Chapter 13 #2
Horland smiled at her reluctance to wake. If only he could believe her silly story. He gave himself a silent smack. None of what she said made sense, and he bristled to think she thought he would believe anything she said.
RESUMING THE SEARCH where he left off the night before, Horland couldn’t find any sign of the child. He gazed up and noted the canopy had thinned above them, which meant rain found its way to the earth more easily there. If any foot tracks were there, they were long erased.
They found a narrow much-used animal track not far from the clearing and decided to follow that. Horland kept an eye on the sun in the sky and once it was high enough knew they were travelling east.
Staying on course, he was overjoyed to find the animal track joined with the main thoroughfare through the forest.
“The ruins are not far from here,” he said, continuing along the road. “If we don’t find her before then, Princess Morla can use her third eye to find her location.”
Bree stopped. There had been something in her mother’s diary about Morla being some sort of seer. She wished now that she had read the diary again before venturing into the past. “Morla? What has she got to do with any of this? You said you never spoke to her.”
He halted and turned to face her. “I didn’t speak with her, but I was told she had brought provisions to the ruins. That is why I expect to find Garlain there.”
“Are you saying the entire royal family is hiding Garlain away? Why?”
“That is one of my many questions.” Horland continued on his way.
Briana trotted up to fall into step beside him. “Do you really think the princess is a seer?”
“No. But she does, so mayhap her hunches are more solid than ours might be.”
“Like she might have a sixth sense, or what we might call trusting your gut.”
He drew his brows together and studied her, wondering if indeed she may be mad.
“It’s a saying where I come from, and my aunt and uncle always told us to trust our gut. You must have had feelings about something before, like your stomach goes queasy or something just before something bad happens.”
Horland thought about that. He had felt something like that before. The most recent was when he happened upon the bandits—his stomach did tighten just before he came upon them.
“Hey,” Briana cried out. “Check this out.” She held up a long thread. “This looks a lot like the wool Sweetie’s coat was made out of, and the same color too.”
Horland took the thread and nodded. “It is similar.”
Briana snatched it back and hurried forward. “It’s more than similar, it’s exactly the same.”
They’d only gone several more steps before Briana beamed at Horland. “Look, another one. I told her a story about how a woman was kidnapped and left threads of her shawl so the man of her dreams could find her. I wonder if she tried to leave a trail so she could return to us.”
Horland frowned at the thread hanging from a low branch. If that were true, she would have returned and for the life of him, he couldn’t think of a reason a child of her age would go so far away from the only adults she knew there.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
Briana made a clicking noise with her mouth. “Yeah, I guess it was wishful thinking. The only other reason she would have left signs of her direction is if someone had taken her.” She nodded. “Just like Laura did.”
“Laura?”
“Yeah, that was the name of the woman in the story I told the girl.”
He ran up a small incline and in the valley before him lay the ruins of the old Castle Pradwick. “I agree. And it seems their destination is the old ruins.”
Briana joined him. “It’s beautiful.”
Horland regarded the vista before him. He had never thought of the ruins as beautiful but now that Briana had said so, he looked at the sight from her eyes.
The crumbling outer walls were covered with flowering vines.
Reds and pinks, so bright they stood out amongst the verdant foliage.
Blue and yellow, striking against the brown time-ravaged stone.
The main part of the castle he remembered was the great hall still stood intact, and the roof looked stable as the day as it was built.
The rampart walls surrounding the main building had only partly fallen, but everywhere flowing vines crawled over the stones and around the base, while shrubs of red and blue berries reveled in growing free.
Briana climbed a tree and sat on the second lowest branch. “I can’t see any movement but there’s a river behind it.”
“That is the river of Lorelle.”
“It’s wide.”
The last time Horland had been there was when he was fourteen summers old.
He, Garlain and some other boys and girls had sailed down the river that ran from Frother town, behind the old ruins, and through England to the sea.
The then captain of the guards, Garlain’s father, and his men had taken it upon themselves to teach the young people how to sail.
It was a wonderfully adventurous week. Although the hanging beds in the lower quarters of the ship were no place to spend the days, Horland and his friends were too tired by the end of the day to notice how cramped and smelly it was.
The ship stopped at the ruins and while the men slept aboard, the young people camped out in the great hall, taking turns to cook in the broken kitchen.
During the days, the guards taught them sword fighting and archery skills.
Garlain won every archery competition but Horland quickly took to the sword.
That late spring was the last time they had been children. Once they returned to town, each was given work tasks and became adults for all time.
Briana jumped from the lowest branch and startled Horland out of his reminisces.
“Do you think Morla or Garlain found the child?”
“Perhaps, but there is only one way to know for certain. We will go there directly.” He turned to retrace his steps.
“Wait.” She pointed down into the valley. “We can’t go that way?”
“No, it is deeper than it looks. We must follow the descent of the mountains and go around.”
“Great. Let’s go then.”
She trotted along the path and Horland called out behind her, “It is further than it looks.”
She stopped and turned back. “How far then?”
“It will take us at least a full day, but if the storms come, it will be longer.”
Her shoulders slumped and screwing up her nose, she grumbled, “Great.”
Horland tightened his mouth. The way her small nose crinkled when she wasn’t happy about something had the strangest effect on him.
He wanted to take her into his arms and tell her everything would be all right, but he had to stay wary when around her.
He had to control his urges and learn the real reason why she was there, why she wanted Patricia’s trinket.
Briana walked for a few paces and whipped her hand out at a passing branch, holding up another long thread. “Well, we’re going the right way at least.”
Horland was struck with a thought. The child couldn’t talk but she heard well enough. Therefore, she would have known the ruins were Horland’s destination, so why leave signs when it was all too clear they were on the right path?
“Hey, look.” Briana left the path and trotted past a line of shrubs, plucking something from each one as she passed.
She stopped and faced Horland. “Come here.”
Horland joined her and took the threads from her. “Why has she left the path?”
Briana pointed to the ground.
The dirt was scuffed but there were more than one child’s footprints there. “Someone is obviously with her.”
Horland peered at the footprints and nodded. “Someone with small leather-clad feet. It looks like she and whoever she is with decided to make a new path.”
Briana continued to follow the line of shrubs and every time she picked up a thread, she held it up so Horland could see.
Horland looked back at the path, frowned, and followed Briana.