“I don’t let them ‘discover’ me,” she informs him. She gets up and says, “I think it’s time to go.” Without even waiting for a reply, she moves out through the woods at a quick pace. James and Jiron have to scramble to catch up with her.
James glances to Jiron who only gives him an amused smile.
That night when they stop for the night, James is about ready to die. The pace she kept the rest of the day had been unrelenting. No stops and he had to practically run in order to keep up with her. When she announced here is where they would be spending the night, he just collapses.
Coming over to him, she asks, “Tired?”
Nodding, he says breathlessly, “Yeah. Not used to so much climbing. Plus the air is thinner up here.”
“The sun’s going to be down soon and we don’t have time to rest,” she tells him. “You need to collect enough firewood to last through the night while I get dinner.” While stringing her bow, she adds, “It gets very cold up here when the sun’s down.” Once her bow is ready, she moves away from him and disappears in the trees.
Jiron comes over and gives him a hand up. He looks to where she disappeared in the trees and says, “I like her.”
James gives him a grin and says, “You like all the girls.”
Shaking his head, he says, “Not like that. But we better get busy if we’ll have a fire going and enough wood collected before she returns.”
Groaning, James gets his already stiffening legs moving again as he begins gathering small branches and sticks. When he has an armful, he returns and deposits it in camp where Jiron goes about lighting a fire. Four more trips are required before Jiron determines they have enough to last through the night.
About that time, she returns with two small animals and proceeds to clean and dress them for the fire.
While she’s doing that, James asks her, “You never even told us your name.”
She looks up from the rabbits and says, “Aleya.”
Jiron comes over to her and says, “I’m Jiron.”
A quick nod and then she returns her attention back to the animals.
Jiron just stands there not sure what to do, a simple nod was not the reply he expected. There’s just something about her that both annoys and attracts him. Finally realizing he’d been standing there like an idiot, he goes over and sits near James across the fire from her.
“How much further is this fortress?” James asks her.
“Another two days,” she replies. She points to an imposing ridge to the west and says, “We should reach that ridge by tomorrow night. It’s all downhill from there on.”
A deep valley separates them and their destination. The ridge is quite high and steep, higher in fact than where they sit now. James looks at the prospect of trying to climb it with trepidation.
She notices how his face has fallen as he stares out across the valley. “Don’t worry,” she tells him with a reassuring smile, “it’s not going to be that bad. There’s an old stairway that was cut into the ridge a long time ago which leads all the way to the top.”
“A stairway?” Jiron asks.
“A series of steps that wind their way up to the top,” she explains. “From there you can see the Fortress of Kern nestled in the hills below, which sits at Cardri’s southern border. An old road leads down from the top of the ridge and comes out somewhere near Kern. Never actually had the occasion to cross the ridge before. From there you two can go on your way.”
“What about you?” Jiron asks.
“I’ll go back to where you found me,” she replies. “Not much else for me now.” Having finished dressing the animals, she impales them upon sticks and hands them to Jiron and James. “You boys can do the cooking, if you don’t mind.”
“No, we don’t mind,” Jiron says as he takes the sticks from her and hands one to James.
James takes the stick and tries to hide the amused grin that’s threatening to spread across his face. Jiron seemed just a little too eager to do as she requested, not to mention the speed with which he’d gotten up from where he’d been sitting once he knew she needed something. Even if that something was taking the animals from her for roasting.
As the flames begin licking the carcasses and the fat drips with a sizzle to their ravenous heat, she eyes them speculatively. “Just what does the Empire want with you guys anyway?” she asks.
“What do you mean?” James asks her with a sidelong glance to Jiron.
“That was no mere patrol that chased us up into the mountains,” she explains. “They had already gone past, but then returned and entered the trees just where you happened to be. How do you explain that?”
“Just a lucky guess?” stammers James.
The look she gives him says she doesn’t believe it was ‘a lucky guess’. “They knew right where you were,” she continues.
“They did, didn’t they?” says James suddenly thinking. If the warrior priest is using the same technique with a mirror or other magical device to keep track of us, we’re in serious trouble. He glances to Jiron and can tell he’s having the same thought.
“Now, come on,” she demands. “What’s going on?”
James pauses as he considers what, if anything, she deserves to know. “It’s true, the Empire wants us in a bad way. We’ve recently spent some time deep within its borders and caused some trouble.”
Jiron chuckles and adds, “You got that right.”
“You see, a friend of ours had been captured during the fall of the City of Light and we went to retrieve him,” James explains. “Ended up killing a few soldiers and destroyed some buildings. Now we have a mage or something behind us who’s trying to prevent us from reaching Cardri.”
“I see,” she says.
They watch her for awhile to see what, if any, her reaction may be to what he had just said. After sitting quietly in contemplation for several minutes, she glances to Jiron and says, “You better turn that, it’s starting to blacken.”
Realizing he’s been staring at her and not paying any attention to the animal he’s roasting, he pulls it off the fire and examines it. The charred sections aren’t too extensive so he just turns the stick and begins roasting the other side. He catches her looking at him and he blushes slightly.
Seeing his friend blush surprises James. He’s never seen him flustered or embarrassed in the presence of a woman before, always has been cool and collected.
Later that evening when they begin settling down for sleep, James offers to take first watch. He notices that she keeps a knife in her hand as she lies down to sleep. Most likely in case either one of them try to force their attentions on her during the night.
James can’t help but thinking about the army behind them. He doesn’t believe they gave up on them, but there has been no sign of them since they initially fled into the forest. He would have thought they would have caught up to them by now. Not even the faintest trace of the tingle which indicates magic in the area has come to him.
He walks around the camp to keep awake, occasionally throwing another log on the fire to keep the cold of night at bay as best he can. During his second trip around the camp, he sees Jiron get up from where he’d been lying and come over to him.
Jiron indicates for them to move away from camp with a nod of his head and they move out away from the camp so they won’t wake Aleya. When the darkness of night envelopes them, Jiron stops and asks, “Do you think that warrior priest behind us is still there?”
“I don’t know,” replies James. “I haven’t felt anything since we fled into the mountains. Usually I can always feel something whenever one of them is around, at least I did when around Abula-Mazki. Why?”
“It just doesn’t feel right,” he says. “All the other times they’ve pressed with great vigilance, but not this time.”