EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (282 page)

She kept stirring away, as if she were just talking about the weather. “But don’t get me wrong, we are all pretty lucky you are still in one piece. Lesson number one: Don’t trust anyone!” She poured the sweet-smelling brew into a tin cup and ran it over to Eric. When she tried to give it to him, he jerked his hand away as if she were handing him a snake. Impatiently, she forced his fingers around it before muttering something about forcing it down his throat as she limped back towards the fire.
 

However, after taking one swallow, Eric felt better almost instantly. He eagerly downed the rest. Sure, there was a voice inside his head sounding the alarm. He was drinking some strange liquid handed to him by a person he didn’t know, making jokes about how he should be dead. The strange thing was, he just didn’t care right now. He had never felt this sick in his life, and this stuff was making him feel better. For now, that was good enough.
 

With his head starting to clear and now able to stand, he did so and cautiously walked towards the girl. His eyes darted around as if he didn’t even trust the trees. He wouldn’t feel safe until he had a better idea of his surroundings, so that became priority.
 

The trees were thin here, and the road was not far off, only fifty feet or so.
 

“I’ve checked the whole area. We are OK for now, but we have to keep moving. Are you feeling better?” Jade asked, but did not seem interested in the answer, as she kept packing things into bags and loading them onto her horse.
 

Eric was getting sick and tired of nothing making any sense. This girl had just killed someone and was acting like nothing had even happened. Then a disturbing thought flashed through his head. “Hey, where is—” he swallowed hard, trying to say the name, “Aena’s body? What did you do with it?”
 

This time she finally spared him a look, although for only a second. “First off, I highly doubt that was her name—not that it matters anymore.” She rolled her eyes at what she seemed to think was trivial small talk. “Second of all, I searched her for any notes or instructions as to who sent her, then I buried her over there.” She gestured with her hand to a mound only twenty feet away.
 

Buried
was an overstatement. “Barely covered with dirt and leaves” would have been more accurate.
 

Eric didn’t go over to have a closer look. That was not an image he needed to carry around with him. What was done was done, and besides, she had tried to kill him. Or more accurately, it seems, tried to take him prisoner? To whom? For what? So many questions… Then he remembered the answers he wanted could be found in Taron.
 

“My name is Jade, by the way,” his savior said in a lighthearted voice, but she winced a bit when she turned to face him.
 

Eric started to make a comment about her obvious pain, but she cut him off. “I’m fine. I’ve already stitched the wound that needed it. Look, we
have
to go now, OK?” she said, now clearly becoming impatient. “You can ride with me until we find you a—”
 

“I have to get to Taron!” Eric blurted out, cutting her off. She just looked at him evenly as she waited for him to finish. “My father,” just saying that word wounded him yet again, “my father said I need to go there as soon as possible. I need to show someone—”
 

It was her turn to cut him off. “The necklace, I know. I made sure you had it when you were unconscious. We will need to speak to the Queen, and—what do you mean, your father? You mean your mentor, right? Of course; I assume he has been playing the part of your father and—”
 

The look on Eric’s face betrayed his thoughts.
 

Jade was beginning to see what was going on here but had a hard time accepting it. “You have been living in Bryer all this time, have you not?” she said in a voice that grew in intensity with every word. “You have been training for years...have you not? You
are
ready to take your place in history and stop the— Do you even know what I’m talking about?” She was outright screaming now. “What have you been doing all this—” She grabbed her side as she collapsed on one knee, obviously more hurt than she had let on.
 

Eric ran to her side, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me! I said I’m fine.” she spat out the words.
 

“Alright, listen to me,” Eric said in a slow, calm voice. “You’re right. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re obviously upset about that, but we will get to the bottom of everything, I promise.” He wished he really believed that. “But right now you’re hurt, and it requires attention, OK?”
 

She looked him right in the eye for the first time with a burning stare. Then, tightlipped, she nodded her head in agreement.

He started walking towards her bag, but he stopped halfway and looked back at her. “I didn’t say thank you for what you did last night.”

The heat in her eyes faded for a second before the scowl returned, almost as if she were afraid to show weakness. “It was my job,” she said in barely a whisper, more to herself than to him.

Eric retrieved the small bag of supplies. He started to lift the side of her shirt to check the worst cut.

She angrily jerked away from him. “I’ll do it,” she said in an irritated voice. “I’m just going to touch it up now. The least you can do is stay out of the way.”
 

Eric just set the bag down beside her and walked back by the fire. He began busying himself by taking his time kicking dirt on it. They were going to leave soon; at least it felt like he was doing something useful.
 

As he half-heartedly went through the motions, his mind wandered to thoughts of Aena. He’d never really thought of himself as gullible until now. Was he really that easily tricked? She had been leading him around by the nose like a bloody fool! And this other girl...Jade. She had come just in the nick of time to save his life. But what was she talking about? His training? He had just found out his father was not really his father, but for some reason this girl already knew that. Someone he had never met before knew more about his life than he did! When she realized all this information was new to him, she became angry, as if he’d been supposed to know the whole time.
 

In fact, now that his head was clear, he could remember last night even better. He remembered the battle in surprising detail. Those two girls were good, possibly the best he had ever seen, and somehow he was directly involved in that conflict. One wanted to capture him for some dark something or other, while the other one had risked her life to protect him. This much he knew. How could
he
possibly be that important? These two must have trained most of their lives to achieve such dazzling skill, and he was somehow the focus of their training? Eric just couldn’t accept that. It made no sense.
 

That reminded him of yet another painful reality.
All those lives lost back in Bryer...
Could that attack really have been over him? If he really believed that, he would have gladly offered himself to those things in the place of the hundreds of lives stolen.
By the gods, did Jacob get out alive? Did anyone? Is this really my fault? So many questions...
 

“All right, farm boy, let’s go,” Jade said as she gingerly got to her feet. “I don’t know if they are going to send anyone looking for her or not,” she gestured in the direction of Aena’s body, “but we need to put some miles between us and her,” she finished, once again not looking at Eric, only picking up the last of her items and placing them in saddlebags. Then suddenly she whirled to face him.

He jumped a little at the aggressive movement.

Her blue eyes sparkled with the reflection of the sun. “I know you have questions. I’m sorry I got mad earlier. It’s just that—” Her eyes went to the ground, filled with pain and regret. “My life was given to this purpose. I have been preparing for this for as long as I can remember, and in the grand scheme of things, my life means nothing compared to yours. Yet you’ve given up nothing! No sacrifices of any sort, as best as I can tell. Part of what kept me going was knowing no matter how hard I worked—no matter how much blood, sweat and tears I had sacrificed—the Gate Keeper was working twice as hard.” Her voice went soft. “It seems nothing could be farther from the truth.” She looked as if she would cry.
 

“I don’t know what to—”

“Don’t say anything!” she snapped, cutting him off. “Let’s just go.” Her voice trailed off as she mounted her horse. Eric reluctantly climbed on behind her. “We can only ride a few miles like this. Then we will walk a mile and repeat. There is no other way she can bear both of us all day.”
 

“What’s her name?” asked Eric, trying to do anything to lighten the mood. As expected, silence was her reply.

Off they rode, down the light brown gravel path. Jade’s head was on a swivel, for she knew the many dangers of riding this far from a town or city. The few that ever did such a thing were merchants traveling in packs. They often hired leathers to help escort them through the rough country. Now it was just the two of them, though, and they needed to be careful. Taron was a long way away, and they would need to get Eric a horse eventually, but first things first—they needed to get some distance between them and the battle site.

It had been a battle worthy of songs and poems, yet Eric had been the only witness to the epic struggle. He found that incredibly ironic. On they raced through the green forest, a chill still hanging in the air from the heavy rain from the night before. Jade held her hood low with one hand to keep her hair from blowing in Eric’s face, and held the reins with the other. They rode on in silence, each consumed by their own thoughts.

The trees continued to whip by, although the scenery never seemed to change much no matter how far they rode. The gravel trail had now turned to a combination of rock and black dirt, and it had also narrowed considerably. Two wagons could not pass if they were going in opposite directions, although it made little difference this far away from town. They were very unlikely to encounter anyone on the path this far out—not anyone friendly, anyway.
 

Eric started to get a funny feeling that he was having a hard time ignoring. Regardless of what Jade thought, he’d had quite a bit of training; he just never knew why it was happening. Some of his experience translated into a feeling, sort of knowing when things were a little off. The air around him seemed to change as the hunter in him came out. “We are being followed,” he whispered in his companion’s ear, as if someone nearby would hear.
 

“I know,” she replied, her voice at full strength. “They’ve been there for at least three miles. That’s why I haven’t stopped to rest the horse yet. The problem is I can’t determine how many there are.” She began reaching into one of the saddlebags, clearly having difficulty riding and fumbling to grab whatever it was she was looking for.
 

Eric reached around her waist with both hands to grab the reins.

She paused, for a second seeming unsure of how to respond, but only for a moment. She accepted the help and used both her hands to rummage through the leather bag. She finally pulled out a looking glass and reached back to hand it to Eric as she retook the reins once again. “I’m going to slow down to let them catch up,” Jade shouted into the wind. “Let me know exactly what you see. How many, what kind of horses—everything!”
 

Eric did his best to turn around as they continued to ride. He made it a point to be sure no matter what he saw, to turn all the way around again before reporting it to her. The last thing he needed was for her to take off suddenly and find himself face first on the ground.
 

Opening the looking glass, he held it to his eye. It was hard to see anything with the horse trotting like this. It would have been easier to either keep galloping or stop, as there would not be so much up and down movement. He tried to sway his head up and down to the rhythm of the horse trotting along. He could see something now. It looked like two riders. No, wait...two horses. He kept looking, trying to focus while squinting the other eye. Should they get ready for a fight, or try to flee? What if they were just merchants? What if— “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop the horse!” He jumped right off the back and began running towards the two horses with one rider.
 

Jacob could see his friend clearly now, and started riding faster. He was riding his own horse but had Eric’s by the reins. “It’s about time you waited for me,” Jacob shouted as he reared up. “If there weren’t two of you on that horse, I never would have caught you!”

Eric couldn’t believe how happy he was to see Jacob. In all this chaos, at least one familiar thing seemed to wander back into his life.
 

He didn’t feel so alone anymore. Jacob jumped off his horse, and they embraced.
 

“Ahem,” came the impatient voice from only a few feet away. Jade sat high on her white horse with fire burning in her eyes, no doubt sick of all the interruptions. “I can already see I can’t talk you out of bringing your friend. And I must say, I’m relieved he brought you a horse. That’s one less problem to deal with. But all the catching up will have to wait.” The fire in her eyes settled, and for a moment she looked very weary. “There is an inn about fifteen miles up the road. Trust me when I say we all have a lot to talk about, but this is not the time or place. We have to keep moving.”
 

Jacob waltzed over to Jade as she leaned back with her head high, suddenly appearing more like a queen than an assassin. “And who is this lovely creature?” he asked as he bowed so deeply it appeared he was mocking her. “My name is Jacob.” He started to take her hand to give his customary inappropriate kiss, but never got that far.
 

She seized his collar with lightning speed and began to twist like she was wringing water from a towel. “Well, Jacob,” she hissed as the fire returned to her eyes once more, “I think you’ve cost us enough time already. If I were you, I’d mount up and not say another word until we got to the inn.” She released his collar with a not-so-gentle push before he turned blue. Then, in the softest, sweetest voice, she said, “But I’m not you, am I? So you can do whatever you wish. That includes going back the way you came.” She flashed a dark smile as she reared her horse around and trotted off, not waiting for them.