Morning Diamond

Facing Challenges

“There it is. Are you ready for this?” Claire looked in the direction Mark pointed. She felt nervous. Over the last few days they had been dodging more and more of Leishmann’s men. Her anxiety was growing with every passing hour. Now as they looked out across the last large meadow between them and the last pass before reaching the cave, she was scared out of her mind. It was one thing to talk about and prepare for the worst, and quite another to have the worst staring you in the face.

“There are so many!” Claire stated, growing paler the longer she looked at the meadow. Absentmindedly she reached up to hold the charm around her neck and she stared at the large army camped right in their path. After a few minutes nausea overtook her and she lost her lunch.

“What the…. Claire, are you ok?” Keith jumped to hold back her hair as Mark patted her back. She felt mortified. She was stronger than this. With a new resolve to be braver and stop stressing out, she raised her head. She was going to beat the fear. From this moment on she would be her old self, confident and strong. She mentally said goodbye to the whiny child she had been in the cave and the weakling barfing fool. She had trained for years to be a fighter. Now, she needed to fight.

“I know it looks bad, but really there can’t be more than maybe fifty, or so, men. We can sneak past them easily. Look.” Mark pointed at a run of steep red cliffs west of the meadow. “We will make our way to those cliffs, climb down them and sneak around the meadow. Once we are past them we have one or two days before we reach the cave. The meadow is only a mile marker; we’ll just travel around it. Leishmann’s will never know we were there.”

“Marks right, Bear, we’ve been sneaking past these guys for days. If they haven’t found us yet they’re not going to and besides they have no idea we are here. That works to our advantage. In three days we could be back home and Leishmann’s men will still be here searching in vain.” Keith added.

“Hell yeah!” Mark claimed, then turned a repentant look on Claire after she punched his arm. “Sorry. Sometimes a man just needs to cuss.”

“Well, you still have to watch it! Mortal peril is not an acceptable excuse for breaking the ‘no cussing around Claire’ rule!” Claire half joked making her feel a little more herself until Mark looked into the forest surrounding them, alarmed.

“What do you see?” Keith’s eyes searched the forest behind him. Claire felt uneasy and followed her brothers in surveying the woods. Her skin began to feel prickly. Were they being watched?

“I didn’t really see anything; it’s more a feeling.” That didn’t help Claire feel any better! Mark stood and picked up his bag. “Let’s start working our way to the cliffs, it will be sundown before we reach them as it is and I really don’t want to be stumbling around them at night. We’ll rest there tonight then get an early start. With luck we will be past the meadow by tomorrow evening.

“Is there another way to the cave? I don’t want to be anywhere near Leishmann’s camp.” Claire continued to search the forest hoping none of the Lord’s men hid in the dark shadows.

“I think skirting around the camp is the best option we have. Unfortunately we have to make it past a large collection of cliffs to get to the cave. Just beyond that meadow there is a small break in them which allows safe passage down the incline.” Mark explained, but Claire only heard, ‘walking through the men that has set out to kill us is the only way to go.’

“There doesn’t seem to be many men patrolling by the cliffs we are headed to tonight. I don’t think they expect us to go over the ledge with you, Bear.” Keith added.

“So what is the difference between climbing down those cliffs versus the other cliffs? Why don’t we avoid the meadow all together and climb down them?” It made perfect sense; after all she had been cliff climbing with her brothers many times. She looked at the small set of cliffs they would be climbing down in the morning. They didn’t look too tedious. “I think we could handle climbing down those in the morning and another set tomorrow evening.”

“Claire, those cliffs are about sixty feet shorter than their friends. We don’t have the equipment to shimmy down a hundred foot cliff.” She sighed. Apparently they would be forced to sneak past the camp. Claire’s anxiety grew at the prospect, but she was determined she would face any new challenge between them and Danyon with grit!