The unicorn had stopped moving.
And the sky was light.
He sat up with a startled gasp, struggling as if he were trying to wake up from a long nightmare, and instantly fell off the unicorn's back.
'Don't get comfortable,' the unicorn said tauntingly, looking down at him. 'This is just a very brief stop to rest, nothing more. We've still got a long way to go to get out of the lands claimed by your City.'
'It isn't my City anymore,' Kellen muttered under his breath, getting stiffly to his knees. He blinked and looked around, rubbing his eyes.
It was just dawn. They were at the edge of a stream, and the sound of running water made Kellen's throat convulse with thirst. He knelt over the flow on hands and knees and scooped up palmfuls of the icy water, drinking thirstily before remembering he had a water-bottle with him. Moving a little less stiffly now, he shrugged the backpack off his back— somehow it had managed to survive the night's ride—and pulled out its contents, the leather water-bottle and a loaf of bread. He'd fallen on the bread several times that night, but it was still in pretty good shape, considering. He emptied the water-bottle into the stream—for the water was stale and musty by now, and there was no reason to drink it when there was fresh at hand—and then refilled the bottle and used it to drink from. The water still tasted a bit of boiled leather, but it was faster than using his hands. Downstream, the unicorn was quenching its thirst as well.
He drank and drank until he couldn't hold any more water, then sat back on his heels to look around.
There was no sign of the sun; from the treetops upward, the sky was a uniform shade of pale grey and mist shrouded the tops of the trees and sent little wisps down into the gaps between them. The air was damp and chill, with fog scent in it, and this little stream ran down a long, rocky slope from some point above them. The trees were a great deal taller than the ones in the gardens of the City, they seemed to be mostly conifers, and they had a wilder, gnarled look to them, as if they often had to contend with storm winds.
They were up in the hills—to Kellen, an unimaginable distance from Armethalieh. Everything around them was mist-shrouded, and the nearby pine boughs were thick with heavy dew, turning them green and silver. The boulders of the stream bed were scoured bare, but ones on the banks were heavily covered in moss, with tiny ferns growing between them. All around was the sound of dripping water, interrupted by the occasional clear birdcall.
Kellen stretched and yawned, getting to his feet, working more of the kinks out, and wincing as he discovered new bruises. Now that he wasn't acquiring new lacerations with every passing moment, and now that his arms weren't being jerked from their sockets, he realized that he wasn't— quite—as badly hurt as he'd thought. Though he certainly hurt. And with every movement, he wanted nothing more than to crawl first into a hot bath, and then into a bed. His good clothes and thin leather boots—just fine for a morning of school in Armethalieh—were ruined beyond repair. The skin beneath the tattered clothing was covered with scratches and bruises, and the low soft boots were torn completely through in a couple of places. He pulled off the day-pack, then pulled off his overtunic— there wasn't much left of it after the night's ride and the roll down the hillside— and after soaking it in the stream, used the makeshift washcloth to clean away some of the caked dirt and blood from his arms and legs. As he did, he caught sight of the deep livid hand-shaped bruises on his arms where the stone golems had gripped him, and felt a faint weary spark of anger. It seemed a lifetime ago, but the bruises were black and fresh. Rinsing the tattered cloth clean one last time, he washed his face, wincing when he encountered a deep gouge over one eye. He hadn't known that was there! He ran his hands through his hair, dislodging a small shower of leaves and twigs, and felt his ribs experimentally. Nothing grated, and he only aroused the dull pain of bruises, not the sharp one of a broken bone. Things could be worse. They could, most certainly, be better, but they could also be worse.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him he'd missed the last several meals, and he returned to the day-pack. He was a little surprised to find that the bread, though coarse and a little stale by now, was perfectly edible, but then he realized there was actually no reason for it to be otherwise. Most of those involved in his Banishing must have really believed they were preparing him to spend his life as a hunted Outlaw. The Council would certainly have done everything in its power to maintain the fiction of Kellen's possible survival, after all, just as it pretended that every Banishing was merely that—and not murder in disguise.
Though Kellen could cheerfully have eaten twice as much as was there, he carefully divided the loaf in half. For the first time, he thought— really thought—about the unicorn. It had gone through just as much as he had tonight, and more: it had been the one doing the running, and with him on its back, as well.
And it hadn't had to do it, any of it. The unicorn hadn't been Banished from Armethalieh, after all. It had come to save Kellen's life of its own free will, and what had it gotten so far for its trouble? A litany of complaint.
Despite his fear and weariness, Kellen felt his ears burn with shame. He'd thought he was so much better than everyone in Armethalieh, and the moment things got rough, what did he turn into? A spoiled City brat!
Only you aren't a citizen of Armethalieh now, spoiled or otherwise.
'There's food,' he said, holding out half the loaf to the unicorn. 'And, look, I…'
His voice died in his throat as he turned and took a really good look at his companion for the first time.
If possible, the magical creature looked even more improbable in the daylight than it had by the light of the moon—at one and the same time, ethereal as the mist and as solid and present as the trees. He stared at it in fascination, both self-pity and good resolutions momentarily forgotten, for in all of Armethalieh, known for its magick, he had never seen anything quite so—well—magickal.
