SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Thirty Nine
Chapter Thirty-Nine
We had stayed at Devin’s camp for a few weeks, seeing how many of his men were truly loyal, and by our estimate there were exactly zero. Serves that pig right, I thought. We didn’t want Devin to escape, so we took shifts watching him, which proved to be a bad idea seeing as I wanted to strangle him every time I was near him, so instead Kiara would sleep in the tent, and I would stay outside, that way I could protect, and she could keep an eye on Devin, as much as I hated sleeping any sort of barrier between us, we both decided this was the best course of action, and I would have to live with it.
In the mornings we were together only for a few moments during breakfast, and the rest of the day Kiara would be in the tent. I felt bad she had to spend all her time with that maniac, but there wasn’t much I could do after she insisted. So that was our system, she watched Devin, whilst I did everything else. Occasionally I would sit with her for an hour, or two, or until I could no longer block out his incessant rambling. Eventually the weeks we planned to stay turned into two months. It was horrible. I was so used to seeing Kiara every hour of every day, that the separation was making me mad, and truthfully, I missed her.
As the days, and nights passed, I found it harder, and harder to deal with Devin, even with the minimal amount of time I spent with him, and in truth, I wasn’t even sure why we still had him bound to that tent pole. I was sitting by the fire in the late afternoon, grumbling to myself about Devin, when Kiara exited the tent, and joined me. I looked up as I heard her coming.
“Hello,” She said softly, sitting beside me.
“Hello,” I replied. “What brings you out here?” I asked, turning my eyes back to the fire.
“You didn’t come in to talk to me,” She answered. I sighed.
“I’m sorry. But I can’t stand another second with him, or I fear my hands will close around his throat,” I said. Kiara let out a light chuckle.
“I understand, I’ll just have to come out here instead.” I gave her a small smile, then let out a second sigh.
“Why are we even still holding him?” Kiara looked at me with a confused expression. “He’s of no use to us, he’s not a threat, and he holds no information,”
“What if he tries to hire more men?” She asked.
“He won’t, I’ve known him for years. He’s a cowardly weasel who cares for nothing, and no one besides himself, and he values cloths above money,”
“Then why was he helping the witch?”
“Because she threatened the one thing that mattered more to him than fine linen. His life.” Kiara let out a sigh.
“You have a point, but do you really want him free?”
“No, but perhaps we could lock him up somewhere, I don’t want to be his permanent captor,”
“How do you propose we do that?” I shrugged.
“I have no idea. I just want to be done with him,” I said. Kiara placed her head on my shoulder.“I know,” she said. She didn’t know. She didn’t understand that he was the last obstacle keeping me from living, it had almost been a year since I left home, and I hadn’t had a solitary moment since. Then I had been chased, captured, pummeled, nearly killed, and lost to many people, the only good things to come from it all were a friendship with Imelda, and my love for Kiara, I had been on the run for so long, I barely had a home for more than a few months, and I was driven from it twice, she didn’t understand, she couldn’t, but she did, she had also been on the run, from more than just a few crazy people, she had been running from a life she didn’t want everyday of her life, she had to run for her life for almost a year because of me, she had loved, and lost as well as me, in some ways in fact, she had had it worse, she had never had a family to love her, she had never had a best friend of her own, the people she had loved, she lost at a much younger age than me, and those that were supose to love her didn’t, and never had, and as I sat there, examining her soft smile, and feeling the warmth of her heart emanating off her, I appreciated her more then ever, I never expect that my love for her could grow anymore, but it did, so much so, that my heart felt as though it was about to explode, and for the first time in nearly a year, I was glade of it.
The days around the camp were getting quite monotonous, and Kiara, and I were thinking it was probably time to get moving, and somehow get Devin in a prison cell forever, so we packed our gear, and left the camp behind.
It took a few days before we came upon a large village, it was similar in size to my old home, which meant it should have a nice inn, and a prison. Now the only problem was finding a place for Devin. We couldn’t exactly keep him tied up in a rented room forever, little did I know we wouldn’t have too.
It had been a couple of days since we had come to the village, and we could’ve enjoyed it if it weren’t for Devin. We were sitting in our room, on one of the two beds, and Devin was tied up in a chair across from us blabbering on about how he would do anything if we would just let him go, and no matter how many looks, or threats I gave him, he wouldn’t shut up, and at some point I was planning on breaking his nose, which failed the first time I punched him. He was currently in between begging, and complaining about his empty stomach, and parched throat.
“Come along,” His slimy voice whined, “I’ll starve to death if I don’t get food soon.” I shot a glare his way, then continued reading my book, trying to distract myself from his horrible squealing.
“Or perhaps die of dehydration, I am very thirsty you know,” He smacked his lip. I took a deep breath, and snapped my book shut.
“We gave you both food, and water this morning. You could survive about three days, so stop your whining or you won’t survive past the night,” I said venomously, I laid back, propping myself up on one elbow, opening my book once more.
The evening passed quickly, and soon enough we had wound down, sleeping peacefully.
I was woken by the sound of footsteps, as I slowly opened my eyes I saw a terrifying sight, there was a man standing over a sleeping Kiara, his arms raised, dagger in hand. Fear, and panic gripped my heart, and I quickly jumped out of bed, reaching for the dagger I kept on my belt, but alas I wasn’t wearing my belt, and the dagger in the man’s hand was my very own, instead then I reached for my sword, which was in its sheath at the foot of my bed, I drew it as the man was bringing his arms down. My panic grew as I lunged stabbing the man in the back. He cried out, and dropped the dagger. Kiara woke as both the man, and the dagger fell to the floor.
“What happened?” She asked in a startled tone.
“He was trying to kill you,” I told her, breathing heavily, as the panic left me. Kiara looked to the chair that had been previously occupied by Devin, but was now vacant, then back to the man on the floor.
“Is that?” she didn’t need to finish, I knew what she was asking. I lit a candle, and held it close to the body of the man, and sure enough, it was Devin. The last obstacle, the last enemy, the last backstabber was dead. I could truly live now, I could finally court Kiara, I could finally properly mourn those I’ve lost, I could even buy a home, and stay there for more than two months, maybe even years.