Kingdom Chronicles: Awakening

Chapter 3.1 - Pawn

Mara stuffed her dagger down her new boots and slung her bow over her shoulder. She relished in the clean feeling she had after bathing in the stream. It took her an hour to scrub off two years' worth of grit and grim layered on top of her skin, and even after she finished, she still found places that needed more scrubbing. It would have to wait though. She had changed into the clothes Henry gave her, and they hung on her like she had predicted. Using a rope she had found in a village she passed through, she tied up the pants and tucked her shirt inside of it.

She had already been hiking through the forest the past day. Her body ached from the activity, and her eyes burned from the bright light of the sun. but she did not relent. With her sight now almost completely restored, she could easily find her way through the dense forest and keep herself hidden, buying her time until the king of Kingdom A arrived to see her father. She had stayed near the castle, only stopping once for two hours of sleep after she had collapsed from the strain her escape from the castle caused on her weak body.

Mara hated that she was so weak. She used to stay awake for days and walk over one hundred miles through the forest without showing any signs of physical wear. Now she walked no more than a mile, and she was out of breath.

She rose up from her place by the stream, picked up her food and bow, and headed off toward the castle. She didn't have far to go before she neared the main road that wound through the forest and straight to her castle's main gate. She found a tree with its roots exposed and buried her food at the base under the roots and leaves before continuing on toward the road.

When she got within shooting distance of the dirt path, she turned her gaze upward and frowned. Pine trees, she thought. I hate pine trees. She rubbed her arms as her skin bristled at the sight of the pine trees almost as if it could remember the first and last time she tried to climb one of those trees as a child.

She kept looking around her until she came across an oak tree that was far advanced in its years. Its trunk was too large for Mara to wrap her arms around, and it had branches thicker than her head that started low, followed by numerous other branches that came out from the trunk at different intervals all the way up to the top. She reached up to the first branch that came out at her eye level and strained the muscles in her arms and shoulders trying to pull herself up. She kept pulling until she finally hoisted one leg over the branch and pushed herself the rest of the way up. She continued to work her way up the tree, gaining confidence with each branch she climbed.

She stopped in the book of a V-shaped branch and leaned out to see the ground below. She had a clear path all the way down, and she guessed that she was only about twenty feet up. She pulled out her bow and knocked an arrow, pointing it toward the road. She closed her right eye and looked down the shaft of the arrow to its point, moving the bow around to make sure she would have a clear shot up either end of the road. The dense plant growth provided a challenge, but she found two places that allowed her an unobstructed path to her target.

And now I wait.

Mara lowered her bow and stretched her arms to keep them loose. She looked down at her weapon and admired its craftsmanship. A pattern of ivy carved into the wood weaved its way up to the bow. It amazed Mara that something so beautiful could be so deadly.

She pulled her bowstring back again, bringing her left hand up to the corner of her mouth as an anchor point. She repeated the motion a few more times to make sure her arms were loose and strong enough to withstand the strain.

Mara heard rustling in the trees and pulled back on her bow again and aimed it at the road. An eight-point buck stepped out into the road and looked around. Mara kept the tip of the arrow trained on the beast as he walked along the road in her direction. It stopped suddenly and perked its ears up, and then it bolted into the woods on the other side. Mara followed him with her bow and released the arrow. It whizzed past the branches and struck a tree right where the deer was standing half a second before.