Nodding her head, she relaxes her bow and quickly replaces her arrow in the quiver behind her shoulder. As James and Jiron begin running toward the horses, she says, “Leave them!” When they both look at her, she continues, “They’ll just slow you down in the forest. Follow me.” She then slings her bow behind her shoulder as she turns and begins running through the trees.
Jiron looks to him and James only shrugs. Breaking into a run, they follow her as she races through the undergrowth. “Where are we going?” asks James when they finally catch up to her.
“I know a trail that will take us through the mountains,” she tells them. “It comes out near the fortress of Kern on the Cardri-Empire border.”
“How long will it take?” Jiron asks.
“About three days perhaps longer,” she replies. “Longer still if we can’t shake the pursuit.”
The sound of their pursuers gradually diminishes as she takes them further up into the higher elevations. They all remain quiet as they work to navigate the sometimes steep and narrow way. Boulders and fallen trees have to be circumvented and at times scaled in order to continue.
They come to a cliff face with a small trickle of water running down its side. Turning to them, she says, “We have to climb up to the top of this.” Indicating a section of the wall, she adds, “Start here, it affords the best hand and footholds than anywhere else.”
She reaches out and takes hold of a crack and begins the ascent. When she’s gone about ten feet, Jiron looks to James and asks, “You want to go next?”
“You better, I might end up falling and I wouldn’t want to knock you down in the process.”
“It’s only about thirty feet,” states Jiron. “You can make it.”
Looking dubious at the prospect, he steps to the wall and begins following her with Jiron’s help. Once James has gone far enough to allow him room, Jiron steps to the wall and begins his ascent.
When James is halfway up, he hears her voice from where she’s standing at the top of the cliff, “Hurry up.”
“Do you see anyone coming?” Jiron shouts up to her.
She looks out for a moment then replies, “No. All I can see is the tops of the trees. They could be just right below and I wouldn’t know it.”
“Great!” he hears Jiron grunt below him.
As he reaches the top he sees her hand reaching down to help him up the rest of the way. Taking it, he’s soon up over the edge and lying on the top. Arms and legs shaking from the ordeal, he just lies there a few moments until he sees Jiron’s head crest over the top.
She reaches down to help him as well, but he just shakes his head as he makes the rest of the way on his own.
“We can have a short break here,” she tells them as Jiron gains the top.
James sits up and reaches into his belt pouch where he pulls out the pitiful remnants of what use to be rations, oh so long ago. Grimacing, he takes a bite out of the stale fare and looks up to see her grinning at him. “What’s so funny?” he asks.
“Just your expression when you bit into that,” she explains with a slight laugh. She pulls out some jerked beef and hands him several strips. “Here, you can have some of mine.” When she sees Jiron’s hungry looks, she gives him some as well.
“So what are you doing out here?” Jiron asks as he takes the offered food. He keeps a constant lookout for any approaching soldiers, but it looks like for the moment they may have lost them.
Her expression turns grim as she says, “Surviving. I used to live in Mountainside before the soldiers came. Fortunately I was out hunting in the mountains when they showed up and was spared the ravages they inflicted on my family and friends.”
“That’s too bad about your family,” James says.
“Yes. I miss them dearly but we can’t live in the past,” she says wistfully. “Now I stay up here where they can’t find me. Been doing alright so far, though I hope they get pushed back into the Empire so I can go home. If there’s even a home to return to.”
“We were just through there and it looks like most of it is still standing,” explains Jiron. “Some of the buildings were burned down by the fire, but most of them appeared in good condition.”
“Strange thing about that fire,” she says. “It just started up out of nothing. I was in the forest that day and there wasn’t any lightning or such to spark it. Though I heard a whole lot of soldiers got burnt in it. That was good news.”
Jiron glances at James who just shakes his head. He doesn’t want her to know more about them than is absolutely necessary. “So you just stay in the woods?” he asks. “How are you able to manage?”
Giving him an annoyed expression, she asks in reply, “What? Do you think I’m some helpless little girl who can’t take care of herself?”
“We’ll, no,” he replies. “It’s just that…”
“It’s just that I’m a girl,” she finishes for him. “If I were a man, would you even ask such a question?”
Face reddening, he looks to Jiron for help but finds him smiling, enjoying the predicament he’s gotten himself into. “No, it’s not that at all. Where I come from, women are considered equal to men in all things. What I was getting at was that the soldiers might’ve discovered you, or something.”
“I don’t let them ‘discover’ me,” she informs him. She gets up and says, “I think it’s time to go.” Without even waiting for a reply, she moves out through the woods at a quick pace. James and Jiron have to scramble to catch up with her.
James glances to Jiron who only gives him an amused smile.
That night when they stop for the night, James is about ready to die. The pace she kept the rest of the day had been unrelenting. No stops and he had to practically run in order to keep up with her. When she announced here is where they would be spending the night, he just collapses.
Coming over to him, she asks, “Tired?”
Nodding, he says breathlessly, “Yeah. Not used to so much climbing. Plus the air is thinner up here.”
“The sun’s going to be down soon and we don’t have time to rest,” she tells him. “You need to collect enough firewood to last through the night while I get dinner.” While stringing her bow, she adds, “It gets very cold up here when the sun’s down.” Once her bow is ready, she moves away from him and disappears in the trees.
Jiron comes over and gives him a hand up. He looks to where she disappeared in the trees and says, “I like her.”
James gives him a grin and says, “You like all the girls.”
Shaking his head, he says, “Not like that. But we better get busy if we’ll have a fire going and enough wood collected before she returns.”
Groaning, James gets his already stiffening legs moving again as he begins gathering small branches and sticks. When he has an armful, he returns and deposits it in camp where Jiron goes about lighting a fire. Four more trips are required before Jiron determines they have enough to last through the night.
About that time, she returns with two small animals and proceeds to clean and dress them for the fire.
While she’s doing that, James asks her, “You never even told us your name.”
She looks up from the rabbits and says, “Aleya.”
Jiron comes over to her and says, “I’m Jiron.”
A quick nod and then she returns her attention back to the animals.
Jiron just stands there not sure what to do, a simple nod was not the reply he expected. There’s just something about her that both annoys and attracts him. Finally realizing he’d been standing there like an idiot, he goes over and sits near James across the fire from her.
“How much further is this fortress?” James asks her.
“Another two days,” she replies. She points to an imposing ridge to the west and says, “We should reach that ridge by tomorrow night. It’s all downhill from there on.”
A deep valley separates them and their destination. The ridge is quite high and steep, higher in fact than where they sit now. James looks at the prospect of trying to climb it with trepidation.
She notices how his face has fallen as he stares out across the valley. “Don’t worry,” she tells him with a reassuring smile, “it’s not going to be that bad. There’s an old stairway that was cut into the ridge a long time ago which leads all the way to the top.”
