The thought of laying in wait for the three villains fled Loflan’s mind as he hurried to do whatever Maude instructed him. Time seemed to drag and fly by at the same time. Finally, several hours after dusk her fever broke and her breathing evened out. Loflan sighed with relief and fell into a chair by the bed. He rested his head in his hands. He hadn’t felt this tired in a long time. This mental exhaustion was worse than any physical. He would rather run a thousand miles than feel so helpless again as she thrashed and moaned. She looked so broken and bruised. Several times he just knew she was dying but somehow she had pulled through.
“Who?” A hoarse, feeble voice tried to ask.
Loflan’s head snapped up. He must have fallen asleep because his neck was stiff and the sudden jerk sent sharp pains radiating through his neck.
Maude jumped out of her chair and was next to her in a flash. He couldn’t tell if Maude had been sleeping too.
“You are safe, little one.” Maude said to her in hushed tones.
Her eyes darted frantically around the room. They found Loflan. He had just a moment to register that under her swollen and bruised eyelids, her eyes were a russet color before she made a whimpering noise and closed her eyes tight. She started to struggle with her coverings trying to move back as far from him as she could. Loflan understood and disappeared out of the room.
“Shhhh little one. He is gone now. Do not worry about him, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Maude crooned in a motherly voice.
Loflan laughed as he sat down by the fire. He took a deep breath and pulled the magic from the air. This was mundane magic so the air felt cool as it raced through his body and filled his lungs. His eyes became vacant and devoid of the brightness they usually held. Loflan pushed his vision into the small mirror set above hearth in his bedroom. The mirror, like most everything in Loflan’s house was bound to him by a little of his blood so it readily accepted the intrusion. He chose the mirror because it gave him a clear view of the bedroom and more importantly, the bed itself. Seeing through his bound objects was tricky and dangerous. He was still in his body but his vision was not so he had no idea what was going on around his body. Loflan did not like feeling vulnerable in any way so he did not use this skill often.
Loflan could see Maude sitting next to the bedside table on the right side of the bed. She was holding a cup to the woman’s lips for her to drink. Loflan gathered more magic to him and pushed most of his hearing into the candlestick on the bedside table. The sounds in the room opened up to him.
“There, there little one. You are doing fine. Drink just a bit more of this water and then you can rest some more.” Maude was whispering to her.
“Who ahre ooo?” she asked. Her voice was so hoarse it was barely audible.
“Who am I?” Maude asked.
She nodded.
“Why my name is Maude and that handsome gentleman you saw earlier is Loflan. And who might you be?”
She drank more water before she answered. “E-lay-tha.” She drew out each syllable in an effort to make them distinct.
“Elatha.” Maude said contemptually. “I have never heard it before. I like it.” She smiled sweetly. It made her wrinkles smooth out and she looked like she could really be the harmless sweet old lady she pretended to be. “Now that is enough talk for now little one. Now it is time for rest.”
Elatha nodded to her and lay back upon her pillows and closed her eyes. It was not long before her breathing became even as sleep took her. Whether she fell asleep on her own or if Maude had helped her he couldn’t tell.
Maude looked up into the mirror. “No use in wasting so much energy to watch a girl sleep.” Maude said with an upraised eyebrow.
Loflan pulled his senses back to him and smiled.
****
Elatha of the Southlands slept soundly all through the night and into the next morning. Maude knew Loflan was up and about because she felt a whisper of him inside the mirror again. He did not linger long. She sent out her own magic and found him. He was on his training platform as he liked to call it. There was a trail that went a good distance up Sorsen if not all the way to it’s summit. About a quarter of the way up it branched off and lead back down to a platform of rock that jutted out over the tops of an outcropping of trees. This is where Loflan went every morning to train.
Maude’s magic was of a kind that did not always need binding to work. She sent her vision out to no particular place, just the general area where Loflan was playing with his sword. He was wearing close fitting pants that flared slightly mid calf and boots. That was it. Being above him in her current viewpoint Maude saw his lean muscled shoulders and corded arms flexing as he worked on his draw. His scabbard was straped to his back and he was drawing Banisher and resheathing it in a blur of motion. He was practicing his greatest strength. The running attack. As she had guessed soon Loflan began running. The platform was more long than wide so he had ample room to run, unsheathe Banisher and preform an areial jump while slicing the unseen enemy’s head off. He turned and proceeded to twist and turn and spin all the while slicing an invisible army to ribbons. His hard muscled chest was driping with sweat when he stopped at the point in which he had started his attack. He squatted, legs apart and rocked from side to side warming up his thighs. Loflan’s ability to run fast was a new one even to Maude. She never before came across a man who run at top speed and to such great distances without tiring out. The fabric of his pants strained against his thighs as he rocked a moment more. Then he began to run. About midway across the exspanse he suddenly stopped and looked up directly at the point in which Maude was watching him.
Well done. She thought as she looked down at his handsome face. His hair was slick with sweat but he still looked radiant to her. If she had ever been able to have a son, this would have been what she would have wanted. Handsome, brave, loyal to a fault and ruthless.
She brought herself back to the bedroom not a minute before the girl’s eyes opened.
****
Elatha looked at the old woman wearily. She was whispering nonsense to her again. She wondered who this lady thought she was fooling with her smiles and nods. She wasn’t buying the act. This woman may look like a little old lady with her whispy grey hair that would not stay under her little silk cap, her lined face and slightly stooped posture but Elatha knew there was something more to her. Her eyes gave it away. They were the color of quicksilver and sometimes she swore she saw is shift and swirl like oil on the surface of water.
She tuned in to whatever it was she was saying for a minute to see if it was anything important besides her usual blathering. She knew she should be grateful to them, the old woman and the man. She was just so broken and so…..so angry. She really just wanted to be alone to cry in peace. She slept so much that when she woke she wanted to try to think and clear her head but the old woman was always there, wiping her face, making her drink some water or vile tasting potion or helping her to relieve herself which was so frustrating and degrading.
All at once Elatha noticed the room was silent. Fear and panic slammed into her chest. Was something wrong? She turned to see Maude studying her.
“I get the feeling you would rather me shut up? Yes?” Maude asked her.
Elatha smiled and it hurt. She nodded.
“Do you want me to leave?” Maude asked.
Panic rose up in her chest at the thought of being alone. She wanted to speak but it hurt too much so she shook her head.
Maude nodded at her. “I understand. I will be right here if you need me. I only want you to know you are safe and that I am here for you. I understand your not wanting to be fussed over. I wouldn’t either. I just didn’t know how you would be.” Maude smiled at her and retired to a chair in the far corner of the room.
It was the same chair the man had sat in. Maude may say he was harmless but he sure didn’t look like it to her. A handsomer man she had never seen but a man with a more menacing air about him she had never seen either. He looked as if he could charm you while he ran you through with the enormous sword attached to his belt. His eyes were like smoke and where Maudes swirled his seemed to smoulder like a fire.
She wanted to cry but her eyes were too swollen. She wanted to scream but her throat was raw from it. She wanted to run but her ankles were broken. She could not believe this nightmare was really her life and now she was certain she was in a house full of Sorsenian witches. She had never been near witches before or even knew what they looked like but she felt that they were. All of the warnings drilled into her as a child from her professors and parents came back to her. Anyone above our border is a witch. All witches are evil and not to be trusted. That is why we live here, safe and protected from their taint. It had been especially important to teach the people of Colostra because it was the royal city and so near the border. If an attack were to come it would certainly come to them.
From all the terrible stories and warnings ever told to her she never heard of a group of witches saving any one.
“They must think I am from here.” she thought. “What will they do once they find out I am a south Escapian?”
This thought troubled her many a day while nightmares of her three assailants haunted her by night.
Chapter 6
“I don’t understand it.” Maude said as she made afternoon tea.
“You don’t get what?” Loflan inquired.
“Why did they come back?”
“Who?”
“Our three Queen’s guardsman.”
It had been nearly three weeks since he had found Elatha. Loflan had been so busy preparing the house for the impending winter and to make it comfortable for two women that her captors had not been foremost in his mind. Though he knew that would slowly change as time went on. His vow would soon start to haunt him and get worse until Banisher sliced them in two.
“I believe they were to travel farther into Sorsenia but decided to only go four days for whatever reason. They left her body on the side of the road where she would be found. I believe they knew the usual practice of us Sorsenians and so knew we would burn her body when she was found. They waited in town for news of her demise. When they got it, they left.”
“So you believe they were really acting on orders.” Maude said.
Loflan nodded. “Yes. They wouldn’t care where they dropped her otherwise. They would have just had their way with her and dropped her on the other side of the border.”
“Elatha’s vocal cords are healing well. She talkes quite plainly now. I do not ask her about her past and she doesn’t offer me any information willingly. I believe I am ready to hear her side of the story. I want to know if she really is a theif though I would bet my life she is not."
There was a silence between them as Maude took the kettle off the stove.
"I like her.” Maude confessed as she poured the tea into three earthenware cups. “She does not give way to grief nor have I heard her complain. Well she only complains when I fuss over her. I think she is either strong willed or a simpleton. She does not say much though I know that by now she can. Tonight after supper I plan to engage her in more serious conversation.”
“I will be sure to listen in.” Loflan said and winked.
“You do that.”
****
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