(Adventure Adrian and the Kings) The Herald Quest

Chapter Fourteen

FOURTEEN

We were almost back to the crossroads again. Pretty soon we would be on the path to Quilchester and further towards reaching the Priest. Grace was still striding up ahead at a terrific speed. I guess she wasn’t too happy that I’d added an extra few miles onto our already long trip. But I felt good that Jay was with us. It might have just made the journey that little bit more fun.

“So what’s this quest about then?” Jay asked.

“It’s pretty simple really,” I insisted. “All we have to do is deliver a message to some famous Priest.”

“You mean Father Valliant?”

“Yeah that’s right,” I replied with a stutter. “You’ve heard of him?”

“Of course I have,” Jay chuckled to himself. “He was the Great King’s Priest. They say Father Valliant can magically ‘tell’ whether someone has royal blood or not.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Wait a darn minute. This is what our quest is all about…isn’t it?” Jay pried.

“Well…” I hesitated and tried not to get Jay over excited but as usual it was no good.

“There’s a new hopeful, isn’t there?” Jay gasped and tugged at my coat sleeve for an answer.

“There is this Duke…” I tried to explain. But Jay started to dance around me and giggle very loudly to himself. “Sssh…keep it down will you.”

“A new king. A new king!” Jay chanted with a jolly skip. “Finally Moargart will be defeated once and for all.”

“I can’t believe we have to walk all the way back to the crossroads from here,” Grace complained as she stopped up ahead and we finally caught up. “We didn’t even need this minstrel tagging along.”

“Hey!” Jay gasped.

“We’re safer as a group of three,” I said and tried to calmly reassure her that Jay was a useful addition to our team. I’d seen him in action against a monster before and he’d done pretty well.

“Seriously…I mean what could he possibly know that will be of any use to us?” she said rudely and talked as if Jay was actually invisible.

“Actually…I know a short cut,” Jay revealed with some glee. He was clearly delighted that he had managed to prove Grace wrong. “Just a little further up the track there’s a wood. If we journey straight through the tress then we’ll get to Quilchester in no time.”

“Are you sure?” I said, pulling out the map from my top pocket and unfolding it. “It’s not on the map.”

“We should stick to the main paths,” Grace said with a worried and stubborn voice. “Plus…there could be any number of creepy crawlies in that forest.”

“Nah its safe,” Jay replied confidently. “I’ve been through that wood a thousand times and I’ve never seen anything dangerous.”

“It would make our journey shorter,” I suggested and looked towards Grace hopefully. She squinted her eyes in deep thought at the idea and by now we had reached the forest entrance. We all looked into the trees and it seemed like a decent plan.

“Oh for King’s sake…fine,” she huffed before rolling her eyes and stomping away into the thick and fuzzy undergrowth. “Anything to get this blasted trip over with!”

As we trenched further into woods, it seemed that the trees got ever thicker and the sunlight a little dimmer. We struggled to hurdle the endless roots curling up out of the moss clumps. A strange coldness seemed to crawl over my skin and all of a sudden I started to feel dizzy.