Page 5

Chapter Five

I wake with a jolt and then a second jolt as the first nearly sends me tumbling off my perch. Shit, that’s right, I think to myself as I try to slow my heart rate, yesterday happened. I’m free. I’m sure to be hunted. But I’m free. For now. I look around me groggily, noting that the sun has almost disappeared and the world below is dark and gloomy. I wonder what woke me. Then I hear a slight noise below me. I freeze, my body locking up in terror, this is it, they’ve found me, they’re going to torture me and chain my reanimated corpse to the gates when they’re done. My mind tries to send me into a dark spiral of panic . Or, I try to reason with myself, it could just be an animal, like a deer or something, heck it could even just be a dead body. That would be much more preferable. Point is, stop overreacting, it’s going to be fine. I realise I’m having a full-blown conversation with myself and quickly shut it down. That’s a one-way ticket to crazy town. I peer below me trying to see into the shadows of the forest floor. I strain my eyes and stay perfectly still, listening for any indication of what’s below. I start to think I might have imagined the noise, but then I see him creep into view. Dressed in mostly black and creeping from tree to tree I watch the man scout around, trying to pick up my trail, I assume. I don’t know him immediately, but when he turns I can see Jacob’s yellow, painted crown on his breast. A knight then. Dang. I thought I might have had more time.

I think of drawing my bow, but it’s still strapped securely to my back, the amount of movement to get it unslung would certainly get his attention. Guns are out too, unless I want everyone within a ten mile radius knowing where I’m hiding. So, I sit deathly still and watch him, I try not to breathe and will myself to sink into the bark at my back. I know if he were to stand in the right spot and look up he’d see me. I hope the rapidly falling darkness will conceal me. He spends a long time lurking beneath my tree, he looks at the lowest branches and peers around at other trees, but he never looks directly up. Idiot, he must think I wouldn’t be smart or strong enough to get up here. Hopefully his arrogance will keep me safe. It feels like an eternity until he moves away from my hiding place, I listen as he goes, not as quiet in the nearly complete darkness.

Just as I start to relax and breathe again, another shadow passes under my tree. I freeze again and watch as this shadow follows the path of the knight. I can’t make out any details about him, it’s too dark, only his frame, tall and muscular as he stands beneath me and his short dark hair, though I can’t be sure of the exact color. Then he lifts his head peering into my tree, and I see the shine of his eyes, I feel as if he’s looking straight at me. Time seems to stop for a moment as I look into his shadowed face and I get the strangest feeling that I’m falling. Maybe this is what it truly feels like before you’re about to die . I crash back into myself with that thought and snap my eyes shut like a coward, certain this is when he sounds the alarm. After a few moments of silence, I crack my eyes open to look, but he’s gone. I never heard him leave.

It takes me a long time to convince myself the second guy has gone and an even longer time to piece what happened together in my head. The first guy was definitely a knight of Jacob’s, so that means he’s sent men out after me already. Jacob does not deal well with betrayal. It’s slightly disturbing how fast they tracked me and how close he came to finding me. If the knight had had the sense of that other guy, the second one, I would be on my way back to the camp right now, I have no doubt. So why didn’t the second guy turn me in ? I’m certain he saw me, he looked right at me. But he left me be. I didn’t see Jacob's mark on him, maybe he doesn’t belong to the knights? But if he doesn’t belong to them then what was he doing out here, in the middle of the forest? Why was he following the knight ? Because I’m certain now that’s what he was doing. He wasn’t after me, apparently. He was stalking my stalker.