“It should be clear now,” I say. “Or so I hope. We were heading there. I—”
Running footsteps pound along the colocolo path, and we all reach for our weapons.
“Uh, guys?” a voice calls. “I think Rowan must be close by. Just follow the trail of dead harpies.”
I grin and jog from the trees to see Alianor crouched over a harpy body.
“You’re still here,” I say.
“So are you,” she says, coming over to hug me. “And only slightly worse for wear, despite all the harpy screaming. Hey, Dain.” She squints. “Are you cuddling a dropbear?”
He quickly adjusts his grip on the beast.
I grin. “It’s a long story.”
“And we will look forward to hearing it.” Yvain approaches. She sees the young healer, and her wrinkled face beams. “Hello, Cedany. Wondering what happened to your cabin, I’ll bet.”
“We were just about to explain,” I say. “As soon as we got someplace safer.”
“An excellent idea,” says Wilmot, approaching with Rhydd. “Cedany’s cabin isn’t in the best of shape yet, but we can take shelter there.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The hunters had managed to clear the cabin. Some of the dropbears had already escaped by breaking a hole between the rafters. Those were the smallest, like Dain’s. So the hunters had enlarged the hole and sedated the others as they came through. Then Yvain’s family put the sleeping dropbears on their river raft. They’ll release them farther from habitation when they leave.
Had Dain and I made it to the cabin, we’d have found the others camping there with plans to return home in the morning. Wilmot and Rhydd had decided it was best to wait for light, and they’d presumed Dain and I were safely in Tamarel with our guards.
As for the damage to Cedany’s cabin, Rhydd assures her it will be fully repaired, with extra payment for the inconvenience. She’s satisfied with that.
The bigger concern is the monster migration. The dropbears, the harpies, the colocolos…why are they on the move and heading east?
Wilmot doesn’t want to discuss that tonight.
“We’ll never get any sleep if we start,” he grumbles.
He has a point. It’s getting late, and I’m starving, and I have companion monsters to look after. Cedany and Alianor have been tending to the dropbear, who only needed wound cleaning and stitching. I watch them work while I eat my dinner—shared with Jacko—and Malric hunts for his. Then I gather around the fire outside with the others to tell the full story of the colocolo stampede and harpy attack.
The hunters and Yvain’s family sleep out of doors. I wanted to join them—the royal monster hunter’s place is with her troop. Yet Wilmot insisted I sleep inside Cedany’s cabin, and both Alianor and Cedany agreed on account of my injuries. I griped that my injuries were mild—a sore scalp, a wrenched neck and various cuts—but no one listened to me.
Wilmot also insisted that Dain sleep indoors. He was badly bruised from the harpies, and his objections were also ignored. So were Rhydd’s when he was told to sleep inside, the excuse there being that he was the future king. Alianor stayed with us, though in her case, the only person who insisted on that was Alianor herself. She claimed she needed to help Cedany tend to our injuries, but really, she just wanted to be more comfortable.
Comfortable isn’t quite the word for Cedany’s cabin. It had been, before the dropbear infestation. The beasts had made a royal mess, breaking the furniture and ripping apart the bed. While the hunters did clean up the more noxious signs of habitation—the urine and feces—the smell still lingers, both from that and from the dropbears themselves. Fortunately, Cedany has plenty of herbs to combat the stench, and we all sleep with sachets of lavender near our noses.
I wake once during the night. Jacko is cuddled against me, making his odd little purr of contentment. That isn’t the noise that woke me, though. It comes from Dain’s direction. We’d made the dropbear a bed in the rafters, and she’d settled in there, but now she’s curled in Dain’s arms, both of them snoring softly. I smile, pat Jacko and drift back to sleep.
The next morning, the hunters hunt and Yvain’s family fish. Kaylein—whose family are fishers—goes with them once Wilmot assures her I don’t require her bodyguard services. While they’re gone, Wilmot and Yvain make breakfast. I offer to help but…I possess many skills, having had the luxury of teachers and trainers, but there are some things I haven’t learned because, well, I’m unlikely to ever need them. Cooking is one of those and, let’s be honest, no one wants their breakfast made by a princess who decides today’s the day she wants to try her hand at cooking.
Rhydd sits at the fire to talk to Yvain. He wants more information on our father’s clan, and they’d begun discussing the topic yesterday. I’d like to know more, too, but they’re deep in a conversation about waterway rights, a subject guaranteed to put me back to sleep.
I’m more interested in Cedany and Dain’s discussion about the arrows she makes. Alianor listens, too, mostly because she got kicked out of Rhydd and Yvain’s conversation. The biggest feud of waterway rights is between Clan Hadleigh and Clan Bellamy. Rhydd wanted to hear Yvain’s side of the story without Alianor jumping in. She’ll certainly give her opinion later.
While Wilmot and Yvain cook over one fire, we huddle around another, stoked to stave off the dawn chill. I’m on the ground, with Malric behind me, pretending to offer back support while, I suspect, really just enjoying my body heat. Jacko is curled up on my lap. Across the fire, Dain sits with the dropbear on his lap as she eats strips of dried meat, holding them
