章 418: Close Call
"No!" The princess sat up straight. Taking the weapon from Junayd, Mairwen inspected it closer to the light.
"Does it belong to the prince?" The advisor asked carefully.
Mairwen ran her finger over the silver gilding of the pommel. Her voice was thin. "This was my wedding present to Renat; it is the traditional gift a royal bride gives."
"Was it in his pack?" Junayd tried to stay neutral even as his mind was running through all the possibilities.
Shaking her head, the princess inhaled deeply to steady herself. "It would have been in his belt next to his sword."
"It is up far from the water," Eira looked around in the darkness. "I don't think the water came up this high. Someone carried it here."
"Renat did. He was here." the princess's hand tightened its grip.
"Mairwen," Alaron wanted to tell his sister not to get her hopes up too high, but Junayd was nodding.
"I agree with the princess. I think the young man came up the embankment. And then he used his knife to defend himself." The advisor looked at the dried blood with a solemn expression.
"Against what? The lizards?" The blue-eyed woman suddenly remembered the green monsters which had chased them toward Oblivion. Since her husband had disappeared, she had not given the creatures a second thought.
"Considering how much the grass was grown over the knife, it's possible that the encounter happened right after the storm. May I?" Junayd held out his hand for the weapon.
Reluctantly, the princess passed over her husband's possession. Holding it had brought a myriad of emotions, but letting go was even more difficult. Junayd took his own knife and scraped a fleck of dried blood from the other blade. He examined it, including taking a sniff.
"Phew," he pulled his nose away quickly, "that smells all too familiar. It smells just like the wolves that the Emperor and Hanna killed at the palace. It is quite distinct. Smell!" He thrust the knife toward Alaron, who ducked away before the blade could accidentally touch him.
"I trust you," the Guardian said hastily as he took a few steps backward, careful not to drop the flame in his hand. "And anyway we haven't experienced the wolves ourselves, so I would not be able to agree or disagree."
Mairwen stood and began to walk away from the group as she thought. "You said Father warned you of an attack by the wolves. How could the wolves have gotten here so quickly from Valiant? Unless they were already here."
The princess's heart began to race as she processed the implications. If Renat's knife was here, bloodied, but he was not, that could not mean anything good. Something had caused him to leave it behind.
"Renat!" she yelled into the darkness. Alaron passed the torch to Eira and chased after his fleeing sister. Mairwen ran into the night, yelling her husband's name over and over.
'She's fast when she's acting crazy,' Alaron kept his thoughts to himself as he tried to find his sister by locating her voice. The moon had not yet risen, and the increasing number of trees kept the few stars from being helpful in his quest.
Even with his keen eyesight, he was having trouble following Mairwen's erratic weaving. At least, it seemed erratic at first. When the Guardian focused, he could sense a pattern in her movement.
He slowed his pace slightly and tried to anticipate the Princess's movement instead of reacting to it. With precision, Alaron pressed into his speed and tackled his sister to the ground. They fell into a heap, tangled together in The Guardian's cloak.
"Renat would not want you to do this to yourself. You have to stop," Alaron said firmly when Mairwen tried to twist out of his grasp.
"You cannot make me!" The woman thrashed against him.
"Actually I can. I'm a lot stronger than you these days." He told her. "That is due in part to your hard work to save me. Now I am going to do the same. We are going back to Oblivion for the night."
The Guardian hoisted his sister over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Mairwen continued to resist.
"But he's out there. I know it."
Tears dripped onto Alaron's cloak. However, he remained calm. "I believe that is true. But if you run yourself ragged in the darkness, he is not the only one who will need saving. Remember who else is likely out here in the darkness. Why with all your screaming it is a miracle that--"
The Guardian froze. All around them, there were no animal sounds. No owls or crickets. No rustling in the brush. Only silence.
"They are out there, and they are coming." The man's eyes flashed as he heard the agile footfalls.
At that moment, the moon rose over the side of the mountain and bathed the landscape in a light shade of blue. It would have been beautiful had it not revealed a horrific sight.
Through the trees, a pack of deranged wolf creatures led by a gangly brown wolf was barreling toward them. The front wolf, which was on all fours to run faster, howled ominously, leading those behind him to do the same.
"Put me down, we need to run," Mairwen said, quickly coming to her senses. A part of her still wanted to find her husband, but she did not think that casually asking the hideous beasts if they had seen him was the best course of action.
Alaron set his sister on the ground and took her hand. Together they ran full speed back towards the boat.
"Did you have to run so far?" Alaron huffed, pulling Mairwen along while also trying not to dislocate her arm.
"Sorry," she answered genuinely. "I've caused quite a mess! Junayd, Eira, get the boat! We are coming!" The last part was yelled as a warning.
The wolves behind were getting closer by the moment. In fact the chocolate leader, which was quite a few lengths in front of the rest, was nearly upon them. He was foaming at the mouth from exhaustion, his eyes trained on them with one intention.
Alaron thrust his sister ahead of him and turned on his heels. The wolf was too close for an arrow to have much effect. Instead, Alaron pulled out two bolas from his cloak. The first he aimed at the wolf's mouth, and a split second later, the second string wound around the creature's front legs.
The brown wolf whimpered as the stones crashed into his snout and then stumbled, falling to the ground as the second weapon stopped his forward pursuit.
Alaron did not wait to see how the other wolves would react to their leader being taken down. With lighting fast agility, he was already back even with Mairwen and urging her forward.
The downward slope of the mountain gave way to the bowl of the valley. The moon reflected off the water's edge, forming a mirror sky below.
Eira and Junayd had pushed the rowboat off the shore. They waited inside the small floating safe haven. "Hurry!" they urged. As neither of them had a bow, they could do nothing more to help the others except be ready at the oars.
Mairwen stumbled, losing one of the dainty slippers that had been acquired while she was in Oblivion. She had no time to muse on how useless feminine shoes were in a fight, but the realization of how many slippers she had lost in battle did cross her mind.
Seeing his sister struggle as they reached the hard, rocky shore, Alaron hoisted the princess into his arms like a child and leapt. They landed in the front of the boat, which banged against the shallow part of the moutain's rocky shore.
For a moment, the front of the boat seemed like it might splinter from the sudden impact, but it held. Mairwen fell into the laps of the rowers, but recovered quickly and slipped to the back of the watercraft.
"Row!" Alaron gave the unnecessary order. Sticking his foot out of the boat, he gave one last push against the land to get them into open water. At last they were putting distance between themselves and the cursed creatures.
Even though the torch had been put out, the moonlight was enough to see the hoard as it approached the shore. There were so many of them!
The chocolate brown wolf was still lumbering in front of the pack, though his speed had been greatly reduced by moving on only two legs. He had managed to remove the bola from around his front paws, but he was struggling to free himself of the one wrapped tightly around his mouth and neck.
In a last ditch effort to catch the escapees, the brown wolf lunged through the air and caught the edge of the bow with his claws before it could turn around. The boat rocked wildly, threatening to tip over. Thinking quickly, Alaron used his foot, which was not all the way back inside, and slammed it into the wolf's wet nose.
The brown wolf's eyes went wide as it was wracked with pain. Instinctively, it's paws flew to it's injured snout and released the wooden side of the ship.
The row boat turned swiftly, and sped toward the opposing bank of the valley. Then, when the group was sure there would be no more pursuit, they turned southward and headed back to the stalwart fortress of Oblivion.
It had been a close call.
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