Chapter 6
2030 Words
6
“Exactly,” he confirmed as we hurried through the woods.
The twinkling stars were of no use to me as I stumbled across rock and root. Shade, however, had an apt name as he flitted through the shadows with the ease of an owl gliding in the night. I tripped over a large rock and fell onto the fern-covered ground.
Shade still clasped my hand and pulled me to my feet. “We need to keep moving.”
“I. . .I can’t,” I gasped as I yanked my hand out of his grasp. “I need. . .I need to-” I froze as I felt something warm drip down my hand. My fingers shook as I raised my hand to my face. Smeared blood covered my palm and digits. My mouth fell open and I whipped my head up to Shade. “You’re hurt.”
He turned away, but I noticed he held his arm very stiffly. “It’s nothing.”
“Of course it’s something,” I protested as I skirted around to his front and looked him over. The pallor of his face stood out in the darkness. “We need to get you somewhere to rest.”
That yellow eye of his flitted over my face. There was confusion in its depths, and maybe just a little weariness. He nodded in the direction in front of us. “There is an inn a few miles from here.”
“Won’t they find it when it’s so close to the-um, stump?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Not this one, but we must hurry or they will follow our trail.”
I grabbed his hand and tugged him in the direction he had indicated. “Come on. I don’t want to try to explain to those three pigs why I blew down their houses.”
We trudged over the uneven ground for what felt like a lifetime, but eventually the forest opened and we found ourselves beside a wagon path. “Which way?” I asked him.
“This way,” he instructed me as he took the lead again and pulled me leftward.
We hurried down the path and within half a mile had arrived at a crossroads. A lamp stood at the intersection keeping watch over the four roads. There was one thing missing from this scene.
“Where’s the inn?” I asked my compatriot.
He released me and strode over to the lamp. It was a plain oil lamp that hung from a thick pole bent into a crook at the last foot. Shade tapped the glass three times and stepped away.
“Right here,” he announced.
I opened my mouth to object, but a shimmer of movement appeared off the road and a hundred feet from where we stood. A shape formed out of the shimmering air and a three floor monstrosity of a building appeared before us. The walls were made of thick logs larger than my arm spread. The windows were many and of various shapes and sizes. No two were the same, and neither were the corners of the structure. Square boxed rooms stuck out at odd spots on all the floors and the roof was a menagerie of chimneys and different types of roofing tiles and shingles.
I gaped at the inn and pointed a shaking finger at the structure. “Where did that come from?”
“It was always there,” Shade informed me as he proceeded toward the inn. “It’s just a little shy until you knock politely.”
I shrugged and followed after him. The bright lights of the inn fell over us and I could hear the sound of jovial, drunk laughter. Shade opened the heavy wooden door and we were awash in the festivities. A pair of men stumbled back from the opening, drinks in hand and their voices off tune as they sang together in hideous disharmony.
We stepped inside and the door slammed shut behind me. I jumped and nearly crashed into a large curtain. Then the curtain squealed.
“Well well!” the curtain cooed as a thick arm reached out and pinched my cheek. “Who do we have here?”
I pulled back and looked up. The curtain was a woman some seven feet tall who wore a flowered dress over her huge frame. She had curly brown hair that trailed down her back for some three feet and ended in a short tail. A huge smile showed that her kindness matched her girth. Her thick arms balanced three trays apiece, and on each of them were four tankards brimming over with mead.
Shade joined us and inclined his head to the large woman. “Good evening, Margaret.”
Margaret’s eyes widened and her smile widened even more, a feat I thought impossible. “Shade, you ol’ rascal!”
She shoved the trays into the unwitting arms of two passersby who stumbled beneath their welcomed burden and crashed into each other in the background as Margaret opened her arms wide. She enveloped Shade in a hug that popped more than a few vertebrae
“A welcome to you, too, Margaret,” he gasped between strained breaths. He managed to wiggle out of her grasp and stepped back shoulder to shoulder with me. His clothes were mussed and I couldn’t help but notice his bandages weren’t quite as straight as they had previously been. “We are in need of some drink and a few beds.”
Margaret looked down at his person and her smile fell faster than a rock over a cliff. She stabbed a finger at his shoulder. “What’s that there?”
Shade lay his hand over the wound and shook his head. “Nothing you need be concerned-”
“Come on,” she commanded as she grabbed his arm and dragged him through the crowds to the rear of the building. She glanced over her shoulder at me and jerked her head toward the back. “Hurry along there, missy, afore these sharks bite!”
I scurried after them, avoiding leering glances and more than one attempted slap on my behind. The ground floor was divided in two by a wall, and the kitchen and living accommodations for the workers occupied the rear. A long hallway lay down the marker between the kitchen and linen cleaning room on the left, and two halls led to small rooms on the right. The passage was dimly lit with flickering oil lamps, but the wonderful smells and ringing laughter that floated out of the kitchen dulled the cold darkness in the corners and chased away thoughts of the bare boards squeaking under our feet as we made our way to the very center of the rear.
A single door stood off the passage and Margaret kicked it open with her boot. She strode inside and I followed. We stood in a large room that stretched to nearly the exterior wall of the inn. There were no windows, but two doors on either side and one at the back led to the surrounding passages.
The contents of the room, too, were an oddity. There was a wide cot in one corner with a simple nightstand beside its headboard, but only a few feet away stood a counter with all sizes of vials and beakers filled with all manner of substances. An impressive assortment of weapons stood at the ready to our immediate left and in the corner. Shelves filled with glass jars covered the right corner, and their contents were a whats-what in herbs and grasses, the scents of which filled the room with a sweet herbal smell.
“Now sit down here,” Margaret ordered as she dragged and dropped Shade onto the bed. She went about tinkering with the cupboard beneath the vials, but that didn’t stop her from talking. “Where’d you find yer lady friend, Shade? She’s a nice looking thing.”
“In the woods,” he replied as his eye flickered over to me. I took that as a warning and sauntered over to the herbs.
Margaret snorted. “I’ve dealt with enough swindlers to know when someone’s lying, Shade.” She drew out a small box and turned to him. A smile curled onto her lips. “Even you, master deceiver.”
“It would be better if you didn’t know,” Shade warned her.
Margaret stood and laughed. “Or what? Somebody will come and get me?” She tossed the box on the bed beside him and folded her arms over her ample chest. “Now if you’re going to be Mr. Mysterious tonight then you can fix yerself. I’ve got a bunch of miscreants to babysit.” She stalked out of the room, but as she passed by she gave me a wink.
Shade grabbed the box and slid it into his lap. He opened the lid and revealed an assortment of bandages and disinfectants. I watched as he drew out the needed supplies, but his wounded arm turned out to be his dominant. He fumbled with the roll of bandages, but his shaking hands made him drop the wrappings onto the floor. The bandages rolled across the ground.
Shade rolled his eye and rummaged through the rest of the box. I strode over to the roll and scooped it up on the way to the bed where I held the bandages out to him. He looked up and his eye darted from the roll to my face. I gave him a smile and shrugged. “I thought you might need some help.”
“Are you qualified?” he asked me.
I snorted. “Well, I was a Girl Scout for a while.” He continued to look at me with that unblinking gaze. “But I suppose being from another world you wouldn’t know what that is, would you?” Again there was the silence. I shrugged and knelt down in front of him. “Anyway, this is the least I can do for you saving me.” I paused and looked up at him. “You did save me, right? I’m not going to find out that you’re a slave trader fighting another slave trader for ugly females, am I?”
He studied me for a long moment before he turned his face away. “You’re not ugly.”
I laughed as I unrolled the bandages. “Bummer. I could have fetched a high price and lived a life of luxury in some rich guy’s house.”
“Or worse. . .” he murmured.
“Don’t ruin the mood,” I scolded him as I grabbed his sleeve and pulled it up.
Shade jerked back and grabbed his arm with his other hand. I frowned at him. “I have to take your coat off to bandage your shoulder, or do you want me to mummify your arm?”
His yellow eye showed very little emotion, but he finally shrugged off his coat. He wore a long-sleeved black shirt under the coat that disappeared under his similarly dark glove. There was a cut where the knives of the piggish men had slashed open the shirt. Pale flesh peeked of the gashes.
I arched an eyebrow. “Weren’t you wearing something metal?”
“No.” He removed the glove and shirt, and I couldn’t help but admire the healthy abs.
“You don’t get much sun, do you?” I commented as I looked over his extreme pallor.
“No.”
I shrugged and got to work with the wound. The ball of light had singed his shoulder and left a round scorch mark. Now that his clothes had been removed, the scent of burnt flesh wafted over the room. I tried not to gag as I soaked a small cloth with the disinfectant.
“This might hurt a little,” I warned him.
“I’m ready for it,” he assured me.
Oh, the temptation. A mischievous grin slipped onto my face, and the next moment I slapped the cloth on the wound. The flesh sizzled and a yelp came out of his bandage-covered lips. He jerked back and whipped his head around to glare at me with that bright yellow eye.
I held up my hands in front of me, but the corners of my lips twitched upward. “You said you were ready for it.”
His gaze lingered on me for a while before he turned away. “Get on with it.” I grinned and raised the cloth for another smack down. “With more ease this time around.”
I sighed, but gently applied the cloth to his wound. There was much less sizzling effects than the first time, and another dab and I dared reach for the bandages. My Girl Scout days were long behind me, but I tried my best and was moderately satisfied with the results.
Shade rotated his arm and nodded. “That will do.”
“What was it that guy hit you with, anyway?” I asked him as I slid back so he could put his clothes back on.
“Magic.”
- Writer
