Blade of Erogrund

Chapter 30- Footfalls

"We're almost there. Just another half mile or so."

Ephraun's soft words were carried to where Godric rode behind Matthias by the faintest breeze that blew past them as a result of their horses' quickened pace.

No one made any inclination that they heard his hushed voice. 

Their horses plotted onward down the hill, the thickening forest of the woods flanking them on either side. For whatever the reason, be it the shadows that danced in the cover of night, the glaring eye of the moon, or the vivid memory of the contorted visions he had seen the night before, Godric could not appease the nagging feeling of being watched. The hairs on his neck stood on end, prompted by his tense shoulders that were too wary to turn around and too cowardly to mention his fear. And so they continued.

Every shiver of the night, every faint wavering of a tree branch, and every scent of the moist, cold ground sent another shiver down his spine. Godric could feel whatever it was pulling on him, urging him to search closer in the blackness of the woods for whatever it was but all that stared back at him was the dull grey of the weathered tree trunks and the desolate black of the night.

They had scarcely rode another hundred feet before he could take it no longer. Leaning in to Matthias's ear, he whispered, "Something's out there. Watching us."

Matthias turned slowly to look over his shoulder toward Godric's worried face and nodded purposefully. "Then I'm not the only one who thinks so." The boy let a low whistle out that seemed to Godric to pierce the night, though some part of his mind that remained uncorrupted by fear he remembered it to be the song of a Bannerjay. Should he have heard it any other time it would have meant little to him beside eliciting several vague memories of Dunn in the spring when the songbirds came out. Hilthwen, however, caught the tune immediately and staid her and Ephraun's horse.

And there it was. A single step broke the silence of their stillness; a rider in pace with his prey but momentarily unaware that his prey had stopped. It was neither loud nor prevalent, but to Godric's intent ear it was clearer than the subtle scrape of Matthias readying his spear.

"Dismount," the boy hissed. "Come." The companions slipped from their saddles as quietly as could be managed, but another noise coupled the tussle. Footfalls came from somewhere to Godric's back right and then again from somewhere in front of them.

"This way," Hilthwen murmured, guiding her horse toward a thicker part of the brush where the low tree branches knit themselves into crude cover. The small caravan followed with as silent of steps as could be managed until all were bowed beneath the brush, the horses posed behind them with bowed heads.

For the longest time nothing broke the stillness that kept their breath in their chests.

Then a small voice hissed through the unwavering silence.

"Where did they go?"

"I dunno," another voice whispered from a hairsbreadth away from the bushes where they hid. "Kanora, anything?"

"Nothing," a distinctly feminine voice answered from farther up the path they had been following.

"Dragonfire," the first voice quietly. "You two," Godric could imagine him pointing to hulking warriors, "search the woods. They couldn't have gotten far."

Heavy footfalls crunched through the bed of twigs and leaves that covered the forest floor apart from the path. As one pair of steps drew closer to where they hid, Godric distinctly heard the sound of someone stumbling.

"Watch yourself, Ahazan, you bloody dunce."

"Hush," ordered the first voice with an obvious tone of authority. "There'll be none of that. Just find them." Mumbling was the only reply.