The Exiled King's Guard

Chapter 3: Near Miss

I waited, holding my breath, some sound was carrying over into the water, letting me know that the horsemen chasing us were here. I decided as I was waiting, to move towards the other bank, this way, even if I was discovered, they would need to cover that much more distance in the water before they got to me. As I kept moving, gradually the depth started decreasing, and I reached the point where if I stood up the water would be to my thigh. So I stopped and listened for any sound above the water. I could still hear sounds, more voices than before. It seemed that they had congregated around the riverbank, obviously having noted the footprints I left. I hoped they wouldn’t notice the recently messed up ones, now that could be disastrous.

As I kept trying to decipher all the different sounds, there was a loud unmistakable scream, it sounded almost human, but definitely animal. I could tell, thanks to so many hunting trips the king liked to do. I was tempted to take a peek but held back. The activity near the bank increased. People shouting to each other now, and then there were more animal sounds, probably the horses starting to move. Soon there was no sound to be heard, and I started debating whether it was a good time to pop out of the water. My lungs had been protesting for some time now and it was getting harder and harder to stay underwater.

Deciding to take my chances, I rose up and hungrily took huge gulps of air, the water in my eyes only allowing me to make out shapes and colors. Given that I hadn’t been attacked yet, it either meant they had left, or were too surprised to see me, both of which worked in my favour. Clearing my eyes, I looked around and saw no one. I inspected everything I could see to make sure there wasn’t anyone hiding to ambush me, before exhaling loudly in relief.

“Ashley, come on!” I turned around to see Zach reappear from the same trees and start to make his way into the water.

I nodded and started moving to the bank. I waded out and he helped me as I started hobbling on the mud.

“Here” he said, offering me a tree branch.

“Ahh! A walking stick! Wonderful!” I said.

“You are welcome, by the way” he smirked at me. Starting to walk back to where he had come from, motioning me to follow.

“oh? Oh yes, thanks for this” I said, pointing at my makeshift walking stick.

“No, I meant, for distracting our pursuers away from you.”

“That was you? What?” I asked surprised, as I looked at his smug face.

“Lost my good dagger, is what I did. I had to do something to move them away from that part of the shore, or you would have drowned. I kept moving downstream in hopes of finding something to distract them. And when I spotted a deer drinking water, I decided to take my chances.”

“So you are telling me, you threw your dagger and injured a deer over twenty feet away, so badly that it made that horrible scream?”

“Correction, I killed that deer.”

My eyes widened in surprise. I was so shocked, I probably looked comical. “Huh?” was all I managed stupidly.

I didn’t think his face could hold any more smugness, but I saw him looking even more so, extremely happy with himself.

It had been some time since I had seen him feel proud of himself, he needed this win today. So I held my tongue.

We walked in silence for a while. How far was this hiding place?

“You are slowing us down, we would have reached there by now if you weren’t lame.”

I looked at him quizzically and he looked back, mirroring my emotions. And I realized I had said it out loud.

“I am NOT lame! How dare you!!” registering his insult, I shot back. I started walking faster, ignoring the pain. I was maybe 10 steps down when I realized Zach wasn’t with me. I turned around looking for him.

He was standing right there, looking at me curiously. Wordlessly, he walked forward and got down on his knee with his back to me. “Hop on”

“What! No! I can walk.” I said, determined, and started walking again.

“So stubborn,” he muttered under his breath.

“I can hear you. I am not deaf, you know.”

“Sure, just dumb.”

“How much more?” I asked, ignoring his last comment. I didn’t need to hop on. I wasn’t lame, I was a soldier with a minor injury. And I definitely was NOT slowing anybody down.

“almost there” he said as he turned to his side near a big rock. There was a little clearing, and tied to a tree nearby was Thunder.

Finally!! I thought and slumped against the rock. Muttering and shaking his head, Zach headed to thunder and started looking through his side satchels.

Taking the opportunity, I started to inspect my injured leg, realizing only now that I still had my boots on backwards. No wonder I was walking slow. I looked at his back, suddenly feeling grateful that he hadn’t made fun of that. He probably realized what I was trying to do, I had learnt it from him after all.

I took off my boots and started inspecting the “cast” on my leg, realizing that the bandages were all wet, and suddenly it hit me that all my clothes were too. I was wondering why I hadn’t noticed it before when Zach’s voice cut through.

“So we have some bread. I think that would do for tonight. The other satchel has more weapons, there are some poison darts, daggers and such. They really only gave us the bare essentials I see.”

“They might have loaded some stuff on Sunshine, but we had to leave her behind. And anyway, it's not like we are out for a picnic in the woods. It seems enough to keep you alive, Your Majesty.”

“Sure, Commander, but what do we do about your clothes?”