4. The King of the Silver River
They are here! The demon wolves are at our heels!
We are defenceless. Wil only has that hunting knife of his—what good will it be against the demon wolves? They howl and chase after us and already one has nearly pulled us from the horse. Now we are cornered. The Silver River is directly in our path. Now all that we can do is pray that Artaq can swim and that the demons cannot. Evil can't cross water...right?
We are on the riverbank. I feel Artaq pull himself in, and then…
Peace. We float in the air, which has turned to gold around us. An old man appears. I gasp—for who has not heard tales of the great King of the Silver River, guardian of the Four Lands, last of the first folk of this world?
He raises a hand to touch my face. Child, that you were mine…the words are spoken, but they arrive directly in my head. I miss the next part of what he says, but this part will stay with me forever…we are joined in purpose and will be at one with the earth.
I would ponder his words, but before I can even think of it my head is drooping onto Wil's shoulder. I sleep.
All is black. I can feel the sun, feel the ground under—and around?—my feet. I search for Wil, but I cannot move.
Wil? Where are you? Useless as you may be, where are you?
. . . . . . . . .
A/N: Sorry for the long wait. And I thought that last time was a long time before updating…still, I suppose I can plead absent-mindedness because I lost my notes. (All of my fanfic is written by hand first, and then typed out. It's my way of having more than one backup copy.) The good news, though, is that I can now update with three chapters at once, since I was able to re-read the next scenes that I wanted to portray in an attempt to reconstruct my notes—which I promptly found as soon as I'd finished the new ones. That's life, I guess. =)
Anyway, thanks to my reviewers. I'm glad that this isn't as bad as I was afraid it was. =)