章 150: Jaerys 4
293AC
The tent was wet.
The floor was muddy, slippery rock.
The cot he was trying to lay down in? Also wet.
'Thank the seven for sheep's-wool,' he thought to himself as he removed his slick black riding boots, dragging them off of his damp heels an inch at a time, quickly followed by his leggings.
He grimaced at the bottoms of his feet, wrinkled and uncomfortable after being pushed into his damp socks for hours and hours of riding in the miserable periods between the truly heavy rain.
It was the evening of the second day now, and they had only made it as far as they had intended to on the first after they had been forced to turn back by a mudslide which covered their expected path.
Most would have turned back to Great Gallows at that point, or else found shelter in one of the small coastal towns.
The Prince would not be dissuaded, and if anything seemed to find comfort in the rain. Even now as most of the men tended to the small fire they had made in the clearing where they had set their camps, he still stood out in the pouring water, looming down the side of the mountain as if he was trying to spot the ocean almost five miles below.
Jaerys would be more concerned if he wasn't so tired. Raising his aching and wrinkled feet up onto the bed so that they'd have time to decompress and regain their normal vigor, he grunted, sighing as he relaxed into his damp cot, thankful for the warmth offered even by his soaked wool blanket.
Shaking off the damp, he began to slip into an uneasy, and particularly wet sleep.
Only to be awoken by a screaming howl of the wind through the mountain passes, the whining of overstrained tent-flaps and the terrified neighing of the horses.
His tent was almost dragged away by the time he got to his feet, his shouting drowned out in the maelstrom gale that shook the very trees around them, bending the thinner pines as if they were grass, and forcing even the mightiest to shudder.
Even as he struggled to tear his tent down, forcing it to the muddy ground, he saw one of the other ones go flying, leaving its unfortunate occupant exposed, one of the surveyors looking particularly distressed in the pouring rain.
Once his gear was secured to the base of a tree, he turned towards the rest of the camp. The Horses seemed to be terrified, but thankfully had not broken loose of their bonds just yet, as long as they were kept it didn't matter.
That thought secured he turned to look for Prince Arthur, and a shock of panic struck him as he realized his charge was nowhere in sight.
Was he still out overlooking the mountainside when the wind hit? How long had he even been asleep?
Time was near impossible to tell in the dark of night and the pouring rain.
Terror filling him with new strength, he made his way out of the clearing, pushing against the wind, step by step in the pulverizing rain that seemed to want to splatter him against the slick rocks like an insect.
Still, even with his ears ringing, and his eyes squinted to thin lines against the oncoming water, he started to hear laughter.
It started soft and grew louder with time as he approached its source until he recognized it for what it was. The Prince, his charge, sitting out at the edge of the rock face, laughing in the blast of the storm. His riding cape was flapping with such intensity that it seemed it ought to be strangling the boy, and his hair, normally precisely combed, was blown back into a damp mess.
It seemed madness had overtaken him, until he stopped laughing for a moment, turning back to face Jaerys.
"Your Grace" the knight tried to shout over the wind, though he doubted the boy could hear.
The Prince for his part stood from the cliff edge and began to walk towards him, stumbling only a little in the wind, as if it seemed to have less hold over him until he was right beside Jaerys and they could finally talk over the screaming blast and the sideways-falling rain which accompanied it.
"I don't think the Island wants to be tamed very much." He chuckled spitting out rainwater. "Not that I intend to give it a choice."
"Your Grace?" Jaerys questioned, blinking at the young man who would concern himself with such things in the midst of a storm such as this.
The boy turned to him and smiled lightly. "Don't worry about it, only thinking aloud. This trip was exactly what I needed after all."
Jaerys nodded slightly, if it wasn't his business then it wasn't his business.
Still, the Prince's next words very much fell under his business.
"Take the survey team and return to Great Gallows. I need to press onwards, and I know where I need to go. I can see it through the clouds."
Despite the eerie nature of the prince's words, his command was absolute, and it was his duty to follow the Prince.
And yet...
"No."
Prince Arthur turned in his direction, and Jaerys could swear that his eyes flashed with lightning.
"What."
Jaerys sighed, the tone conveyed an order to explain himself, and thus he would do so.
"Send the survey team back if you will, but My life is sworn to your protection, and you are no great warrior to protect yourself yet your grace. A bit of ill weather will not kill me."
The Prince looked at him for a moment before turning his gaze back towards the north of the island.
"The weather is not what worries me…"
The young man who he had served for years seemed to think for a moment before nodding finally.
"Tell the men they are to return to Great Gallows. You may accompany me if you wish, but I will not waste the lives of educated men in a quest that may yet prove more hazardous still."
Jaerys smiled, happy that his loyalty was acknowledged.
"Yes, Your Grace."
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