A/N: I take no credit for this chapter for as soon as my fingers touched they keyboard it wrote itself (the poetic phrase isn't mine, but it suits this note well enough for me to leave it where it is.) Thanks to everyone who reviewed ch6 in the short time between when I got it up and now. Hope you like this one. I promised you action, now didn't I? Well, it's safe to say that the action is finally coming.
"Wake up." Rhea poked Sara with the tip of her sword the morning after the battle.
"Go away." Sara muttered, rolling over.
"Don't make me use the blade of this thing. I just sharpened it." She shoved the sword back in its sheath with force, letting the metallic sound ring for a moment while Sara sat up and stretched.
"What do you want?"
"Talking about that find of yours would be nice."
"Lay off it. I haven't slept since I got here."
"Stop complaining. You just got here. I haven't gotten any sleep either, and I'm expected to rule this mess." She waved her hand absently in the empty air, gesturing to all the realms vaguely.
"Well, I don't understand what there is to talk about. You gaped enough at that entry last night, and we tried to figure it out who the document master's apprentice was for hours. I don't see what else you're so worked up about."
"To find the scroll, look deep inside yourself and allow yourself to be led to the river where the water runs grey, past the fields of despair, through the highest mountains and the most beautiful fields of green, to where the roots hang above." She quoted straight from the scroll "Honestly, Sara. Try and keep up. Do you know what that means?"
"You think that if I knew we'd still be here?"
"Well that answers your question now, doesn't it." Sara muttered something in response that Rhea couldn't hear, but guessed was nothing too polite.
"Fine then. Do you know what it mean then, if you're so smart?"
"Oh, of course I do." Rhea awarded Sara an impressive eye roll "I just came in here to wake you up because I was yearning for your charismatic company this early in the morning. I swear, if I didn't know any better I'd think that one of those rebels hit you a little too hard on the head last night."
"Alright, alright." Sara sighed and left the tent, grabbing a small slate and a piece of chalk on her way out. Rhea followed, all the while protesting.
"It was warm in there, you know." she shivered in the misty morning air that was always cold.
"Just because you seem determined to ruin my morning, it's no excuse to do the same to Catherine's."
"Your choice." She watched as Sara scrawled the five clues they had on the slate in a list:
River where water runs grey
Fields of despair
Highest mountains
Most beautiful fields of green
Where roots hang above
"Anything you recognize?" Sara asked after they had both had a moment to study the list.
"Nothing specific. I mean, fields of green? That could be anywhere."
"Why are these kind of things never specific? This is like the language in a prophecy. All that fuzzy double talk that nobody can understand."
"With our luck it probably is a prophecy."
"No way. Absolutely not." Sara shook her head "I cannot handle another prophecy on top of the two I already have to worry about."
"Well, prophecy or not we still need to figure out where we're going." Rhea pointed at the second place on the list "Fields of despair...that could be specific. Like Vitanse Green or something...it could be a name."
"If it is a specific place, it's none I've ever heard of."
"We can ask around...see if anyone from another realm recognizes it."
"Couldn't hurt." Sara shrugged, though privately she knew that it wasn't going to be recognized. She assumed Rhea had similar notions, but neither were going to voice them in fear of missing something if they didn't ask.
"Roots hanging above must mean somewhere underground. There are very few passages left to the underground, so that shouldn't be too hard to find."
"But if you factor in all the mine shafts that are still active...and even those that aren't. That's a lot of ways to get underground."
"True, true." Rhea rested her chin on a hand and studied the names, mouthing things to herself while trying to make sense of them. Without Rhea to bounce ideas off of, Sara started tracing images that the names brought to mind in the dirt with the tip of a stick and stared at them, though not really seeing. She was tearing apart each sentence of the entry in her head. Without thinking, she stood up and started pacing, whispering things that made little sense. Rhea, who was lost in her own thoughts, paid Sara no attention.
Suddenly, Sara froze. She spun around to face Rhea, not seeing the stump that was behind her, tripped on it, and ended up face down in the dirt. Despite her concentration, Rhea, who was known for always having a smart remark ready, snorted and looked over at Sara.
"Walk much?" she said, laughing shortly at her dusty friend.
"Yeah, haha, laugh at me." Sara said shortly, straightening in a blindingly fast movement. "Listen. What if the five names aren't all separate, but connected somehow."
"Go on," Rhea said, leaning forwards.
"Well, grey rivers and fields of despair could be talking about the realms of despair." she shuddered at the name, though Rhea didn't understand why "And coupled together, Fields of green and high mountains could very well be the divine realms."
"Oh come off it. The realms of despair and the Divine realms are on separate sides of the kingdoms. As if we'd have to go all the way across the land to find one piece of paper."
"It makes sense, though, if you think about it. They don't want the scroll to be found, so the only record of its location would send the searcher on a long journey to test their character. If they really need it, they won't give up, no matter the distance."
"I'll give you that, but why would we have to go through the realms of despair. Nobody ever goes there unless they're sent there specifically. I don't see why they would have journeyed that far to hide the thing."
"They'd want to make sure that the journey was hard enough," Sara muttered, brainstorming out loud "If it wasn't, then they'd find a way to make it harder since the distance mattered so much to them."
"Then why hide it in the divine realms? They came from the divine realms in the first place. Don't you think that if someone were looking for the scroll that's the first place they'd look?" Rhea asked, her tone full of apprehension.
"No, it says that the final place we'd half to go is underground, or so we figure. There aren't any underground passages anywhere in the divine realms, and that's the one thing about this I know for a fact."
"So our best bet should be to go to Torrenta?" Rhea used the common name for the realms of despair with wide eyes.
"It's the only thing we can do for now. I don't want to hang around here with the rebels getting ideas about how to handle us. I've a notion that they're going to raid this camp sooner rather than later, and it'd be my preference to be far from here when they do it.
"I'll gather the troops." Rhea said uneasily, though she tried to hide her discomfort with a small smile. Sara smiled back at her.
"I'll take the west half of camp, you take the east?"
"Meet in the main tent." Rhea nodded over her shoulder, already walking away.
-------
"Quiet down, you guys!" Sara yelled over the chatter that had broken out after she and Rhea had finished explaining what they were going to do. As soon as it was quiet enough that she didn't have to shout quite so loud to be heard, she continued.
"We're leaving the camp stuff behind because it'll only slow us down." That got another wave of loud complaints.
"QUIET!" She silenced them all that time. Narrowing her eyes and glaring at each complainer in turn, she spoke loudly and with force even though she could have been heard at a whisper "If you wanted creature comforts, you should have stayed at home with your mommies. I venture that none of you have ever been on a journey like this before?" head shakes from everyone but her team "That's what I thought. Now, I have been on a trip like this, and believe me. At the end of the day, you'll be glad that I made you leave all this behind. This kind of thing isn't like normal guard duty. There are no breaks, very little time to eat and sleep, and there are no rules. When you're done walking for a full day and you're all hungry and tired, the last thing any of you will want to do is set up tents and an entire camp. Besides all that, I don't want any of you tiring twice as quickly because you had to carry heave packs with tents in them all day long, and I certainly do not want to hear your complaining all day long." Nobody said anything, but just stared at her.
"You won't be penalized or looked down upon for choosing to stay behind with all the comforts of home." Rhea clarified. At the looks some warriors gave her, she smiled wryly and corrected herself "Alright, maybe you will be, but nobody'd dare say it to your face." That got a grin out of most of them.
"So," Sara picked the speech back up "You have your choices. With the way our standing with the rebels is looking, I'm thinking that we move out soon. If you choose to come, pack only what you'll need. By that I mean weapons and sharpening stones and very little else. If you can get along without it, don't bring it with us." More nods. Sara sighed internally. It seemed that all she could get out of Rhea's guards were nods and monosyllabic responses. Seemed they were scared of her. She did a mental shrug.
Let 'em be scared. She decided I've got bigger things to worry about.
-------
Sara stood at the front of the camp, watching the warriors mill about. They were packing up what they needed and leaving the rest, hoping to trick the rebels into thinking that they were still residing in the little tent village. About half of the guards had stayed. Sara had pretended not to see those who had bowed their respects to her as they snuck past, back into the forest and to a more comfortable home. The divide was fairly even, she reasoned, out of those who left, between those who were scared to leave the comforts of home behind, those who had heard of her first journey and preferred to stay behind for their families or sweethearts, those who were afraid of what lay beyond the landscapes they had all known their entire lives, and those who were simply afraid of Sara herself. Between the battle and those who chose to leave, they had lost almost two thirds of their warriors, and only a handful remained who Sara was sure were going to stay with them. The rest, she figured, would sneak away on their own while the group was walking, in hopes that neither Sara nor Rhea would notice their absence. Of course, they didn't know about Sara's heightened senses and powerful abilities, or about the fact that she kept tabs on every single one of them. She would know, but true to Rhea's word, she wouldn't hold it against them.
Soon, the camp was clear of anything useful. The journals had been transported back to where they belonged, magically of course since time was a factor, save for the lone journal - the one that had helped them - which Sara held safely in a thick fabric bag over her shoulder. The group of about twenty who stood before her each held weapons of some sort, and a few of them carried bags like Sara's carrying things that they would need, like rare herbs for the healers, and sharpening stones for the warriors, which alone were too cumbersome to carry for any long periods of time. Sara glanced back at the camp, silhouetted along with her group by the sun which was only rising just then. Its weak rays played with the water vapour in the mist and started slowly burning it off. Sara turned to Rhea beside her and sighed before speaking.
"It is way, way too early for this."