The Exiled King's Guard

Chapter 5: En route

I was woken by from my sleep by some movement around me, and then suddenly I lost all contact with the ground I was on, like I was hanging from something. My brain jolted into alertness and I remembered just in time to not open my eyes, analyze my surroundings first before letting my attacker know I was awake. Paying attention to my other senses, I could tell from the pressure on my arms and legs that I was being held, possibly carried somewhere? I could sense my attacker was moving, as I was swaying a bit. There was an unwashed smell enveloping me, which could possibly be just me, not helpful. There was an undertone of something which I could only describe as “man”, vaguely I noted that I was discriminating horribly against all men, but that was the only description I had, a very manly man smell. But wait a second, why did it feel familiar?

“You can stop pretending now” said a very familiar voice. And I frowned, stubbornly refusing to believe this voice was talking to me.

“Hey you! I am talking to you, crazy lady in my arms!”

I was so shocked that my body reacted all at once. I opened my eyes very wide with acute realization while jumping so violently that I almost fell down on to the ground which was almost five feet away, to my horror.

Here I was, the Prince’s royal protector, being taken care of by said prince. Embarrassment coloring my face a deep red, unable to look him in the eyes, I settled to look at a point above his head.

“What the hell is happening?” I barked angry and confused.

“ Goodness, relax man. You were sleeping very deeply, I didn’t want to wake you. since apparently you covered a lot of my watch last night and besides, you injury requires you to rest more.”

Man? Did he just call me man?? I wasn’t even a woman to him? When did that happen? All everyone ever did was point out to me that I was a woman, as if that made me any less of a soldier. But the one person… NO!! what was I thinking? These damned close quarters were messing with me again.

“put me down. I am awake now” and don’t need your assistance I added in my head.

“You realize it would be easier to climb onto the horse this way, don’t you?” I looked at him, then at Thunder, He was right, of course. Why did I always have to be dumb around him? It’s like my brain wanted to give up.

Pushing my thoughts aside, I quickly got on Thunder followed by Zach and we were off.

“ we should be going faster, I want to be in Harmedon well before sunset.” Zach broke the silence after a while. The sun had risen some time back and we were less than one-third of the way through.

“We cant make him go any faster, Thunder is carrying double the load he is used to”

“Did you just give my horse a name?”

“He has always had a name Zach, how have you never noticed?”

“Well, I never had to. Everyone knows which one is my horse, and its not like I personally take care of it” he looked away, guilt and embarrassment coloring his face.

“Its alright” I said kindly, “I guess the rules that apply to all of us are never upheld for you, a horse is a soldier’s most important battle companion, and we tend to bond with our animals as such.”

“I can now officially say that you are our spoilt prince” I added, mischievously.

“is that so? Doesn’t matter, the ladies still love me” he waggled his eyebrows. “I bet you haven’t even noticed, what with duty being your best friend.”

“Oh I have. That’s all you guys talk about when the old g**g gets together for beers. I know all about your latest conquests”

“Hmmm, why haven’t we heard about any of your conquests though?” he added thoughtfully.

“hah!” I laughed humourlessly. “I refuse to associate with anyone who has lost to me in sparring. If I am the brains, you atleast have to bring the brawns in a relationship.” I replied airily, purposely leaving out the part that no one really interested me, well except..

He was quiet for a moment, when suddenly he exclaimed, “wait! even the guys? Has nobody won against you?”

“Not since we got out of training, and rarely even then.”

“Then why aren’t you at a much higher rank? Everyone knows you are a good commander already.”

“ It would have to do with the fact that I refused to work in the mainstream army. I chose the spy unit. I cant sit around and wait for an attack, I like being in the action.”

“ you weren’t like this before. You liked to hang around with us, have fun. Now you are always working.”

I shrugged, not knowing what to say. Truth was I never liked any of his friends. I only hung out with them for him. As we grew up, it became harder and harder to ignore how idiotic they all were. I knew Zach was more than that, and I couldn’t see him act like all of them to fit in. Then I started getting more and more responsibilities, so it was easier to avoid all of them.

“ There is more to life than wars and attacks, like your close friends” he pressed on. Rambling about work-life balance but I was no longer paying attention. Something pricked at the back of my mind. I understood there was more to life than work, but that wasn’t the case for me, I had longed for where I was today and enjoyed every minute of my work, okay maybe not every minute, but most of it. What nagged at me though was that Zach didn’t know this about me. Everyone knows this about me, but he hadn’t paid attention to even common knowledge about me, you shouldn't do that to your close friends, right?

Irritated, I cut him off. “You are right, we should increase the speed a bit.” I nudged Thunder and he started moving faster. Taking the hint, he shut up. only commenting here and there about how pretty the forest was as we moved through it. My irritation now making way to anger at how casual he was being about everything.

“ Do you not care about what is happening around us??! How can you be so causal!!” I burst out suddenly. Unable to contain my anger, all the other emotions I had been bottling up since yesterday spilling out through it.

He looked at me, clearly taken aback. “ Of course I do Ashley. Why would you think that?” he responded warily.

“Well, you haven’t been acting like it!! Cracking jokes, admiring flowers. You are making it seem like we are on a picnic. We are not! We are running for our lives. Well, YOUR life to be specific. We have to find King Reston, convince him to send his men to die, plan so that less of his men die and we don’t even know if your father and my father are even alive. We will have a much more difficult time if the King is already dead, no one will want to help an exiled prince with no chance of reclaiming the throne on his own. How can you think about chilling out when we have so many things we don’t know anything about. We don’t even know if we will survive till tomorrow. Just what the hell are you thinking, i***t!!”

I stopped, gasping for air, having run out of breath getting everything that was bothering me out of my system.

There was silence for a few seconds and I realized I had just called him an i***t. I turned my head to take a look at why he hadn’t said anything and was met with stone cold eyes. Eyes that would have scared the life out of anyone.