Sir Leiman walks towards one of the large dominant tents, gesturing to the archer to follow. He walks to another knight and has a quick incoherent conversation and Sir Leiman looks back at the archer, commanding him to follow as he pulls open the tent flap. The archer pulls us into the large shelter, and when I slowly emerge into the tent myself, I behold the sight of five men hovering around a brazier fire, rolling up scrolls in their hands.
Of the five men around the brazier, one stands out, as his clothes seem more barbaric than the medieval style of the others. In a strange mixture of exposed chainmail and leather, his entire arm is adorned with a large fur cloak held to his body by a silver chain that links around his other shoulder; he wildly stands out. His wavy dark hair cascades to his chest, a stark contrast from the other men in the tent with shorter styled hair. With a short beard and piercing hazel eyes, his appearance is nothing short of captivating. Catching his eye, I quickly turn my green gaze to the grassy floor of the tent.
Letting go of the flap, the knight returns to the group and stands in front of us, allowing me to hide my presence from the dominating man.
“My lord, in fulfilment of your commands, I have brought prisoners who hold information on the Evian uprisings. However, none lays claim to knowledge of this ‘beast craze’ my lord.”
“The woman?” A peppered man with grey hairs, amassed in jewels and a red drape asks, causing the other four men around the brazier to slightly squint their brows awaiting the answer. Seemingly as though my appearance was an odd finding in whatever the knight’s mission was.
The knight moves out from in front of me, and turns to face my presence. After a thorough scan, he looks back to the clearly powerful men around the fire. “She was found alone in the sacred woods; she hasn’t uttered a word of explanation since we found her. I suspect her a spy.” He confidently states in a low tone, as if unconsciously telling the powerful men that I’m of dire interest to their campaign.
At the knight’s words, the peppered man’s eyes began an interrogation of me. I follow his eyes as they scan me from head to toe, but he stops at my ankles tutting towards the knight, he changes his glace to avoid catching a second glimpse of my exposed skin and speaks.
“Good God Man! She's practically naked and bleeding out. Go get her some clothes and cleaned up!” He frowns, mumbling about the ‘loose styles of women these days’.
“Soldier, take her to Ester, he’ll tend to her.” The large barbaric man orders the archer whilst scrutinising my being with his eyes.
The archer walks towards me and unties my restraints from the rope that connected me and the prisoners together. Putting his hand on the small of my back, the archer guides me along to the tent entrance and holds the flap open for me as we exit the temporary war room. Still guiding me along the archer pushes me towards another large tent in the middle of a swamp of smaller tents that by the looks of things, seem to be soldier barracks. Walking to the entrance, I am faced with the sight of injured men on mats on the floor, both inside and out of the tent. Gently pushing me in, the archer guides me to a middle aged man in a long light blue tunic with an apron marked with a red star.
“Ester, the lord commands you to dress and tend to the maiden.” The archer announces to the busy man. He tells us to wait a moment as other men are in dire shape. Taking a seat on the ground the archer takes off my restraints and stands, to ensure that I’m unable to run away.
After a short wait Ester returns and crouches on the floor in front of me. He takes a glance over my damaged arms. He looks up and halts a young lad carrying a bowl with a rag, taking it off him. Ester drenches the rag and pours the water over my arm causing me to hiss at the sharp pain it causes. Acting cautiously he slowly wipes away the grime and debris on my cuts. Once done he sets the bowl aside and places his hand over my arm, he concentrates and a warm green glow emits from his hand. What the fuck? My jaw drops in utter shock at the sight of the strange glowing hand.
“What the fuckk…?” I mutter out in a state of great disturbance at the unholy?! Unnatural?! Or quite frankly, freaky shit.
As if taken aback that nothing is happening, Ester frowns. Taking a breath he begins rubbing his hands together speaking a quick chant between them, before bringing them back to my arms with the weird warm glow once again. He scans his weird glowy green hands over my arms once more to no avail…Nothing happens, thank God. Frowning once more Ester stands, walking over to another soldier and committing the same action, I watch in utter amazement as the soldier’s arm wound slowly closes, leaving nothing but a scratch for Ester to bandage. Standing beside the soldier, Ester looks back at me, brows furrowed in deep thought. He contemplates a quick thought of something strange he’d like to try. Coming back over to me he dips his finger into the water bowl that was mixed with my blood, and draws a symbol on his hand and claps it with the other, transferring a copy of the symbol to the other hand. As if like magic, a soft blue light emits from the symbols and he hovers his hands over me.
“My great Gods…” He falls back onto the floor with a gasp, the symbols slowly dripping off his hands as he rests them on his knees in shock. Gods?
“Ester are you alright?” The archer asks, slowly helping the medic back to his feet.
“Uhh…Yes! Yes, I am. Too many patients today is all.” He reassures the lowly soldier, but with concern painted all over his face. His questionable demeanour causes me to quickly acknowledge that he knows I don’t belong here. But I look on, keeping up my clueless facade, of trying to not only hide my anxious state of being surrounded and kidnapped by unknown men, but also knowing I don't belong here.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
“Is she a guest of the lord?” Ester asks the archer with an intense quizzical stare.
“On the contrary, we found her during our passing of the sacred forest.” The archer furrows his brow, looking at Ester trying to gather more information as to why he is acting so strangely.
However, Ester just coughs, putting on a neutral face in an attempt to disguise his thoughts as being ‘completely normal’. He walks over to a desk and brings back some bandages as well as a long sleeved green tunic and brown cloth trousers. He wraps my wounds and tells me to put on the clothes. I look at the men with an arched brow, and Ester replies with a confused face before realising something. He takes me to the corner of the tent and holds up a blanket for me to change. His hands glow. HIS HANDS GLOW? I mentally freak out, now having time to acknowledge what I actually saw. After changing I tug down the blanket Ester was holding. I now face both the men shyly in the oversized medieval outfit I was given. These people are going to kill me with their weird freaky hands.
“It’ll do.” Ester says nonchalantly with his arms crossed looking back at the archer for his opinion. Dropping down his guard to let out a witty word, the archer attempts to speak, but it is halted by Ester grabbing the back of his head and slamming his other hand into the archer’s mouth with a cloth. The archer is lowered to the floor by Ester as his body gets more limp, I gasp and step back, clasping the tent tightly behind me, my mouth agape. What the fuck?! I go to say something, anything, but Ester points the rag towards me in an empty threat to ‘do me off’ next.
In the bustling tent, Ester’s actions go unnoticed which I could tell he was glad for. He leaps at me and grabs my arm dragging me out of the tent in haste towards the direction of the war tent.
“Get off me!” I finally shout, attempting to yank my arm out of his grasp.
“Speak once more and you can meet him unconscious.” He threatens, yet he looks at me with such high concern that he seems more afraid than threatening. However, knowing that he wouldn’t be afraid to knock me out, I ponder the actions I could make at this moment. Make a scene and get knocked out? Or wait for the right moment to do the same to him. Ultimately deciding that the second option was better, I scowl at him as he drags me along to the tent.
Once at the entrance, Ester pops his head into the tent asking the lord for ‘a moment of his time’. Whilst he is speaking, with my other hand I try to clasp a vial out of the medic’s utility belt. I’m not sure what it is, but at this point anything is better than nothing. However, Ester keeps moving in a way that makes grabbing anything stealthily, practically impossible. My moment of potential escape passes, when the large dark tawny barbaric man pushes open the flap with his hand, catching my eye as he fully exits the loud tent.
“What ails you my friend?” The colossal man queries, looking at me with an investigative eye, just as though he was trying to piece together the situation without needing to hear answers.
“She is...Without ferra.” Ester chokes out in confusion as if he is seemingly baffled by his own words, as though what he said could never be true, like it was an unnatural statement that went against everything. Ester stares at the colossal man, hinting that what he said might lead onto another conversation, a much darker one.
Seemingly quick to realise what Ester was silently hinting towards, the dark haired man momentarily freezes in thought, to then return with a dark gaze targeted towards me, taking in my full presence with a telling scan from his eyes.
“Caspian-” Ester pleads but is cut off by the barbaric man’s hand being placed on his shoulder in a reassuring comfort.
“I trust you my friend, I don’t question your skills.” Ester sighs in discomfort of his knowledge, knowing that what he holds secret is tormenting him.
“However, this is a situation more dire than investigating criminals about uprisings in Eiva.” Caspian slowly moves towards me, grasping the hilt of his great sword. “Who are you?” He continues to press forward, his advances making me stumble back and fall onto the ground.
“G-Genevieve..W-Woodsman” I choke out in fear, at the potentially deadly scenario playing out in front of me.
“Why were you in the sacred forest? Alone?” He asks menacingly, crouching in front of me.
“I-I don’t know.” I blurt out, putting a hand over my heart in a failed attempt to look as though I mean no harm.
“I won’t ask again.” He bellows standing up and unsheathing his weapon slightly to reveal the intricately carved sword, littered with hand carved symbols.
“I don’t know! I promise! I just ended up there! You have to believe me…” I sob out, clutching my tunic as my heart and throat tighten. The anxiety and fear building in me reaches its climax and my breath becomes rapid and fast, as I continue to mumble out ‘I don’t know’.
“Please don’t kill me..” I mutter out in my smallest voice. Upon hearing the sentence, Caspian’s face changes and he sheathes his sword. He puts his hand out and guides me to my feet.
“If you truly don’t know, then you’re a danger to yourself and others.” He mutters to himself, crossing his muscular arms.
Uncrossing his arms he points to me. ”You are to never leave my sight.” He commands, pointing back to himself with his thumb. He turns to Ester and continues. “She is to be watched at all times.”
Though sniffling and still recovering from thinking he was going to kill me a moment ago, I manage to make a dirty face towards him. What the fuck? Who the hell does he think he is, where does he think he gets the right to command me? I cross my arms and shrug with a huff at the complete madness of it all.
“Everything I do, is for a reason. And as I, and many people here think you’re a spy, I won’t have an issue cutting you down if you don’t comply.” He threatens with a stern look, his presence darkening. Intimidated, I take a deep breath and look away in compliance with what he says.
“She’ll rest in my quarters tonight. Get Leiman to guard it.” The dark haired man commands Ester, receiving a salute of the medic’s fist to his heart in return.
“Now are you going to comply or do I have to drug you?” Ester teases half heartedly, but it came off more like an unsettling threat.
“I’ll comply…”
