Sieged

Chapter Eighteen

The trickle of water arouses my sight as if the gods were forming the world before me, a blurry reality becoming focused and sharp. 

And expecting to see the walls of the hollow, I'm confused at the scene before me. 

It's not a pit in the earth but a river. The Darmor River. It's the same spot I rested before, where Seamil and I fished when we were young. 

I mumble a curse at my bewilderment. 

How in the heavens did I get here? I do not remember. 

Realizing I'm sitting against a rock, my eyes drop down to a patch of blood on my coat near my abdomen. 

Have I been wounded? 

In panic, I scramble to uncover my undershirt but I see no more blood. Yet, I press my stomach, waiting to feel the pain of a puncture but it doesn't come. Then with my fingers, I rub the stain. It's dry. 

As my confusion grows, an offensive smell wafts past, following the calm wind drifting down the waterway. I turn my head – it aches – and see the charred remains of a small creature, a flying squirrel perhaps, skewered on a spit over the embers of a fire. It is blackened as if it was covered in tar. 

I look down at the blood stain again and back at the fire. 

Did I kill the rodent? 

I don't remember. I don't remember anything. The last moments I can recall is leaving the siege line and riding the king's steed towards the hollow. 

And where is the king's steed? She's disappeared from me again. 

I clamber up, pain immediately shooting through my leg. As I wince, I knock something with a clank. 

Glaring down at my feet, I see the bottle, the firewater Seamil gave me. It's uncorked and empty. 

Surely I didn't drink all of it. Or maybe I did. 

Could it have made me think I stopped at the hollow when in fact I stopped here? 

Shit. Seamil was right about the potency. 

A flash of chestnut flickers in the corner of my eye and I lash my neck around, making it wrench in agony. 

If an enemy or a vicious beast was stalking me, I'd surely be done for, but it's only the king's steed trotting out from a large bush. 

Though my neck is not pleased with her appearance, I'm happy to see her, to see she hasn't met her fate from the dangers in the forest. 

The mare clatters over the rocks and softly plants her muzzle into my cheek. 

It's a pleasant feeling and I can tell she wants to go home. So do I. 

'Let's go, Bess,' I say. 

And as I mount, I'm overcome with guilt. Guilt of failing at what I was sent to do. 

What will the king have to say? What will Seamil have to say? 

But why should I feel this way? King Jabora was never going to end this war in peace. 

I surrender to these thoughts, eager to pick up my sheriff duties once again. I wonder how my men are getting along. 

The slog through the First Forest is slow as it was the previous time but I eventually make it out and onto the wilding road. 

Clouds soon fill the clear sky and rain is quick to follow. 

The rest of the journey back to the city is a somber one, yet I make swift work, the farmers' fields skipping by like flat stones on a pond.