In which our fish is on the run.

And so that's what you do. You run.

His fist dug into the strap to your pack at your shoulder, Estel pulls you along back toward the Road, but then, slipping behind the pen of pigs, doubles back once out of sight. You stumble on your feet attempting to keep up with his god damn fucking long legs, but he somehow keeps you and your potatoes aloft. He may be used to ducking and weaving between tumbled stones and overturned rusted out wheels and pots and clumps of weeds, but you are not. It's all you can do to keep up with him and breathe at the same time, much less ask him what the fuck is going on.

He yanks you down into a facefull of wet grass behind the overgrown remains of a hut. You have no freaking clue what he saw that you're avoiding but down you stay, breathing as silently as you can, the beating of your heart in your ears drowning out anything you might hear around you and your nose full of the smell of wet earth and decaying leaves.

Fuck but the potatoes are a lot heavier than they were this morning.

When you stumble, unable to get your feet beneath you, he practically lifts you up from the ground and off you go again. You would think he would be making for the woods behind the village, going for any kind of cover you can find, but he doesn't. Instead, you're making straight for the populated side of town, slipping from stone wall to brush to clump of trees until he pulls you behind a ring of stone from some long gone house to the opening of a rotted out bushcamp shelter and there, dropping to his knee, he digs about in the dried grass of its floor with his fingers.

"Help me," he commands, speaking low.

You do what you can, given that you have no clue what he's trying to accomplish, and then he brushes aside wet leaves to reveal a mold-stained and half rotted lid.

Oh. Shit. We're hiding. Okay. Okay. You got it.

You tear at the grass until he can worm his fingers beneath the wood and lift it from the ground. A quick glance within and he jerks his head at you to go first. And so down you go, slithering over the edge and bringing half the soil at the rim with you while things skitter away from the light.

God it smells awful. Some old abandoned well, or cistern, or cesspit, or cellar, it was lined in stone, though it's mostly mud and mold at this point. Fuck. Oh yeah, something got trapped in here and died all right. You can see it sandwiched between the wall and the floor, or, well, what's left of it.

You huddle crouched on your heels as Estel joins you, brushing the dirt and torn up roots into the cellar with you and tugging dried grasses to fill in and lay over the rim. He pats around in the dark and then wedges a rock between the edge of the hole and lid so that the thinnest stream of light and air seeps in.

He peers out the crack through the entrance into the shelter, crouched in the dark and, with what must be long practice, eases his sword silently out of its scabbard. The light slides along its edge as he brings it up. You keep very still, but you can't hear anything other than Estel's harsh breathing and the wind in the grass and the occasional murmur of voices and a sudden bark of laughter across the Road.

You're about to question whether maybe you've both gone a little mental and the paranoia's gotten to you and you're wondering why you're letting your butt grow damp and cold when you're crouching in a conveniently located, abandoned root cellar with a six plus foot merc who could take Harvey out without breaking a sweat, but then you hear the thud of footsteps overhead. Estel jerks back away from the light and deeper into the shadows, his arm flung out over you and sword pointing at the opening.

Shit.

You keep really really really still, breathing through your mouth, which you were doing anyway because of the smell, but now you're doing it really really super slowly.

The thudding of footsteps fades and then comes again, closer this time. Shit! Fuckers must be huge. You can feel the vibrations of their footfalls against your back.

"Naught of sign here, either," comes a voice with the clipped accents of the south over rustling in the dead grass. Someone else swears something you don't quite catch and there's panting and suddenly the light goes out as a shadow slides across the opening. You hold your breath, your heart thudding in your ears. Every muscle in Estel goes rigid and he lifts himself silently from his crouch, tightly wound and ready to spring.

"Agh!" comes the exclamation and the sound of someone sniffing then clearing their throat and hawking spit. "He'll have our heads should we lose them."

"'We?'" comes the first voice as other footsteps thump overhead and then fall silent. "He'll have Harvey's head, here. 'Twas not I who said they'd returned to the Road to Chetwood."

"Och!" comes a voice you know well, the rat-bastard doing what a rat-bastard does best, whining about how it's not his fault. "You asked, what direction, they ran, and so, I told ye," he pants out.

"Shut it, you muck-spouted fool. Had you not let that fish of yours slip from your grasp we'd know where that misborn Ranger is or, at the least, is like to be found next."

"'Tis you who's a fool," says Harvey and there's scuffling and a foot lands at the crack of light, before shuffling away to sound of grunting.

"Unhand him!" comes the command and silence falls. "You are untrained and unskilled enough, have you naught of good sense either? Come now, he's one of those Rangers. He's made for the wood, like he's done afore. Knows it like he were born there. He's wood crafty and nigh as canny as a bloody elf, laying low and biding his time."

More scuffling and then they rustle through the grass, moving off.

"So shut it, both of you, or you'll be but fodder for one of his traps. Go on, you! Leave him be! There's naught for it but back to the camp and face the chief," says the same voice, growing softer as they head toward the Road.

Estel licks at his lips, taut and listening long past the point at which you lose track of them.

You're about to pluck up the courage to ask what the fuck is going on when he abandons the thin crack out into the world, easing himself about to sit beside you and laying his sword on the floor of the cellar. Your eyes have started to get used to the dark and you can see the faintest outline of his face against the light.

He rubs his hand on his breeches. "You are unharmed?"

He takes in a long breath when you nod. He leans his head against the wall, closing his eyes, frowning unhappily and clenching and unclenching his fist.

"Don't," you say.

"Hala -"

"Don't," you repeat, more insistently, because fuck that noise. "I'm not Ruby," you say, keeping your voice low, and his eyes flash open and gleam in the dark.

"Nay, you are not," he says at last, and dabs gently at his nose with his wrist. It's reddened and already start to swell. "I bear the evidence of it."

"Sorry," you say again but he shakes his head.

"It will heal. A small price to pay for the time you bought us."

"Are they the men who attacked you back in the spring?" you ask and he nods, moving his sword aside and easing himself out of his pack.

"Aye, I was able to slip away ere they discovered me at the inn," he says with a grimace as he opens his pack and reaches within. "They are of the same company, or some who have joined up with them since last we met."

"So I guess they're not holed up north of Bree after all," you say.

"Come, quickly, we should make ready." He taps at the strap to your pack, urging you to follow his example before returning to making two piles of things he has pulled out of his pack, the second noticeably smaller than the first. "They are too large a force to linger on the Road without drawing notice, but will have made camp someplace close by. Their chief is most like to command they return and be more thorough in their search. We were lucky this once. We must be gone ere then."

You shift to your knees and shrug yourself out of your pack, mindful of how full it is and easing it around you. Yeah, you suppose you can make better time if you're not trying to haul the weight of a preschooler around on your back.

"Are they the ones who killed Ruby?" you ask, taking a literal shot in the dark.

"Yes."

He tugs at the drawstrings to your pack now that you've got it off your back and sitting in front of you. He starts pulling out potatoes and setting them in a pile and you join him.

Well. Fuck. Poor Ruby. Jesus.

"And slaughtered all my kin of the homestead north of Bree who took her in," Estel says, a flat, grim look on his face.

Jesus!

You stare at Estel. His lips pressed thinly, he tosses a couple potatoes onto the pile but holds onto the bag of fish leather, adding it to his own smaller pile of a bag of wheat and rye berries and nuts and other calorie-dense foods.

"Why?" you blurt.

He stops and looks over at you for a beat before he turns back to your pack with a grimace. He works quickly. "Revenge, mayhap. To draw me out from Bree ere I was fully healed, most like."

Fuck.

God. No wonder he'd been such a hot mess when he'd returned that first time, sitting at your hearth all hollow-eyed and spitting invective. Fuck, and no wonder they're after him. He's been Rambo-ing them up one road and down the other since the spring, picking them off and making them pay for what they did to Ruby and his kin.

Shit.

"We shall keep to the woodlands and proceed southeast as swiftly as we can. They have some skill of woodcraft but we have few choices and must rely upon the cover the trees provide."

Okay okay. All right. Through the trees, then, it is.

Last potato out and Estel's hand withdraws from your pack after feeling about the bottom and you grab his wrist.

"No," you say, panicked, your heart suddenly in your throat.

"Hala, we must leave all behind that can be spared."

"Not this." Tears start up in your eyes and you blink, hoping to hide it, but his voice softens.

"You shall have another," he says, because, yeah, he's got the roll of finely worked leather with the kit of scissors and blade and brush in his hand.

But, fuck, you don't want another set. You want this one. The one he gave you as a gift.

"Hala," he says when you're frozen and can't let his wrist go, cuz fuck your heart hurts, "we must go, now. I would not part you from your phone, but let this go, I beg you. I did not give you this for it to imperil you at the cost of even one moment, one last burst of effort that could save your life."

Finally you nod and let go of his wrist, and he sets the leather bundle atop the pile of potatoes and divides up the pile of hearty, easily eaten foods left over into each pack. You're sure he's going to turn and you'll pull your pack back on over your shoulders and climb out of the hole behind him, but he stops, examining your face before his hand comes up to cup your cheek.

Oh good. What now?

"You must promise me somewhat."

Ah, fuck. Here it comes.

"Should they come upon us, you are to run," he says, pinning you with an earnest stare to end all earnest stares.

God damn it! You knew this was coming. "No," you say, but this time it isn't accompanied by tears. It's clear and distinct and definitive. You're furious actually, but the fucker keeps on going as if you hadn't spoken.

"Keep to the cover of the trees and proceed east by southeast -"

"Fuck you, no."

"- until you reach a river. You will know it."

"Fuck you," you whisper hoarsely, shoving his hand off your face. Mr. 'I Have to Go It Alone' Strider can go fuck himself. "You can show it to me yourself."

"It is deep and swift-flowing," he goes on with that same even, patient tone as you yank the ties to the top of your pack closed.

"I'm not a fucking idiot," you say. "I'm not going to go out of my way to take any of these guys on, but I can handle myself and it's about time you let somebody watch your back for you."

"Stay to the shadows. Should I not join you ere dawn, make your way as quietly upstream as you can and I shall follow behind and find you."

You jerk your arms through your pack and settle it on your back. "Get your fucking pack on," you say. "We're leaving."

"Hala," he says, not moving an inch, weary and, fuck, frightened, "I am not saying you are unskilled, but it is one thing to face an opponent in a tourney-"

Fucker. You made State six years running, the last two going on to Nationals, and that's not counting the self-defense camps you helped run at work.

"I was good enough to get you," you say, nodding at his bloody nose, "and that's not the first time I've fought you off, by the way." Not that you're going to tell him about your unorthodox method of breaking that chokehold he had around your neck way back when, but, you know, still.

"I beg you, please do this for me. It is I they want," he says, and fuck, add helpless and grief-stricken to the mix.

God damn it!

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

"I will find you," he says, his tone all gentle because, yeah, now you are crying.

"And what if they hurt you again and you can't?" you ask and he huffs a sharp sound.

"They had the advantage of surprise when first we met," he says. "They shall not have it again."

God damn overconfident, arrogant, competitive motherfucker.

You wipe at your face.

"Do you understand better why, then, I would wish you to know more of me ere you make your choice?" he asks.

You nod, cuz, yeah, you do. You knew it before, but you get it now. But, still…

God damn him. And he's looking at you with that mix of weary pride and fear and… sdjlrhKVJHCSRKVFuck!

This time it's you who starts the kiss. His voice catches in his throat with a soft grunt when you pull him in by the back of his head and put your mouth on his. There's nothing tender or soft about it. It's a hard press of lips. He's fucking yours and they do not get to take him from you, god damn it!

"Okay," you say. "Let's do this."

You make it until about an hour before sunset.

The wind turned east as the day progressed and the clouds drifted over the tops of the trees in banks of white and gray until midday when the sky cleared. The shadows grow long, reaching over the meadows and hills of rolling gold and green, and still you keep going. Estel keeps you within arm's reach and going at about a slow jog at the most. It's not fast, but it is steady, and he's careful not to wear you out too much at a time, taking breaks every so often to catch your breath. Fuck. You've never run a marathon, but shit, if this is what it's like, you don't get why anyone would ever want to put their body through something like this if they didn't have to. Fucking miserable.

You drop to the forest floor behind the trunk of a fallen tree. Ow. Fuck. Damn it. You lift a cheek off the ground and brush away the rock that stabbed you in the butt. This last dash was uphill this time, winding through stands of short leafless trees to taller growth of pine and oak. Even Estel is winded in this last push. He leans over with his hands on his knees, pulling in long breaths before rising to his full height and striding about to scan the area around you while he breathes deeply.

Damn, your legs hurt. You rub at your shins, digging your knuckles into the tendons above your ankles. You don't dare take off your boots, but you squeeze your toes and then stretch out your foot, hoping to relieve the cramp in the arch on the left. God, what you'd give for a pair of running shoes. No fucking arch support and slick leather bottoms do not make for good running mechanics, or skin along the back of your heels. Fuck, now that you've stopped every raw place beneath where strap and belt and tie rubs against your damp clothes starts burning.

Estel wipes his arm across his forehead and comes to a stop next to you. Well, you're not cold anymore, at least. In fact, you're sweating about as much as Estel and the breeze stirring the rattling leaves overhead is a relief against your neck.

"How much farther until the river?" you ask and then go back to drawing in lungfuls of cool air.

"Ah," he says, still breathing heavily through his mouth. You don't think you broke his nose, but it's definitely too swollen to breathe through and he's, yeah, damn it, he's going to be sporting a bit of a black eye any minute now.

He turns about and squints at the snatches of the horizon to the east glimpsed through the trees. "One, mayhap, two hours, at our pace," he says, his voice all nasally because, shit, obvious reasons.

God. You're going to owe him, well, something really big, after this is all over.

He reaches about and unlashes his waterskin from his pack, pulling out the wooden plug and letting it dangle on its string before leaning back his head to take in a mouthful. He hands it to you when done.

Fuck. Blessed, blessed water. You let it sit on your tongue and swish it about your mouth before swallowing. Estel eases himself down to sitting beside you with a groan he keeps locked behind his teeth and stretches out his legs.

You try to hand the waterskin back to him but he shakes his head. "Finish it," he says and yeah, that's not much swirling around in the bottom of it so you take another sip before pressing it back on him.

"Dude," you say, dropping it on his chest when he attempts to refuse it, "the only thing left is backwash. It's all yours."

He slaps his hand on the waterskin before it slides down his chest. "What is 'backwash?'"

"You know," you say, gesturing in a loose circle, "that last bit of, you know, whatever, in a bottle, when you drink out of it, probably like half your own spit."

He draws in air and then lets out a long breath before he takes a muffled sniff and wipes at his forehead, a brief smile flashing on his face before he glances back down the hill through the trees. "Ah, that is new to me. Indeed generous of you."

He lifts the waterskin and shakes it over his mouth to get the last of it and you bang on his nearest pec with your open hand.

"Only the best for you, bud," you say and he finds some way to swallow and chuckle at the same time.

"We will eat somewhat at our next rest," he says, grinding the wooden stopper back into the waterskin's neck and you nod, leaning over your outstretched legs before your hamstrings lock up. Oh god, that feels good on your back.

"Hala?" he asks after he has secured his waterskin to his pack, hiking up a knee and looking like he's all set to push off the ground and get to his feet.

"Fuck no," you say, but when he's up and extending a hand down to you, you take it anyway. You push off and he pulls and you're on your feet.

"Come," he says and pulls you over by the shoulder so that you're next to him. He peers out through the trees at the shadows that deepen upon the hills. A ghostly coin of the moon floats in the blue sky about a hands-width above the horizon to your left. He nods at it. "We shall follow the river and press on throughout the night while we have the light. Once the moon has set and it is at its darkest we shall take some sleep."

God almighty. Fuck, you hope you can keep up with him. You're going to have to.

"There," he says, stooping and pointing to a spot in the hills below the moon. You squint and try to follow his line of sight. "See you the light upon the water?"

When you grimace, squinting and peering more closely, he tugs at your neck so that his arm points over your shoulder and he is pressed close to the side of your face, his skin tacky with sweat and his beard scratching your cheek.

Oh! There it is. Nestled at the bottom of a hill and surrounded by trees along its bank, the faintest spark of light. Shit, that's a river all right.

"We shall take our next rest when we reach this point, at the base of the ridge there," he says, turning you to the right and pointing along a dark line cut into the side of a hill across the valley at your feet. You'll be taking the long way around to keep to the trees, but there it is. One more rest, one more dash, then the river.

"We must tarry no longer," he says in your ear, his thumb rubbing at the base of your neck, "but take heart, when we reach the end, I shall draw the water and heat it myself for your bath."

For some reason, it's this that gets to you. You sniff and blink and swallow, but still it takes a moment before you can talk.

I mean, yeah, you're going to need it. God help you when you wake up from this nap he's planning in the wee hours of the morning. You're going to be so stiff and sore after this he's going to need a shovel and a wheel-barrel to get you up and moving. But, shit, the two of you are running from men who want to kill him and the thing that's most on his mind is breaking the plan down into achievable stages so it isn't so overwhelming and giving you something to look forward to at the end.

"Yeah, yeah," you say, "you just want to watch," and it startles that huff of laughter from him that you were going for.

Giving your shoulder a squeeze before he lets you go, he says with the barest hint of a smile, "Let us be swift, then."

With that he looks back over his shoulder, squinting into the glare of the sun through the trees behind you, frowning uneasily, before he turns his back to them.

"Come," he says and points down the hill and to the right through the stand of pines and off you go again.

Down the slope you trot, skimming so close past stands of tall pines their needles brush at your hair. You try to keep your eyes on the ground, keeping to dry patches or clumps of grass as much as you can. God knows you don't want to be the one to leave a clear boot print in the mud for them to follow. Estel veers off left, dragging you with him. He curses low, pressing for greater speed when you come upon a meadow of tall grasses the color of straw, skirting about the edge and taking you deeper within the trees.

A shadow passes across you and you glance at Estel as you run, his face grim. He's reaching for you and then you're face down in the bracken behind a fallen tree sliding and inhaling leaf litter, Estel's body bearing you down and knocking the breath out of you in a huff of air. The faint sound of something skimming through the air to rattle through the branches echoes in your ear.

Shit!

What was that?

You don't have to wait long for the answer. Estel's already strung his bow. He leaps to his feet, plucking a dark blur out of the air as it speeds over your head and nocks and pulls in one smooth motion, sending the arrow back like a fucking boomerang.

What the fuck! What the fuck!

The next second, Estel pulls a bundle of arrows from the quiver at his hip and shards of wood explode and clatter against the trees about you as he shoots them in quick succession. There's a strangled cry from just beyond where you're hiding and then shouting.

Shit! Shit shit shit.

"Get up!" Estel yells at you from where you're cowering, curled up in a ball trying to protect your head from the shrapnel, loosing shot after shot, the arrows disappearing from his fist like something snatched them from him. "Hala, now!"

Fuck!

Somehow, you're on your feet. Jesus Christ there's a lot of them. They're spread through the woods, flickering light-dark as they cross the trees' shadows, running down the hill toward you, the red westering sun behind them and throwing their shadows before their feet like they're giants, the glint of metal in their hands.

"Hala! Run!"

Oh god. Your feet are rooted staring at them. You couldn't move even if you wanted to. And, god help you, you don't want to. Leave Estel? Like this? Fuck no!

And then Estel has you grabbed up by the front of your tunic. He shakes you sharply and your teeth clack in your head.

"Do not be a fool! Go!" he shouts and practically yanks you from the ground and tosses you further down the hill. "I will be right behind you!"

With that he turns away, drawing his sword and shouting something too distorted for you to make out as you scramble to keep your feet beneath you.

You're halfway down the hill, slaloming through a pile of leaves and reaching out to keep your balance before you clock that Estel is not anywhere near right behind you. You've left him back there, the clang of metal and shouting growing distant behind you.

No! No no no no nonononononono. God damn, motherfucking fucker!

And yet your legs keep carrying you farther away. The sun sets, lighting the trunks of the trees about you a deep crimson. The sky darkens. The moon bobs in the sky beyond the stark black limbs of the trees overhead. Your throat burns with the strain of pulling in air. There's a roaring in your ears and you think it's the rushing of your blood and your tongue is a wad of dry wool in your mouth and you're hobbling and limping and clutching at the cramp in your side that just will not fucking go away and fuck your body is going to give out any second and collapse on you and then you break through the trees and the ground disappears from beneath you and you careen down a trench of bare soil and rock onto gravel in a hail of stones and dirt.

The moon sails in the open sky.

You gape at it, there bright amidst a sea of stars, twinkling and sharp against the black.

The rushing in your ears drowns out all thought as the ground moves in a whirl beneath your feet. Dizzy and sucking down air, down you go onto your knees and water splashes, spattering your hands and face and soaking through your pants and tugging at the hem of your tunic where you're kneeling in the shallows. The surface shimmers with the light of the moon and water roars and chatters over a bed of stones.

Oh.

Oh god.

The god damn, fucking river.

The river you could have escaped to from Bree weeks ago with no one the wiser, with a whole load of potatoes on your back, with Estel's gift tucked safely beneath them, if only you'd had the balls to do it. The one Estel could have taken his time and followed you to and found you waiting for him, instead of dragging you with him and slowing him down as he fought for his life. The one you couldn't miss as long as you set out and kept the hills to your right. But no, you didn't, did you. Good job there. Had to wait for Estel so he could hold your fucking hand like you were a god damn child.

That river.

Shit.