanced back at Laurin, who was clearly listening to their conversation while trying to look busy.

              “You fell in love with your queen?” Steven asked.

              “Well, she wasn’t queen when we met.  She was just a princess.”  Conner wasn’t going to say any more, but Laurin had walked over and sat next to Steven and took his hand in hers.  So he told his story.  From the time they met, until the time he left her, King Neffenmark dead on her bedroom floor.

              The fire was burning high when Conner finished his story.

              “You need to go back to South Karmon,” Laurin said, still holding Steven’s hand.  “You love one another.”

              Conner shook his head.  “No, that is past us.  She is queen and has duties and obligations to the kingdom.  I’m just a commoner.  I will always have feelings for her, and adore her.  But my place is out there.  Someplace else.”

              “Well, maybe you just need time alone and away from her to sort things out.  Maybe someday you’ll come back to Karmon and you’ll rekindle that love.”

              Conner gave Laurin a skeptical look.  “I can see you two are in love.  I’m not sure it was that way with me and Elissa.”

              Steven stood up and said, “Enough of this love talk!  I am hungry.  Where’s that trap of yours?”

***

Conner left Steven and Laurin at their camp.  For some reason, Steven did not want to leave Laurin and made up some excuse about helping her prepare the vegetables.  That was okay with him, as he felt like being alone.  Although he liked them both, he had grown accustomed to having only himself for company.

He retraced his steps through the woods, spotting the trees that he had memorized as markers.  Without much thought for silence, he moved quickly.  There was no reason to try and be quiet as either he already trapped an animal or he hadn’t.  If not, then it would be another day of vegetable stew.  Conner was really craving some meat, so he desperately hoped that his trap was successful.

The movement caught his eye before he saw the trap and he knew that he caught something.  He ran quickly to the trap, pulling on the rope that was tied on one end to a tree and the other end was looped around the belly of a fat rabbit.  The noose had squeezed its belly tight, and each time it tried to jump away, the noose got tighter and tighter.  If he had let the rabbit go all night, it would probably suffocate itself.  But he couldn’t wait for morning, so he grabbed a large rock and drove it down on its skull, killing it instantly.

It was a typical forest rabbit with a grayish brown skin and long, skinny ears.  It had eaten well through the summer, as it had some heft to it.  They would certainly get one big meal out of it.

With the rabbit tossed over his shoulder, Conner returned through the forest.  As he neared the camp, he caught a whiff of smoke from the fire.  Most times a dense forest would trap smoke from a fire, keeping it from spreading too far.  Back in the Darkenwood forest, he had never really thought about a fire.  When he needed one, he lit it.  There were no real dangers and it kept any curious animals away.  But a worrisome thought suddenly crossed his mind.  He was no longer in Darkenwood and there were dangers other than animals around.

He was not prone to these types of thoughts.  He was not a natural worrier, nor did he dwell on those things that were out of his control.  But try as he might, he had a strong sense of dread.  He knew his thoughts were silly, and he kept telling himself that.  In just a few minutes, he would be back at camp, and all would be well.

It was quiet as he approached, but he made a point of making noise as he walked into the clearing.  His heart started pounding hard as soon as he saw the camp.  In an instant, he took in all that was wrong.  The fire had lost its flame, sending tall tendrils of smoke up into that air.  That was why he had smelled it from so far away.  The contents of Steven and Laurin’s packs were strewn about, scattered all the way across the clearing.

Conner had seen bears rummage through camps tearing packs and bags searching for an easy dinner.  But they only tore apart those that contained food.  Anything that didn’t smell edible was left alone.  There was no food in any of those packs that would draw the attention of a bear.

“Steven!  Laurin!” he called out.  It did not occur to him that maybe he should not shout and draw attention to himself.  He was only concerned with finding his friends. 

              When no one answered, anger took the place of worry.  If they were hiding again, or had left the camp without telling him, he was going to let them have it.  He did not let himself think any other thoughts.

He stomped around the camp, picking up the scattered supplies while muttering to himself about them going off alone again.

It was at the edge of camp that all feeling drained from his body.  As he saw the body part, he dropped to his knees, tears overwhelming him.  He could not remember the last time he cried.  It wasn’t that he never wanted to; there just had never been anything that made him feel this way.

For the briefest of moments, while he sat on the ground, he thought maybe the lower arm did not belong to her.  With eyes closed, he tried to shake himself awake, hoping that he was just in a dream.  He could not accept the fact that his friends might be dead.

With a slow anger building up inside, Conner stood and let out a scream from deep in his gut.  Tears continued to stream down his cheeks, but they were not tears of sadness, they were tears of anger and frustration.

His mind no longer worked.  It did not process thoughts properly.  He saw only red and the only thing that he could think about was killing those that did this.  In a stumbling trance, he raced around the edge of the clearing looking for any sign of a trail from the murderers.  He ran into the forest, screaming for the bandits to come after him.  After running out of breath, he ran back to the clearing and then back out in another direction.

No one came back.  In the end, he ended up in the middle of the clearing, on his knees, bent over with his head resting on the matted grass.  He continued to cry, but no longer of anger, but of sadness.

***

Exhausted and drained of all thoughts and emotions, Conner stood.  He did not know how long he was sitting on the ground, but when he stood, his legs were stiff and it took some movement to loosen them up.  He tried to pretend that he did not see what he remembered seeing, but the severed limb at the edge of the camp brought him back to reality.

              A numb coolness had come over him.  No longer angry or sad, he was just there.  But at least his mind was working again.  As tough a job as he knew it would be, he needed to take care of the bodies.

              The rest of Laurin’s body wasn’t too far from the severed limb.  She had been cut many times and he hoped that she had died quickly, but he did not think any one of her wounds were fatal.  All of them together were, which meant she probably lived for some time after she was cut up.  As he hauled the body back to the center of the clearing, the tears came back again.

              And he hated himself for them.  He took several deep breaths to force them away.  He was not going to cry any more.  He was a knight, and knights didn’t cry.

              He knew he really wasn’t a knight, but they believed he was.  And right now, that truth didn’t matter.  He needed to act like the person that they thought he was.

              With tenderness, he set Laurin’s body down.  He tried to not look at her severed arm, or her bloodstained body.  He found a blanket and set it over her body so only her head could be seen.  That was one part of her body that wasn’t severely mangled.

              He held out some hope that maybe, possibly, Steven survived.  But if Laurin was dead, he could not believe that Steven would have survived.  He would have died trying to save her.

              A bit deeper into the forest, but still close to her body, he found his.  The body had been mutilated and was in many pieces.  He felt a bit of bile coming up as he saw it, but he bit his lip and swallowed it.  He was not weak.  He was not going to let his emotions get the best of him.

              It took two trips, but he carried Steven with same tenderness that he carried Laurin’s body.  With the bodies carefully placed in the center of the clearing, he collected as much wood as he could find and piled it around them.

              With so much dead and dry wood around them, it did not take long for the fire to catch.  He stood silently, watching the fire take the bodies.