Chapter four

Micah sat unenthusiastically upon a pile of helmets, head in hands in the middle of the armoury watching Adriel inspect a sword and then replace it into the hold with a long suffering sigh.

"Everything is iron." He complained and Micah rolled his eyes.

"What else do you make swords and amour from?"

Zea appeared round the door, already clothed in a brown hooded cloak that swept the floor after her as she walked.

"Micah," she said, motioning him to the door. "Can I speak with you a moment?"

"Certainly." Micah said, grateful from the distraction of Adreil's constant grumbling. He fallowed Zea out of the armoury and along the hallway until they reached a door through which Zea led him where out of earshot from anyone who might listen to them. Zea turned and looked him in the eye unblinkingly and Micah suddenly wished he had stayed with Adriel.

"I need for you to look after something for me," Zea whispered, she set down a pack upon the table and took out four strange and unconnected objects – a coat of feathers, a jewelled quill, a necklace and a tiny silver flute "I cannot carry them upon my person and I do not trust prince Adriel as far as I could throw him."

"I'll gladly look after them for you." Micah said, chest swelling with pride that she trusted him.

"Good lad." Zea said, patting his hand.

Micah placed the strange objects reverently into his travelling pack and then slung it carelessly over his shoulder, turning to leave the room but Zea caught his arm.

"I know you are the one who brought flowers into the castle." she said.

Micah nodded not understanding what flowers had to do with anything, his brow creasing in confusion.

"I brought Rosalia some violets for her birthday." he said and Zea visibly flinched at his words.

"Those flowers allowed me to come to the castle but they also allowed her kidnapper to come as well." she said wretchedly, turning away from Micah's aghast expression and sweeping back down the corridor to the armoury. 

Micah fallowed her, felling as if the world had just collapsed about his ears and stood dejectedly in the door way.

Adriel was becoming almost hysterical shifting through pile after pile of amour.

"We'll all be killed," he said holding up a vest of chain mail then throwing it back down. "Nothing to protect us and nothing to fight with."

"You cannot fight the thorns," Zea soothed "there may well be other things that you shall need iron for but you cannot take much, just your sword."

Adriel put his hand upon his sword hilt, visibly calmed by this.

"Well that's fine then." he said smiling and Micah sneered.

How could Zea allow such an amour-dependent man to be her bodyguard?

Micah decided then and there that he would have to be superior to Adriel, that whatever Adriel did he would do better and faster and prove himself, he would protect Zea and she would forgive him for bringing the flowers into the castle and he would be redeemed.

The thorns had attacked them the moment they walked through the opening Zea had conjured.

The briers surrounded them, clutching at clothing and clawing at faces until each was bleeding and ragged, Adriel muttering oaths under his breath and Micah's desire to be Zea's hero dampening with each scratch.

They rounded a corner and Micah stopped dead, his breath catching in his throat and bile rising into his mouth, tasting like acid.

A man was hanging in mid air, suspended through a hundred different places by sharp green thorns that glistened evilly with the poor mans blood.

"My god." Adriel whispered, stepping closer and Micah looked down to where the droplets of blood had collected to form a pool, and threw up.

"Is he dead?" Zea asked, peering upwards with morbid curiosity.

As if to answer the question the man moaned and opened his eyes, his head lolling to one side and glazed gaze staring through them.

"He's a solider;" Micah said, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve and spitting a few times to get rid of the horrible taste in his mouth "Look at his amour."

The man did indeed where a full suit of amour emblazoned with the royal coat of arms, Micah realised he must have been one of the Knights sent into the thorns to track the princesses kidnapper.

He wondered, horror-struck, if there where any other knights trapped in such a way.

"The thorns attacked him" Zea said.

"We have to cut him down!" Adriel said drawing his sword. "He'll die if we don't"

He started forward and the thorns began to swarm towards him up Micah throw out his arm and grabbed him, stopping him.

"He's dying anyway," Micah said in a soft voice. "Put your sword away or the thorns will strike you as well"

"I have to!" Adriel started but Micah yanked the sward from his hand and threw it to the ground.

"No you don't," he growled, shoving Adriel away "You're supposed to be protecting us, not putting us in danger."
Adriel bent quickly to retrieve his sward and waved it threateningly at Micah but Zea gently rested her hand on Adreil's arm and lowered his arm forcefully but softly, smiling at him all the time.

"I have something that will take his pain away," she said, taking from the fold of her cloak a small drawstring bag which she opened and took a few crushed brown leaves from within. "This plant will make him sleep through his death, I could give him that."

"He'll still die up there!" Adriel cried, pointing to where the man was suspended "No one should die like that."

He sounded so pitiful and distressed by the poor mans plight that Micah felt sorry for him, he reached out and placed a hand on Adriel's shoulder in a gesture of amity.

"I'm so sorry Adriel," he said truthfully "but we'll be attacked otherwise."

Adriel looked up at the man, his uncertainty written obviously upon his face and then he sheathed his sward and held his hand out to Zea.

"Give me the bag." he said and Zea handed it to him wordlessly.

Adriel walked forward slowly but the thorns ignored him, instead curling tighter round there prize and Adriel was able to get close enough to pry the man's mouth open. Foamy blood trickled out and onto Adriel's hand; the young man grimaced but opened the bag and took some of the leaves, they crackled in his fingers and he stuffed them quickly into the mans mouth and closed his jaw, watching as the knights body made a feeble attempt to chew the leaves.

The man held in the thorns twitched once, twice and then fell lax and Adriel drew away, wiping the knight's blood on his breaches.

 "Let's move on." he said solemnly, they began to move away and Micah thought he saw Adriel quickly wipe his hand across his eyes as if brushing away tears.

Micah couldn't be sure he hadn't been.