Chapter 15

The Fight

After her rampage, Clair was to upset to just stand around while the boys got to hunt for her captor, so she stalked off in the direction of where her horse was when Jeremy brought her up here. Noticing that she was about to do something stupid, Nicholas followed her. When she was mounted, her leaped onto the horse behind her.

"What are you doing?" Clair exclaimed, turning around in the saddle to face him.

"I am going with you. You are not going to hunt for Jeremy by yourself, if that is what you are doing." Nicholas told her promptly.

"You can not come with me!" Clair shouted at him. "I am going to find him, by myself, and hurt him! You can not come with me! Get off of this horse this instant." But he didn't budge. "As your princess, I am ordering you to get off this horse!" she shouted in irritation.

"As your guardian appointed by your father, I am not going to oblige in your request Princess. I know that if I let you go off by yourself, you will get lost, and probably into even more trouble than you were." Nicholas retorted, taking the reins from her and starting the horse forwards.

Knowing that it was a pointless cause to keep arguing with him, Clair just sat there in stubborn silence. After a few minutes, Nicholas tried to strike up a conversation, but ended up saying the wrong thing.

"He didn't hurt you, did he? I mean, you do not look physically hurt, I mean, he did not…"

"How dare you imply such a thing!" she fussed, totally shocked that he would ask such a question. "You have no write to inquire what he did or did not do to me. And if it even was any of your business, I am perfectly fine." At the end of that, she was so quiet that Nicholas could hardly hear what she had said, so he assumed that she was hurt, but did not want anyone to know what happened.

After a few hours of ridding around trying to find Jeremy, Nicholas finally noticed some tracks that he thought looked like boots. Climbing down, he led the horse a little ways on into a small clearing, where they came upon Jeremy getting ready to shoot a dear with his bow and arrow. Seeing a twig on the ground, Nicholas took the advantage in stepping on it, startling the dear, and Jeremy, so that when he shot, the arrow missed the dear as it took off.

Spinning around, Jeremy came face to face with Nicholas who was steadily advancing on him. "What are you doing here Lordling? I thought that you would be curled up in your mansion reading a book without a care in the world about having to find your darling princess yourself." Jeremy said, giving a little laugh.

"Obviously you do not know me very well. I came to find Princess Clair, and to take you back into custody for the King. Now that I have you, let's go get the princess shall we? I am sure that she will have some words to say to you." Nicholas told him, smirking.

"Ha! You just happened to come upon me. You will never find her, and I will never take you to her! You really are not as cleaver as you think you are sir."

"Oh, really? I think that he is quite a cleaver young man." Clair said, stepping out of the shadows of the surrounding trees.

"Clair, what are you doing? You should have stayed with the horse!" Nicholas said, shocked at seeing her standing behind him.

"You obviously do not have her train as well as I do. She actually obeys me when I tell her to do something." Jeremy said laughing.

"I beg your pardon! I am not a dog who does whatever she is told!" with that, she stepped up to him and slapped him as hard as she could.

Stepping back away from her, Jeremy shook his head trying to clear his eyes because they were watering. In furry, he grabbed Clair to try and hurt her, but Nicholas saw what he was going to do ahead of time, and pulled her out of his reach protectively behind him. "Give me the girl!" Jeremy shouted in frustration.

"Why should I let you have her? All you will do is make her your slave!" Nicholas said.

"That is all they are good for, making pets out of them. That and play toys." Having said that, Jeremy lunged for Nicholas, intending to fight him in order to get to Clair. Jeremy threw his first punch, catching Nicholas off guard and hitting him in the stomach. Nicholas, even though he had just had the wind knocked out of him, threw a punch of his own, hitting Jeremy in the face. The two of them fought for some time. When they were tiring, they were both covered in welts and bruises.

Knowing that he was loosing, Jeremy collapsed on the ground, pretending to be defeated. "I give up! I surrender! You can have the girl! You can probably think of something better for her to do than I could anyways. Just let me be!" Jeremy exclaimed, out of breath.

Turning around to make sure Clair was alright, Nicholas didn't see Jeremy reach for his bow and quiver of arrows, but Clair did. Knowing what he was going to do, Clair rushed towards Nicholas from where she had been standing in the shadows, watching in horror as the two had fought over her.

"Nicholas! Nicholas, look out! Behind you! No!" Clair screamed, as Jeremy released the arrow.

Figuring out what she was shouting at him for, Nicholas turned around, but he was not quick enough to dodge the arrow, but instead of hitting him in the heart, he was hit in the shoulder. Clair reached him just as he was falling to the ground, so she was able to ease his way down.

"Nicholas! No! You have to get up! Please, just get up!" she cried. Looking up, she saw Jeremy standing over them grinning.

"Now who will protect you?" he said, laughing at her.

Standing up, Clair threw the hardest punch she could muster up, and hit him square in the jaw. Jeremy was so surprised at how much strength that she had, that he fell to the ground. In furry, Clair kicked him in the ribs, and kept kicking him until he grunted and passed out from the pain. Falling back to the ground, she noticed that Nicholas was bleeding a lot, and that she needed to get help.

"Nicholas, can you hear me? I need you to get up on the horse. Can you get up?" she asked softly.

Opening his eyes, Nicholas saw her kneeling over him with a concerned look on her face. Nodding, he sat up slowly. Grunting in pain, he tried to stand up, but sat down again as soon as he got to his knees. "It hurts too much. I'm sorry." He grunted in pain.

Pleading desperately, she convinced him to just get onto the horse. Leading the horse back to the cabin, Clair was contemplating how long it would take to get to someone who could help them. Before she could come up with an answer, she stumbled into one of the soldiers that were looking for Jeremy.

"Oh, excuse me Princess." He said bowing. "What happened?" he said noticing Nicholas slumped in the saddle of the horse.

"We found Jeremy, and they fought. Jeremy is unconscious in the woods not far from here, but he shot Lord Nicholas in the shoulder with an arrow. I need to get him some help! Please, go get the others and find Jeremy. I am going to ride into town to get help." She rambled as quickly as she could.

"Yes, of course Princess!" the soldier said rushing off.

Coming across another horse which she knew to be Nicholas's, she hopped on and started to race the horses to the path which led to the bottom of the mountain.

"Someone help me! Please, someone help me!" Clair cried upon reaching the nearest town. It was after dark, so most people were either on their way or already in bed. Seeing a light come on in a house near by, Clair rushed over to the door. As it opened, she pleaded with the man in a night shirt to come and look at Nicholas.

"What on earth happened to him?" the man asked.

"He got into a fight rescuing me from my kidnapper. Can you help him Sir, please? He has lost a lot of blood, and you are the first person I have run into." Clair was on the brink of tears by the time she stopped.

"Yes, yes, of course. Let me help him inside. There is a pot of hat water in the kitchen, and a towel on the table. Run inside and help me clean him up." The man told her.

"Oh, thank you so much Sir! You don't know what this means to me." she cried as she ran inside.