Chapter 3 Forest Folk and a Sob Story
Forest Folk and a Sob Story
Day two hundred and fifty-six
Dear Diary,
Back on the move again. I’ve avoided the main roads and haven’t yet dared enter any villages.
I will have to eventually, since my food supplies are running low, and you can only eat so many scorched rabbits before you start to hate yourself.
My goal is to travel as far south as I can.
I know there’s eventually a sea. I’ll pay a boat to take me somewhere else.
Anywhere else. I’ll let Benjamin pick. Somehow Ravana is guessing where I’m headed, and I’m a little alarmed by her accuracy.
Bleat!
“Not now, Sweetheart.” He nudged Sweetheart gently aside before the little goat could chomp on his journal pages.
By the fire Pumpkin had curled up on his cloak like a little pill bug, looking adorable as always, and— Damn it, he couldn’t name them Sweetheart and Pumpkin.
Who was he, a matronly woman of sixty who crocheted pink tablecloths for a living?
Baby Goat One and Baby Goat Two would have to suffice for now, at least until he got the chance to think straight. It’d been eight long days since he’d fled his homestead, and seven long nights of camping out in thick forest and watching the darkness for any sign of humans.
The soldiers, unfortunately, had caught his trail a few miles from his homestead.
It was foolish of him, truly, because he’d been out in a sugar beet field where they just happened to spot him fuming and pitching a fit: they’d lit his cottage on fire, and the thick plume of smoke rose up like a black, taunting banner.
Why burn down a perfectly good house? Out of all the faults that his—scratch that, Ravana’s—men had, this was one of the worst. They scorched houses, roadside inns, and villages with all the excitement of a child who’d discovered matchsticks for the first time, which drove him mad to no end.
He’d spoken to them several times about the logistics of how such behavior serviced no one, and economically damaged his kingdom rather than helped it.
“If our goal here is to conquer a village for its people and resources, how can we do that if we chase out the people and burn down the resources?” he’d snap at them upon hearing of another township that had met the lick of a thousand flames.
“I don’t want to rule a kingdom dotted with burn marks!
I want to rule a kingdom thriving in economic bliss! ”
Morfran knew he had his quirks, sure, to the point that beheadings had become a trademark of his, but even he considered pillaging a special sort of stupid.
He closed his journal and tucked it into his pack to prevent Baby Goat One from making a meal out of it.
Admittedly, it was rather foolish of him to carry around a written document that’d alert anyone who read it of his true identity.
But he wrote in old language for security purposes; most people in the kingdom couldn’t read old language.
On the rare occasion someone could and did find his diary, he’d made sure the first three pages were the driest of compositions: a dissertation on the early-age husbandry of brussels sprouts.
He settled back against a tree, weary. The forest he’d been camping in for the past three days—which he’d creatively dubbed Elmswood, for all of its elm trees—was thick, black, and to be honest, eerie.
His nighttime fire gave off all the light of a distant star, and he hadn’t seen or heard any sign of woodland creatures since entering. No squirrels, no birds, no crickets.
Nothing to see meant nothing to hunt, which meant nothing to eat.
While Benjamin gorged on a plump bush, Morfran nibbled on a mushy apple core he’d saved for dinner, wishing he’d taken more time to listen to his court herbalist on which plants were edible and which weren’t.
The way his luck was going, he’d probably eat a mushroom that’d give him explosive bowel issues before killing him.
He really should get some sleep. He was sure he’d lost Ravana’s men before entering Elmswood, and even if they were in here with him, the place was a congested mess of tree roots tangled together above ground like a mass of snakes, and everything looked the same. It’d be difficult to track him by foot.
He set his unsheathed sword atop his knee, leaned back his head, and allowed himself to lower his eyelids. He hadn’t truly slept for over a week. Just for an hour or so, that’s all I need. Just a few hours…
The noise that woke him sometime later was not a goat bleat. It’d sounded like voices whispering somewhere near. He scrambled up to his feet, groggy, bleary-eyed, sword in hand, already in a defensive stance.
Benjamin’s and her babies’ heads were raised, their beady yellow eyes scanning the forest. Yes, something…someone…was there. He swished his blade with a fancy flourish, announcing in his most commanding voice, “I know you’re there. If you value your life, you’ll come out right now.”
Nothing. He scowled. That usually worked.
It couldn’t be Ravana’s men. They wouldn’t sneak up on him.
They’d have fired an arrow to incapacitate him, and he’d be halfway back home to the tri-city area of Warchesterlestermestershire (pronounced Warshire) by then.
Which meant…what? There were no settlements in Elmswood.
He’d have sent men to conquer them if there were.
It could be haunted. It looked the part. And having to fight ghosts would certainly fit his bad luck streak.
“Are we really going to play this game?” he called out, squinting into the darkness. It looked close to dawn, with the slightest green tint of wan sunlight illuminating the wiry branches of the elms. He swished his sword again. “If so, I’ll have you know I’m an expert at hide-and-seek—”
It came from above. A heavy weight knocked him right onto his stomach, flattening him against the moss-and-spider-infested ground.
It partially blocked his vision, too, and as he flailed against it, sinewy arms held fast. It took him a few embarrassing seconds to realize he was fighting a net of rope.
“Woo!” A voice—casual and distinctly not a ghost, whooped from somewhere in the trees above. “I got him! And on the first try, too. Dibs on the goat, Bronwen.”
Benjamin. With difficulty, he strained around to scan his campsite for Beni. She had to be close if they’d spotted her. Was she all right? Were her kids?
The tree branch above him crackled. Someone came landing down with easy grace just a few steps from his head. Morfran caught sight of muddy boots and green skirts before he raised his gaze higher to meet eyes with a glaring woman.
“Keep the goat.” Her voice was steel. “I only want him.”
Morfran had never been bound and kept prisoner before.
The fact that these two peasants had accomplished the impossible was, frankly, humiliating.
They’d unwrapped him from the netting, tied his hands behind his back, and stolen his gear in record time.
He couldn’t even fight back. He was sluggish and slow, his vision blurry and doubling from sleep deprivation, and twice there appeared to be more than two of them.
The woman had kicked him in the ribs to get him to rise, and to rise now.
“I am rising,” he argued.
“Not fast enough,” she replied curtly, before grabbing Beni’s leash, scooping Baby Goats One and Two in her arms, and striding ahead, her long plait of brown hair swaying with each step.
The man walked behind him, holding Morfran’s sword against Morfran’s back, which was incentive to walk stiff and straight and without fuss.
Morfran only spoke when he saw Baby Goat Two squirming in the woman’s arm, and she in turn huffed and tried to adjust its weight, too carelessly for his liking.
“If you drop or hurt any of my pets, I’ll maim you in your sleep.”
“How?” she asked. “With your hands tied behind your back? Are you that skilled of a fighter?” She turned her head, so he only caught sight of her profile. “Or should we make it a real challenge and tie your feet together, too?”
“We could blindfold ’im as well,” the man said. “Though he’d probably end up headbutting a wall trying to kill us and hurt himself, the poor fellow.”
Poor fellow? Did they dare believe that he, Morfran, Dark Lord of Ruthven?, would be so unskilled as to headbutt a wall in an attempt to kill them—
He shut his mouth before he said something stupid.
They would believe that, because they didn’t know who he was.
He was dressed as a commoner after all, loaded down with three goats, lost in woods in the kingdom’s boonies.
Not to mention that Ravana had apparently ordered her men not to announce his disappearance.
Everyone besides Ravana’s most trusted men would still believe him to be at Castle Atrago, ordering the pillaging of villages and beheading court traitors from his sanctuary.
This could be good. Perhaps they were forest dwellers just suspicious of outsiders. Perhaps if he just convinced them he was a mere peasant down on his luck, they’d—
“Say, is this really your lute?” The man shuffled through his pack. “Would you be open to parting with it?”
Morfran spun around. Damn the wrist bindings. He’d kick the man to death if he had to. If he saw what else was in that pack—namely the journal and a certain pair of tight black pants…
The man already had the sword raised and propped against Morfran’s sternum.
“Leave his bag alone, Hugh.” The woman had stopped and turned. “We’ll search it when we return home.”
Morfran tossed a seething look at the man before staring her down.
She had the appearance of a serf: a simple leather bodice over dirt-smeared skirts, mucky boots, and a messy plait hopelessly trying to keep her hair under control.
But despite her being a peasant, there was something unpeasant-ish about her.
It was the unexpected sharp edge to her doe-like eyes, something that told him not to disregard her anytime soon.