Minstrel

Chapter #4 ~ Creak/Riptide

"Are we almost there sir?" An infuriating young squire asked for what had to be the fifth time in the past hour. Why the boy was even on this trip, was a question Riptide often asked himself.

"For the first time today I can accurately answer that question with a yes," the squire's knight told the boy. "Less than one hours time and we should be there."

"Where is there exactly?" The boy questioned. "I don't see anything, but forests and grasslands."

Though Rip could fully agree with the boy that they were surrounded by only trees and planes of grass, he couldn't help but be irritated by the question. "Did you not listen at our briefing?" He enquired not even glancing back at the boy. "Too busy thinking about that girl of yours I suppose."

Rip didn't need to see the boy to know that red was rising to his face. All he talked about was his beautiful wife-to-be, Elizabeth. Her long, blond hair as soft as silk. Her eyes the blue-green of a tropical sea. Oh, how the boy loved her and never failed to remind everyone that she loved him as well.

A horse trotted up to Rip's side and the squire's knight, Jord, smacked him on the back. "Oh, don't be that way, Tide! Just because you're jealous doesn't mean you have to give the boy a hard time."

The smile that spread across Jord's face was contagious and Rip couldn't help but grin back as he playfully argued. "I'm not jealous of a young boy just hitting puberty."

"Really," Jord's disbelief evident in his voice. "I know I'm jealous." When Rip gave him a deadpan stare, he shook his head in amazement.

"Honestly man, will no pretty lady satisfy your tastes. You're what? Sixteen now? It's time to find you a wife, so you can feel the joys of love before a sword takes you in war."

Rip puckered his lips in distaste. He would know when the right woman came into his life and he was good and ready to put time into starting a family. Even though it was common in Florencia for a boy to marry at fifteen and frowned upon to wait much later, Rip refused to rush such a thing. He would marry when he knew it was right and so far he had never stumbled into the right girl.

"I'll marry when I find her," Rip told his fellow brothers in arms. Groans chorused through the group at hearing the same answer he always gave.

Rip just rolled his eyes and changed the subject. "Come on we have a mission to attended to and I'd like to get to Riverfall before its noon."
Not waiting for an answer from his group, Rip kicked his house into a gallop, letting the wind blow away his thoughts of marriage. He would find the right girl eventually, everyone would just have to wait.

*. *. *.

After her slight mental breakdown, Creak crawled to her feet with an idea already forming in her head. She knew she couldn't just sneak away before the knights came because doing so would put the people she loved in danger. If she just disappeared Valen and his family would surely be questioned on her whereabouts and possibly arrested for helping her. Not only that, if Stans came back to the village and the knights were there looking for her, they would take him in for questioning and probably kill him for treason.

No, she couldn't let others take the fall for her. She couldn't let anyone die for something she had done. If she couldn't just sneak off safely, then she would have to get the knights attention and make a big show of being the only one they were after. After convincing them that no one was helping her, she would make a dramatic escape and live the rest of life on the run.

"No you idiot," Gorgos piped up for the first time since Angel had appeared in the barn. "We're not going to live the rest of our life on the run. We're going to travel to the Arkenine Mountains and find this 'so called' Rebel Kingdom and our lovely elven friend."