Shadows of Men (The Watchers Book 1) (17 page)

              “My Lady Sorceress, are you alright?”  He asked.  “Are you ill?  Should I fetch a healer for you?”

              “No.”  Myranda blurted out.  She knew the sickness would pass.  It was not an illness that made her stomach revolt; it was the growing sense of doom in her heart and the fear that warned her not to tell the Queen anything. 

              Slowly she stood tall and backed away from the oak door.  “I will be alright.”  She told the worried looking sentry.  “I must rest a while, that is all.”  As she turned to leave, she whispered to the sentry; “please do not tell the Queen I was here.”  He nodded in agreement and stepped back to his post and Myranda fled as quickly as she could back down the corridor and into her own chamber where she threw herself on the bed and grasped tightly to her stomach.

              She lie on her bed for a while, willing the pain to go away and watched as her room grew darker and darker and finally, when her maid returned to light her candles, the pain had subsided enough for her to sit up in her bed.

              Valindra looked to her with worry as she lit the candles and finally, sat next to her on the bed and asked; “how are you feeling, my Lady?  You look very pale.”

              Myranda smiled warmly at the maid and replied; “I am feeling better.”  She sent Valindra to fetch water and fruit for her supper and when she was gone, Myranda stood and walked slowly to her window to peer out at the city below. 
If I cannot tell the Queen then I certainly cannot tell the King! 
Tears began to roll down her cheeks as her thoughts turned to Mayvard. 
I wish he was here! 
She knew she could tell him anything.

              Suddenly, her tears stopped and her heart filled with panic once more.  She grasped the edge of the windowsill and closed her eyes, focusing her breath to try to calm herself.

             
I have sent him to his doom! 
She clutched tightly to the wooden frame, as though she would fall through the window if she let go. 
They are walking right to him and I can do nothing about it! 

              Myranda stood, ran to the other end of her room and threw open the door.  She walked into the hallway, stopped and looked one way then the other but before she took a step into the darkness of the corridor, she threw her hands up in frustration, knowing she could not leave.  She could not follow them to Tyos.  She would not get there in time. 

              Slowly she turned and walked back to her chamber, closing the door tightly behind her.  Throwing herself back onto her bed, she began to sob loudly into her pillow; feeling helpless and wondering if she would ever see Mayvard again. 

Chapter 14

T
he air in the bog was thick, like a wet blanket that stuck to their skin and soaked them to the bone.  The waters from the tepid pools seeped into the air and tainted what little there was to breathe.  Bloodbeatles buzzed around Rhada’s and Mayvard’s heads, trying to swoop in for a snack.  They were nasty creatures, like mosquitoes but twice the size.  They had been assumed extinct long ago but Rhada now knew they had just been in hiding all these years, flying into the forest for a meal then back to the swamp to lay their eggs.  They swatted them away as best they could but they had accumulated so many bites, Rhada wondered how it was they had any blood left to give.  She scratched angrily at her arm, not realizing that her fingers grazed the pest biting her, squishing it into her skin.  Mayvard swatted at the back of his neck, pulling his hand back to examine the corpse of the little bug he had just killed and wiped its remains onto his leather pants.  Both horses flipped their tails, furiously trying to keep the bugs away. 

              For each mile they traveled, their spirits became a little more disheartened.  Every so often, Rhada would look back to catch a glimpse of the angered expression on Mayvard’s face and she would quickly look away.  Even if he wouldn’t say it aloud, Rhada knew he felt their suffering was her fault. 

              She sighed heavily and flicked a bloodbeatle off her horse’s ear then pulled her waterskin from the bag at her horse’s side and yanked off the cap.  She peered inside and realized her fresh water supply was dangerously low, and with there being no sign of the treacherous bog coming to an end, she decided only to drink when necessary.  She replaced the cap without taking so much as a sip, and leaned forward on her horse, fighting back the restlessness that was taking hold of her. 

              When they stopped to rest, Rhada opened her food bag only to find two strips of jerky, a bundle of carrots, some molding fruit, a piece of cheese, and a handful of bread.  She frowned, removed the bread and a strip of jerky then sauntered to where Mayvard sat in the dirt, chewing on his last jerky as well.  She fell in next to him, leaning her shoulder on his arm and took a bite of the bread.  It crunched under her teeth and turned to dust on her tongue.

              “Do you remember Miss Yunder?”  She asked as she forced herself to swallow the stale bread.

              Mayvard nodded his head and a small grin appeared on his lips.  “I do.”

              Rhada chuckled.  “Do you remember what she used to say to you when you would not eat?”

              Mayvard chuckled as well.  “You’ll grow up to look like a starved little girl if you don’t finish your supper!”  He said in a mock, elderly woman’s voice.

              Rhada laughed, remembering Mayvard as a child, seated with all the other school-aged children in the dining hall, poking at his stew with the prongs of his fork.  She had been in there eating as well, seated in a back corner, trying to get a moment of peace and quiet, when all of the children flooded the room as a frenzied mass of rabbling munchkins.  Rhada remembered feeling annoyance at the disruption of her solitary lunch, until her eyes fell upon Mayvard.  She remembered watching him, a boy no older than ten and two; his long, dark hair and big round eyes reminded her so much of Natharian, she had found it difficult to look at him.

              Miss Yunder brought out the pot of stew she had made for the children and slopped a ladle-full into each bowl.  Rhada chuckled silently to herself as she watched the children make faces at the bowl of mystery food they were being forced to eat.  Whenever Miss Yunder made stew, it meant there were too many leftovers to deal with and everything went into the pot.  Rhada had tried to eat it once, but the smell alone reminded her of the slop she was forced to eat as a child living in the orphanage and she gagged and pushed the bowl away. 

              “I swear that woman hated children and was trying to kill us all with her cooking.”  Mayvard said.  Rhada laughed even harder.  “How she managed to secure a job as the castle chef, I will never know.”

              “She was the King’s great, great aunt, or some such thing.”  Rhada said, forcing herself to take another bite of rock-hard bread.

              “Well that explains her age then.”  Mayvard looked to Rhada and smiled.  “And what brought this up?”

              “This rancid bread reminded me of her.”  Rhada said, holding up the crumbling bread for Mayvard to see.  They both laughed for several moments, forgetting for once they were lost inside a festering bog. 

              “Do you remember how she died?”  Mayvard asked after his bout of laughter ceased.  Rhada shook her head.  She had always assumed the old bat died of age.  One day, she was simply gone and when Rhada inquired, she hadn’t been given the details.  The only thing that was said to her was Miss Yunder had passed away, and she left it at that. 

              “She choked on her stew.”  Mayvard said before biting off more jerky.

              “No!”  Rhada said in disbelief.  She studied his face, thinking he must be joking with her.  When he looked at her, his eyes were serious and he nodded his head. 

              “I swear to you, that is how she died.” 

              Rhada stared at Mayvard for a few moments before they both burst into another fit of laughter. 

              Within the hour, they were on their way again and Rhada felt, for the first time in days, her spirits had lifted, if only slightly.  She rode on at a moderate pace smiling to herself as memories of the child Mayvard came flooding back.

              She remembered going to him on his fifteenth birthday and giving him two daggers as a gift.  He took them in his hands and silently stared, as though he had been given a gift from the Gods.  He thanked her over and over again that day, and again the next morning when they met for training.  Rhada insisted she train Mayvard herself and they spent the next several years together, fighting with the training dummies, dueling other trainees, and traveling into the woods together for hunting outings; all the things Viktor had done with her.  Mayvard was her pupil, and he grew into a stout, quick-witted warrior, just like his father. 

              Rhada’s heart suddenly warmed as she thought about the old days.  She did not even become annoyed when her horse left solid ground to trudge through a puddle of slimy water.  But when the bottom of the pool suddenly dipped and her horse lost his footing, she fell to the side and was thrown from the thrashing beast, sliding into the water and sinking beneath his feet.  She could hardly see through the grime that infected the pool and when she tried swimming up, she got caught beneath a panicked hoof that slammed into her injured shoulder. 

              Rhada screamed from the pain and her mouth filled with water.  She clutched her shoulder, which was now spewing a jet of red into the water around her, and curled into a fetal position, sinking to the bottom of the pool.  She closed her eyes and choked down the bog water that had filled her mouth and only when her lungs began screaming for air did she make an attempt to swim to the top.  She uncurled herself and reached, screaming again from the pain of moving her arm.  She stopped for a moment and looked up, seeing the blurred vision of Mayvard’s face looking in at her.  She forced herself to push off the bottom of the pool and reached with her uninjured arm towards him.  His hand was suddenly in the water, grasping for her and when he pulled her out, he laid her on her back as she coughed out the taste of the poisonous bog. 

              “Are you alright?”  Mayvard asked, panic evident in his voice.  Rhada spit and wiped at her mouth.

              “My horse?”  She asked, hoping the beast had not drowned. 

              Mayvard pointed to the black beast standing upon the edge of the pool, staring at her with innocent eyes.  She lowered her head to the ground and breathed deeply, feeling the pressure of her new injury with each breath.

              Mayvard, noticing the fresh blood, leaned over and examined the wound.

              “Your shoulder has reopened where you cut it with Bloodbinder.”  He said.  He pressed his hands firmly on her shoulder to stop the bleeding.  Rhada winced at the pain. 

              “Let’s rewrap it and be on our way then.”

              “I have nothing left to wrap it with.”  Mayvard said regretfully.

              Rhada grunted and sat upright.  Mayvard pulled his bloodied hands away and turned to the pool to wash them clean.  Rhada looked down to her shoulder and could clearly see an imprint of a horse’s shoe underneath the blood.  She raised her fingers and ran them along her collar bone, feeling for anything that might be broken.  When she was satisfied that she was still in one piece, she let Mayvard help her to her feet then turned and smiled at him.

              “What exactly are you finding so amusing?”  He asked with a raised eyebrow.

              “I think perhaps my bad luck is beginning to run out.  What else could possibly go wrong on this journey?”

Another night in the bog fell upon them and Rhada reluctantly dismounted her horse and pulled some carrots from her bag.  She began to feed them to him one by one and saw the look of worry Mayvard shot at her. 

              “If we do not find our way out of this bog soon, our horses will starve to death.”  He said as he pulled open his saddle bag and peered inside.  “And so will we.”  He added with distress.

              When they first entered the forest, they had been counting on the prospect of hunting for sustenance but there had been no wildlife for miles.  They had not even seen a decent patch of grass for their horses to chew on for days. 

              Rhada pushed what little food remained in her pack aside and pulled out her tobacco and pipe.  She opened her tobacco box and found it nearly empty, with only enough left for a few good puffs.

              “And what’s worse is I’m almost out of tobacco.”  She said grumpily as she turned the empty box over in her hand to show Mayvard.  He smiled and shook his head in disapproval.

              “You smoke that thing too much, Rhada.”  The panic in his voice diminished.

              She smiled.  “One cannot smoke enough in a place such as this.”  She hunkered down into the dirt with her blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders and attempted to light her pipe with shaking hands.  The fog which shielded the sunlight from reaching them also shielded them from any of its warmth, causing Rhada’s clothes to remain damp all through the day and the cold stayed with her.

              After watching the trouble Rhada was having lighting her pipe, Mayvard leaned forward and lit it for her.  He then sat back, pulled a stale piece of bread from his pack and began to chew it slowly.

              “I wish so desperately for a fire.”  Rhada said in almost a whisper.  She stared at the ground before her, wishing there was a fire pit there.  She tried to imagine the warmth it would give but the thought of warmth seemed like a distant memory.  She shivered instead.

              There were no trees surrounding the bog, not even dead trees.  They had had no wood to start a fire for days. 

              Rhada looked around and wondered how much farther they could possibly have to go.  They had been stuck in the bog for nearly three days.  It seemed to her they should have emerged by now but the bog seemed to stretch on forever.  And the fog was as thick as ever and gave no sign of letting up.  She sighed with frustration and took another puff of her pipe. 

              “I was thinking,” Mayvard said after he finished his bread; “on our journey home, we could take the road east towards Hely then travel south through Bhrys.  I know the journey would be longer but any other road we choose would be better than this stinking forest!”  Mayvard said this with much disdain and Rhada knew she could not drag him through this bog again.  She herself was beginning to wonder if maybe South Fort would have been a better road to take.  

              “Yes,” she agreed, nodding her head, “that is the road we shall take.”  She wanted to apologize for dragging him through there in the first place but she stopped herself.  As High Protector, she never apologized for her decisions and she took another puff of her pipe instead.

              Mayvard leaned back with a satisfied smile on his face.  It seemed the prospect of not having to return to the bog filled him with new hope and he drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

              Rhada remained awake most of the night, wishing she had more tobacco or ale or anything to keep her mind occupied but there was nothing; nothing but the darkness and the silence and the throbbing in her shoulders. 

She stared off into the darkness, wondering what lay beyond it.  She knew the bog was there, surrounding them on all sides but she wondered for how long it stretched.  She sniffed the air and it seemed to be fouler than ever.  Even the water seemed murkier and each pool seemed to be deeper than the last. 
We must be in the very heart of the bog. 
She realized and this thought gave her rapidly beating heart some reassurance. 
If we indeed are in the center of the bog, then we should be making our way out of it and soon we will find ourselves in lush, green forest once again. 
She smiled at the thought and could not wait to take her bow and arrows for a hunt, so long as there were no ghost wolves.  Her stomach craved meat but more importantly, she wanted to know that life outside of the bog still existed.