The Tale Teller

Ch 7

The village of Appleton got its name from the trees. They were squeezed between the cottages, stretching behind them as far as the eye could see.

Gone were the apples though, branches stripped bare from the harvest and the cold. What few leaves that held on had turned brown, clinging on like an overconfident kitten dangling from a roof until help would arrive.

It had rained all night, and most of the morning. It made the brown branches blend with the brown timber walls, and the brown dirt of the street that the weather had caused. The village was a mix of colourless brown and grey. It was rather a pretty place come spring and summer.

Despite the weather, the streets were full of people. They stamped through the puddles without complaint, going about their business with just a little too much cheer. It didn't take long for Vaun to see why. The place was covered in merchant's guards.

Quickly, he tugged up the hood of his cloak. For once, he was glad for how it came down over his eyebrows, to the point where he had to tilt his head to see more than a step or two in front of his feet. He didn't know if the guards that had killed Corum were among the group scattered around the main street, but he didn't want to take any chances. If they had of wished to, Vaun knew they could have killed him. They hadn't, but his close encounter mixed with Maiden Wood's warning still caused the fear to strike.

He weaved his way through the puddles and people, to walk with the buildings brushing his left shoulder. Here, he mixed with mothers and children, concealed with the shelter of the walls. It was safer here than in the center of the street.

There was one guard by the village well, with a young girl by his side who smiled brightly up into his face as she sang a song. It was loud enough for the whole village to hear. Vaun recongised it as the same song The Bard had sang in The Vixen's Inn. The sound of it made his stomach turn.

His stomach hadn't been feeling great all day anyway, but now it felt worse. Without Maiden Wood's usual basket of food, Vaun's supply was running low. When leaving Cragbarrow with such haste, he hadn't been able to stock up there either. He had dined this morning on a piece of stale bread, with an egg too rotten to have been healthy. It made him want to lie down and drown in his self-inflicted misery. The lack of food was no one's fault but his own.

After Cragbarrow, Vaun had spent a single night in The Strand, a fishing village south east of the main town. Having made no money in Cragbarrow, he knew he ought to stay longer there, but the itch for the road had dominated any rational thought. With how he had left Celise and Opan, Vaun longed to be as far from them and their disapointment as possible.

No matter how much he walked though, they still seemed to chase him. Everytime he closed his eyes to sleep it was Celise's crying face he saw, mixing with Corum's beheaded body.

Her cheeks had already been stained with tears when he had descended the stairs to leave; but at the sight of him with his cloak on and bag beneath his arm, she had sobbed her eyes out until they were red and raw.

A part of him had wanted to go to her, to push the hair from her eyes and apologise for all the wrongs he had done. He couldn't though. Like a coward, Vaun had simply given her one last look, before walking away.

He hated himself for that, for he knew the one place that felt like home, likely could never be that again. He wouldn't be welcome there, and he had no reason to be. He'd hurt Celise, disappointed Opan, and he'd been a fool for doing it.

Trying to push his weighted thoughts aside, Vaun rounded a corner into a narrow alleyway. His hood began to slip down, falling to sheild his vision, as he suddenly stumbled into the stocky figure of a guard.