Heed My Warnings And Survive

Chapter Four

An Old Friend, And A New Enemy

Three hours later we arrived at a small town in the middle of nowhere. I let out a relieved laugh. Kiara sighed beside me. We made our way through the town looking for an inn. I spotted one, it was small, and a bit rundown, but not any worse than the rest of the town. We entered, and sat at a nearby table. I sighed as I sat in an actual chair. Kiara let out a small laugh as she sat beside me. The barmaid came up to us.

“Would you like a meal and drink, Sir, and Ma’am?” She asked. I nodded and dug deep into my pockets, reaching for the money I hadn’t stowed in my bag.

“That’ll be three coppers,” She said. I gave her the money, and thanked her. She nodded as she walked away. A few moments later the barmaid returned with our meals.

“Tuliana’s ghost! This was only three coppers,” I said quietly as I looked at the bowl of hearty stew that would’ve been twentie coppers back home.

“Is that cheap?” Kiara asked,

“Yeah, extremely.” Kiara smiled.

“What made you think to put money in your pockets?” She questioned. I shrugged.

“Habit? Finley always said to do that, cause he used to practice pickpocketing my bag.” Kiara chuckled,

“Well thank goodness for Finley.” I nodded, and dug into my stew. Kiara ate slower, and more politely, but her face looked contemplative. “Draven,” She said. I looked up from my bowl.

“Hmm?”

“What happens if we get attacked again, and my status doesn’t help us? Neither of us are good at close quarter fighting, or I’d assume you’re not, seeing as you didn’t handle that situation with much grace.” She put a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” She said. I smiled.

“It’s alright. You’re right though, I’m not good at close quarters, or any sort of fighting, but I take it since you had a bow when I met you, you can shoot?” She nodded. I leaned back in my chair, forgetting my stew for a moment. The barmaid came up to us.

“Excuse me Sir, but I couldn’t help but overhear. If you need fighters, there are two gentlemen that have just taken a room here, and they claim to be swords for hire, so if you have the pay, they’ll help you,” She said under her breath.

“Could you show me to their room?” The girl nodded. “Kiara you stay here, I need to make sure they don’t have ulterior motives, and I don’t want them using you as leverage.” I had only known Kiara for a few days, but we had been through quite a bit, and the thought of her getting hurt was unacceptable to me. She nodded. I stood and followed the barmaid upstairs, to a nearby door. She knocked. I heard footsteps behind the door, and it swung open. My eyes widened, and my jaw dropped, as I looked upon my old friend.

“Fin?” I asked. Shock filtering into my voice. Finley matched my face, as shock washed over him. He quickly stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“Draven? What are you doing here?” He asked, in a harsh whisper.

“Me? What are you doing here?”

“Zander and I were traveling-”

“Zander’s here?” I asked.

“Yeah but Draven-” I didn’t wait for him to finish. I burst through the door, and there sat my friend, his blond hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in days, and he looked thinner, and tired, as though he hadn’t been sleeping, but still much bigger than me. I laughed.

“Zander,” I said with a wide smile on my face. Zanders’ look of shock quickly turned into one of hatred as he looked at me. I furrowed my eyebrows, and stepped back. Finley entered the room.

“Zander, don’t do this,” He said, stepping in front of me. “It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want that to happen, you know him, he’s like a brother to us.” In Zander’s eyes I saw a hatred I had never seen before, they were clouded, and I didn’t know why. Zander walked toward me, and Finley backed me up along with him. Zander drew his sword, and it clicked inside my head. See I’ve had Zander mad at me before, but he never looked this hateful, and I knew he wanted to kill me.

“Fin, I’m gonna run.” Finley nodded, and drew his sword to hold Zander off. I knew he could, he had always been the better swordsman. I turned, and ran. I closed the door behind me, and ran down the stairs. I heard the door burst open, and I cursed. I slid under one of the tables. My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, as I heard Zander’s booming footsteps come down the stairs. When they stopped I heard a chair scrape the floor.

“He ran out the door.” I heard Kiara yell in a terrified voice. I watched Zanders’ feet as he walked quickly out the door. I poked my head out from under the table, and sighed. Kiara Walked quickly over to me, and pulled me up off my knees.

“What was that?” She said harshly. I ignored her question, and rushed back upstairs.

“Fin!” I called, going back into the room. Finley was on the ground, blood running from his temple. He was shaking his head, trying to focus. I knelt in front of him. “Fin. Look at me.” I could tell he was going to pass out, but I needed him to stay awake. I needed him to tell me what was going on, and I needed him to do it fast, cause there wasn’t much town for Zander to search. I clenched, and unclenched my fists.

“Kiara stay with him, try to keep him awake. I’ll be back.” I ran back downstairs. “Hey! Does anyone have smelling salts?! My friend has been injured badly, and I need them!” I yelled. Everyone in the room froze. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Please!” I yelled at the room. A small sickly looking woman reached into her bag, and handed me a small bottle. I thanked her profusely, and dashed back upstairs. “Kiara! Put this under his nose!” I urged. She took the bottle and did as I said. I went over to the bags in the corner, and rummaged through them until I found a thin tunic. I grabbed it, and went over to Kiara, and Finley. I looked at Finleys head. The gash in his temple was deep, but he was awake now. He looked at me.

“Draven I-” He started, but I interrupted.

“Not now. Let’s take care of this wound. Then we’ll talk.” Finley nodded, and sat back. “Kiara I need some water, and soap.” Kiara nodded, and dashed out of the room. Finley groaned. He had been cut, and scraped so often, and I had had to patch him up every time. I tore the tunic into strips, and started dabbing his head with a small piece. Kiara came back a few moments later. I cleaned the blood from around the wound. “Fin do you have a needle, and thread?” I asked. He clenched eyes shut, and nodded toward one of the bags in the corner of the room. “Kiara hold that cloth on his head.” Kiara nodded, and I dumped the bag. I found the needle and thread quickly. I threaded the needle quickly, and dashed back over to Finley. “Ok Fin lay down. Kiara can he use you as a cushion?” Kiara didn’t answer, she just moved to the other side of him, and helped him lay his head on her lap. I knelt, and bent over him. As I poked the needle through his skin, he winced.

“I need to bite something,” Finley said. I balled up one of the strips of fabric, and stuffed it in his mouth, then continued working. It didn’t take long for me to finish, when I did I took the rest of the ripped up tunic, and wrapped his head.

“Ok don’t sit up too quickly,” I said, going to the bowl of water, and washing the blood off my hands. Finley sat up slowly, and spat the wad of fabric out of his mouth.

“You know no matter how many times you have to do that, I’ll never get used to it.” I chuckled, and Kiara furrowed her eyebrows,

“How many times have you had to get sewn up?” She asked. Finley laughed.

“About five, or six.” Kiara put a hand over her mouth. I turned back to them with a serious expression on my face.

“Do you have food, and medicine in these bags?” I asked. Finley nodded, and pointed out three bags in the corner. I slung two of them over my shoulder, gave one to Kiara, then helped Finley stand. “We gotta get out of here, before Zander comes back.” Finley nodded.

“I thought you said Zander was your friend,” Kiara said. I sighed.

“I did too.”

It didn’t take us long to get out of the village, and into the woods. We went till dusk, when the temperature started to drop, our bodies started to shut down. We sat stiffly on the ground, and I started on making a fire. The whole day we didn’t really talk much. My mind was reeling, I couldn’t fathom why Zander would be mad at me, especially enough to draw his sword on me.

I sat there poking the fire for a while, huddling very close to it. Finley sat next to me. I turned to him.

“What was that?” I said in a low tone. Finley stared into the fire.

“The entire village is gone Draven. Aria destroyed it, and Zander blames you.” I could hear the sorrow in his voice, and it washed over me. My village was destroyed.

“What about the people in it?” I asked.

“As far as Zander, and I know, we’re the only ones to survive.” I put my head in my hands. My family was gone, as was Niereida, and her son Thomas. An ach started in my chest, and spread to my throat. Tears sprang to my eyes, and my breath hitched.

“My parents?” Finley nodded, and the ach in my chest grew more painful. “And yours?” Again he nodded. The tears fell down my cheeks, as I squeezed my eyes closed. I curled into a ball. “Why did she do it?”

“Because your mother blamed you for Aster, and when you left she couldn’t do anything but blame Aria, and when she went to her tent with a knife, she destroyed the whole village, I don’t know why.” I could almost hear the tears falling down his cheeks, and I knew I wasn’t the only one with an ach in my chest. The sadness that had taken root in my chest days before was now blossoming into a thriving tree, as if it was being watered by the tears that fell from my eyes, as I mourned for my lost family, and friends. I sat there with a pain I had never felt before, no matter how many aches I had felt in my heart, this was worse than them all. Worse than finding out the love of my life loved my best friend, worse than my mother trying to kill me, worse even than knowing that I would never go home, now any hope I had of returning had been snuffed like a candle. I buried my face in my hands, and let them wet with tears. I heard light footsteps to my right, and a soft hand was placed on my shoulder. I looked up, seeing Kiara smiling kindly at me. My heart warmed slightly, as her smile washed over me. I was suddenly very aware of the cold biting my skin. I shivered intensely, Kiara was shaking beside me, as was Finley.

“Here you sit between us Kiara,” I said motioning to the space between Finley and I. She moved over. We all huddled close together.

The night past sluggishly, and the chill of it crept into my bones, biting my skin as if it was a bunch a man eating Zebies, luckily the small lizard like creatures weren’t native to Tarni, so I had nothing to worry about.

I looked over at Kiara, and Finley, both were asleep. I left them alone for now, I knew I wouldn’t easily sleep in the cold. I was never good at tolerating cold, I now wondered how I could tolerate it less than a Princess. I didn’t doubt her strength by any means, but the castle must’ve been warm. I groaned at the thought that I wouldn’t get a warm bed for a long while. When Zander, Finley, and I would go into the woods for days at a time, I always came home exhausted from lack of sleep. Now, sitting in front of our weak fire I regretted not forcing my body to get used to the cold. I shivered, and drew my legs in closer to my chest.

When The sun finally showed over the horizon, signaling the end of the cold night, I stretched out my stiff limbs, and grunted. Kiara moved beside me, I looked over at her, she was still sleeping, I somehow couldn’t tear my eyes from her, she looked so peaceful, and beautiful when she slept, my heart fluttered with a feeling I hadn’t felt since the first time I had seen Niereida. Her eyelids fluttered open, and I quickly looked at the fire, the fluttering in my stomach intensified as I hoped she didn’t see me staring. Kiara stretched out her arms, and legs. I looked over, and she smiled. I then looked to Finley, who was smiling like an idiot. I raised an eyebrow at him, he stood, walked to me, bent low, and whispered in my ear.

“You’re in love with her aren’t you.” my stomach twisted, and I took a swing at him. He leapt out of the way laughing, and I turned back to the fire grumbling. At this point I couldn’t let myself feel like this, my closest friend was trying to kill me, and I was on a journey that might get me killed, plus she was a princess, and I was nowhere near a prince. I scrubbed my hands over my face. I stood quickly, too quickly. My aching body wanted to scream.

“Gah! Ow.” Finley chuckled. I glared at him.

“Well someone didn’t get much sleep last night,”

“Let me correct you. I didn’t get any sleep,” I said, a bit too harshly. “Sorry,”

“Oh come on, you know you don’t have to apologize to me, I’ll just assume you’re sorry about everything.” I rolled my eyes.

“Come over here, I gotta look at your head.” Finley came, and sat in front of me. I unwrapped the bloodied strip of cloth. The wound seemed to be healing well. It still bled a little, but I knew from experience that that was normal. “Kiara, could you bring me another strip of cloth from the bag over there?” She did as I asked, and I wrapped Finley’s head once again. I then turned to Kiara. “Can I look at your neck?” She nodded, and tilted her head. It looked normal for a healing bruise, very yellow, with spots of purple. I nodded. “Does it hurt still?”

“Not as much, no,” She responded. I nodded. I looked into one of the bags that we took when we got Finley.

“Fin where’d you get this stuff?” I asked, as I looked through the medicine bag.

“Hmm? Oh I got a bunch of your stuff from your house before I left.” I let out a breathy laugh.

“Thank goodness for your bit of brains Fin.” he chuckled. I reached in, and took out a small jar of salve for bruises, and handed it to Kiara. “Here, put this on your neck,” I said, handing it to her. She did as I said, then handed it back to me. I tucked it back in the bag. Slinging it over my shoulder I turned. “You guys ready?” The others nodded, and we left our little camp.