Gauntlet

San awoke to the darkness of the forest, few embers still glowed in the fire pit, and, at a glance, Hyde was gone. His camouflage was stronger at night, but this seemed different than normal as she could always get an eerie feeling of someone watching when he was unknowingly nearby.

She had packed everything she needed into her bag, and for the first time in months, she donned her cloak, the hot humid echo sphere of the magical forest was often too warm for the smallest amount of clothing.

Walking fully covered, it felt like she was rejecting the forest as she left, the leaves and branches that would reach out to tickle her skin were now closed off by the fabricated fabric. She smelled the welcoming pine wafting through the air, the all-season trees kept the illusion of the forest a secret as their needles never fell to the demands of the cold.

Such demands San was now feeling as she stepped across the invisible bounds. In an instant, the cold bit at her nose and lips. Prepared, she reached for a scrap of fabric in her back pocket, wrapping it around her face with a slit for her mouth to exhale her breath so it wouldn’t cling and freeze.

The strategy to find the wizard was simple, keep off the main roads, no need to attract the wrong attention. Walk in the general direction of where Hyde said the wizard’s village was and try and go as fast as possible. Taking her master’s warning about going without food seriously, San had her bag loaded with dried smoked fruits encased in hollow coconut shells, another full of just smoked coconut meat, and another five that had not been opened so the water could still be harvested, along with her rice jar and camel pack now holding the fresh spring water from the forest. She was as prepared as she ever could be.

Although the sun had now risen in the late morning, and the warm sunlight was welcomed on the few parts of her body she could feel it on, she was pleased that the sun’s heat, plus her active body temperature was strong enough to balance out winter’s closing grasp as the dewed grass crunched with every step and small frosty crystals sprinkled the farmland she marched through.

♮

She marched well past midday, the structure of the castle rooted in the Capital had not left her horizon, walking parallel to the fortress, it never seemed to leave the corner of her eye. Not out of fear that some lunatic would try to harm her for the gauntlet, that would be silly, there was no way in her current state she could ever be harmed, she thought as she felt her thick calves flexing with every step through the frigid tundra.

But of course, she had no wood to knock on, as shortly after this thought, a horse’s pounding hooves could be heard in the distance. Coming from behind her, San tried not to pay it much mind, it was paranoid to think the only person she had seen since leaving the forest was deliberately out to get her.

It couldn’t be helped to keep an eye on them though. It appeared to be a young man on an old horse, growing from the size of an ant to of course being taller than her when he stopped to say hello.

“Ya doing okay, miss?” the boy asked, looking down from his steed. “There aren’t many travelers this time of year and certainly if there was, it would be one I recognize. Name’s Marko,” now extending a hardened leather glove toward San.

Surprised the gauntlet wasn’t reacting to his presence, San assumed it was because the boy wasn’t a threat. She acknowledged him and tried her best to smile and nod to show she meant him no harm but nonverbally declined to shake his hand, not wanting to break the curtains of her cloak and show her metal, or risk provoking the gauntlet with more interaction than necessary.

“San,” she said, not thinking it was a risk as no one was looking for San, just the gauntlet.

“Sam?” Marko repeated.

“No, San. To my people it meant mountain.”

“Heavy…” Marko said through a smile as his witty remark left San unfazed.

Looking over the boy, he seemed to have an oddity himself that he didn’t mind wearing on his sleeve. Or leg as it were. The boy had some sort of prosthetic leg and foot. His pant leg was rolled up tight against his wooden thigh above his knee, presumably to keep the breeze from riding, but it seemed more likely to show off the wooden structure, metal binds held the wooden joints, but most impressive of all was how the boy animated such a thing.

Dismounting his horse on this wooden leg, it acted and reacted like a normal leg would, not rigid and mechanical, but the ankle bent as his wooden foot left the metal stirrup, his wooden knee bending down and up as he made contact from the ground, squinting at him, there would be no way to tell he had been injured.

“So, what brings you out here?” Marko asked while his horse enjoyed the breather, nibbling on the crisp grass while it could.

“I’m hoping to find a wizard to solve all my problems,” San said nonchalantly as she continued walking away from him.

“Oh, wizards are great,” he huffed, trying to match her speed to look her in the eye as they talked. “That’s how I got this old thing,” now running ahead of her to click his heels together, showing the dexterity of his wooden leg. “I was born without my left leg, so for years, I just used crutches, but when this Wizard came to our town, my mom offered him a home-cooked meal and a bed for the night, not even knowing who he was, she was just trying to do something nice.”

San nodded along as the chatterbox went off, but she couldn’t understand why this boy had stopped to tell her his life story.

“Anyway, when I woke up the next morning, I had this and could walk, the wizard said it was a simple thank you, that it would continue to grow as I did and would never wear. Magic is so cool…” Marko said, trailing off, before starting back up. “So what’s wrong with you? … that you would need a wizard I mean, not in a rude way, sorry, that came out weird, let me try again. Why are you looking for the wizard?”

“It’s kinda personal,” San said, glancing at him, pretending to act embarrassed to see if the prying brown-haired boy would let up.

He hesitated, “like a… feminine thing?” Marko winced at the very thought of what he implied.

“Yea” San lied, thinking how lucky she was that he was so immature.

While they walked, Marko continued to mindlessly babble as the early winter evenings were making themselves apparent.

“Do you have a tent?” he asked, peering at the lump on her back, as her cloak went over the backpack.

“No but I’m sure I’ll be ok, I’ve slept under the stars before.” For months, in fact, she thought, correcting herself in her head.

“What about any firewood in there?” he asked, now poking her bag.

“No,” she said reluctantly, as a fire would certainly be nice tonight.

“Well, how about I camp with ya? Pongo, my horse, is too tired to ride to an inn, and I have loads of supplies, or rather he does, but he’ll share,” Pongo whinnied in agreement as if he was listening to the conversation.

“Yeah, sure if you want to,” San said, not really caring for his company, but the supplies would be welcomed.

Within minutes, Marko had the tent made, a roaring fire and a sack of opened oats for Pongo, so in thanks while he was busy, San was able to dig through her bag for food without him noticing the gauntlet or its creeping armor. San shared her many coconuts of food. Amazed not only by how she was transporting her goods but that she had such unique and foreign foods that he had only ever heard stories about, Marko happily shared her spoils.

In an attempt to impress her, he dug out dried pork belly processed earlier that week.

“Here, try some, I bet it would go great with that fruit of yours.”

Placing the hunk of fatty flesh in her hands, San’s watering mouth almost dripped into her palms, and she took tiny bites from it to savor the flavor. This was leagues above birthday beef.

Retiring to the tent, they brought the coals of the fire in with them by putting them in San’s pot, setting the pot down on a piece of wood that rested on the tent floor. San now being comfortable with using her femininity against Marko asked, “I’m sorry could you look away while I get comfortable?”

“Of course!” the young man said with too much enthusiasm, sitting up as straight as he could with legs folded, intently staring at the blank wall as he waited for this strange new woman in his life to undress just behind him. But of course, that wasn’t the case, as San had only wanted to slip her bag off without the risk of him seeing the gauntlet.

“Thanks, Marko.” San yawned across the tent as Marko eagerly looked back to see her facing away from him still in her cloak just with her bag behind her head, used as a makeshift pillow. Disappointed, but then ultimately unsure what more he would get to see. He got up from his blankets, opened the pinched flap that led to Pongo, standing near the remnants of the fire under a blanket of his own.

Careful not to disturb his beast, he snapped another blanket from Pongo’s luggage and brought it inside, draping it over San before laying back down and rolling away from her.

Not knowing how to react to the blanket placed on her as she was already halfway asleep, the few embers in the pot dimmed beyond sight as Marko wished her good night.

♮

The gauntlet shook so violently in her sleep, it was as if an earthquake was only under her small patch of dirt.

HEYAH

San shot up from her groggy sleep, the tent was dark but light outside spun around the fabric of the tent as stampeding hooves sounded like snare drums beating down to their end. A scimitar cut through the tent and the few poles that kept it up.

Rehearsed men rushed in, attempting to pin the pair down, San struggled as she threw one-off, the gauntlet reacting as it crunched the skull of an oncoming man, but three more came and pressed their weight into her, binding her arms and legs separately, they were experienced enough to tie the knots without wiggle room as San was stripped of her mother’s dagger on her person and after many prying hands failed to remove the gauntlet and its growing armor, she was aggressively forced to stand up, being told to walk at knifepoint. Her belongings were rummaged through and taken away by the capturers as she went outside the tent’s torn flaps to the vacant campsite, Pongo long gone.

As their bodies were thrown into the back of a caravan. Metal bars slamming behind her, in the dark of the night, all she could hear was the men shouting and the squeaking of the unoiled cart wheels over stomping horses bound to move them. They must have knocked Marko out, if he wasn’t screaming or telling them about his childhood. Luckily, his wooden leg was as stuck to him as the gauntlet was to her. At this moment, she felt truly helpless, even after her months of training, nothing had prepared her for this.