A/N Yes... I am indeed updateing again. lol. I know what you're thinking. Twice in one weekend? Yep! It's true. I've just been on a brainstorm! Plus, I've had these scenes in my since almost the beginning so I'm enjoying finally being able to write them all out. I hope you enjoy reading them also. Now, thanks to:
Dana: Hehe... funny you should mention that.
Warrior of Tortall: Yes it was indeed.
...: You never know. He just might wink Of course, I could be lying.
Fyr's Shadow: You think she's crazy too? Hmmm... never suspected that. lol.
Wingedrider: Thanks!
Zerrin of the Wind:I suppose a boy could resemble a girl. But Tori did say she looked just like her. So... yeah. Thanks for reading and I'm glad that you enjoy Avenger also.
Mage Light: I'm glad thatI have made this story so well. lol. And I'm also glad that you liked it so much. And not the puppy eyes! They always get me. lol.
cloverlcuk 11: I'm so glad that you like it!
Chapter Twelve:
Tori barely had any time to think as she was hurriedly pushed into heavy, bulky armor and a bow was shoved at her along with a quiver of arrows. She grabbed Wildfire's reigns and hardly had time to secure her bag of rocks onto her belt before Derek was calling them all into assembly.
He was giving every one in the squad a position. There were ten at most, but Derek was taking along the refugees who had seen battle before and knew how to fight. Along with Neal, Numair, Daine and Kel, there were enough people for them to take down the bandits.
"From what we gathered, the leader of the bandits is highly skilled with the sword and from the evidence of how many people were killed, these people are ruthless. Now, here's a map of the area where they've built a temporary fortress."
Trees surrounded the area but that only lasted about a mile before it hit a ravine with a river running through it. They had information that said there was a path that lead down the side of the ravine. Derek had scent a runner down to check if it was true and he had returned with news that not only was it true, but the path lead through the woods up to the clearing where they had built the fortress. If any one had any inclination of escaping, which most of them would, that would be the way they would be going out.
Derek however confident he was that the battle would be over before anyone got the chance to escape still felt the need to put someone on the path as guard. He picked the young man who had been entirely new to the Own like she had been.
She looked at him and immediately saw sweat bead along his upper lip. His face paled to a horrible shade of gray and she knew something was wrong. He looked up and his blue eyes had pleads in them. He couldn't have been more obvious in his seek for help. With an inward sigh she nodded to him and told him with her eyes that she would help.
"Torick, you'll be with me. Any questions? Good… lets move out in five minutes!" Derek turned to go gather his horse and Tori strode towards the young man.
"What is it?" she asked him, hiding the irritation in her voice. Now that she was close up to him, she could see that he was really very frightened.
"I can't take the ravine path!" he stammered, his voice low, looking around to see that no one was listening.
"Why not?" she demanded. When he refused to answer, she turned to walk away but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back to face him. He stared at her for a moment more and would have staid quiet she knew. "Tell me or I won't help you."
"I'm scared of heights," he whispered and immediately colored in shame.
"Is that all?" she asked and he nodded.
"Okay, look. I'll take your place and you take mine. I wasn't paying attention anyways so I don't know where I'm at and therefore I can't be disappointed. Okay?"
"But I can't do that!" he nearly shouted and Tori was thoroughly exasperated.
"Why not?" she demanded again, resisting the urge to stamp her foot in impatience. Really it would have been easier to simply leave him to it.
"It'd be going against the commander's orders," he whispered again.
"Look, I'm sure Derek would rather us disobey orders then have you on the path when you're afraid of heights. Now, go mount up and don't mention this to anyone. When the battle starts and Derek asks you where I am, tell him I asked for the switch, not you, got that?" he nodded, his eyes wide. But she knew that he would follow orders.
Problem solved, she hurried over to her horse and mounted up. Within moments they were heading out. It would take them less then an hour to reach the area and then she would be on her own out at the ravine. It would be her first real battle, yet it would be exactly the same as the surprise attack that had happened less then a week ago.
She wondered if it would be as easy as that first fight. It seemed so long ago that it had happened. So many things had happened since then that it seemed almost a year had passed. But then, that's how her life had been feeling like for the longest time. So many things had happened! It seemed years and not a matter of mere months since Robert had died and her world had been turned upside down.
She felt as if her life was passing her by and she didn't have time to stop and enjoy it. So much had already slipped past her. She wished so badly that she could go back to the girl that she had been just a short time ago. But if she were able to go back to that, would she be content? She was certain that she wasn't the same person that she had been when Robert was still with her, but had she changed that much?
Could she settle down and be a nanny once more now that she had had a taste of a soldier's life? Could she allow herself to be just a nanny when she had helped people? Could she live with herself once all this was over, knowing she had taken lives?
If Robert was still alive, she wondered if he would even recognize her.
Quickly, she forced the thoughts from her mind and concentrated on thinking about the coming battle. She would need to be prepared for it. Very prepared.
She went over a mental checklist of everything that she had in her saddlebags. She knew she had rope and she would use that to anchor her to a tree or something. In case there was a battle, which she highly doubted because she had full faith that Derek would take care of everything, she didn't want to roll of the side into the ravine.
But she did have the rocks. She could throw the home rock over the side and incase she did fall, she could use the field rock to take her to safety. It sounded like a wonderful plan to her and would be very useful if she had need of it. But really, she was certain she wouldn't need it and would therefore spend her time on the cliff thinking. There was much that she could think about. For instance the vision that she had had just that morning.
When the partial army reached the clearing and began setting up for attack, Tori took her horse off into the woods and down the path. She quickly reached the little open space on the cliff edge that led to the path. She dismounted and tied her horse several feet up into the edge of the woods, easily accessible to her, but not from any other angle. Then she gently walked to the edge of the path and looked over.
She could see it winding its way down the side of the cliff in sharp switchbacks. Even if a bandit happened upon her, made it past her and down onto the path, it would be easy for her to shoot him with her arrows. But only from this angle. Any other angle and she wouldn't be able to see him.
The farther out onto the ledge she walked, the harder it was to see the path. The underside of the ledge had eroded away, so really the path was curved under the ledge. As was the river below. If she were to fall from the ledge at the point that she was standing, she would land in the water.
A sudden rustle in the bushes leading onto the ledge startled her away from her viewings. She swung around, her hand automatically reaching to draw her sword. The dappled gray pony broke onto the ledge, the small figure on it's back shocked to find her sword pointed at its face.
"Jon!" Tori's eyes widened in disbelief as she hurriedly sheathed her sword. She helped him down from the pony, still too shocked to scold and led the pony over to where she had her own horse was tied.
"What are you doing here?" she asked as she took out the rope from her saddlebags. She would tie herself to a tree, but she would have to have Jon hide out in the trees. She couldn't send him back to their camp by himself because the fight had likely started and he would be in danger and she couldn't ride back with him because she wasn't supposed to abandon her post.
"I wanted to see the fight. I thought you were going to sneak into the back, but now that I see you're only a lookout, I'll head back. I'm sure I can make it into the fortress now that Derek has the gates open," He turned to head back into the forest for his pony but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Sorry Jon, but you'll have to stay with me now," she gave him a soft smile and saw the determination in his eyes. He would leave the first chance he got, but she had a way of getting him to stay. "Besides, Derek assured me that someone's coming this way that we'll have to fight. You wouldn't want to miss your first chance at a true fight, would you?"
She didn't even want to think what Jon's father would say if he heard what she had just said. It was likely that Jon had left without permission, again, but there was nothing she could do for it. She saw the light glitter in his eyes and knew that he was pleased with that promise. She smiled and gestured him closer.
"Here's the plan. I'll stay out here in the open and when they come down the path, they'll head towards me. You, who'll be hiding in the trees, can ambush him when I call for help. How does that sound?" she saw him pout and added a little bit of bribery to the plan. "If you do good, I'll think about teaching you that move I used."
He sulked but in the end he entered the trees. She smiled encouragement at him and went to tie herself to a tree. The rope was fairly long and she was able to reach all parts of the clearing. If she happened to fall, which she highly doubted as no one was going to come this way, she would fall a fairly long ways before the rope caught.
She did consider tying the rope around her leg instead of her middle, but it would be more likely to trip her feet if it was connected to them. So she left it around her middle. She only hopped that it didn't make her feminine hips more noticeable. Any man with half a brain who looked would probably see them, but she was willing to take the chance.
As a final precaution, she dropped the home rock off the side of the ledge and prayed it landed on solid ground. She would have to go down there to get it later and then climb up the switchback trail, but she was willing to if it meant she didn't die from the fall.
Once everything was set up, she became rather bored and sat on the edge of the ledge, her sword out on her lap, lightly gripped in her hands. She examined it carefully, seeing the emerald jewel in the hilt. Was it just the sun reflecting on it, or was it glowing faintly?
She wasn't certain and she truly didn't want to think about it any more. Her thoughts of the woman in her dreams had monopolized her mind for so long it worried her that maybe she was becoming obsessed with the woman. She was willing to let it go, but it seemed the woman wasn't willing to let her go.
She frowned and tried her hardest to push away thoughts of the woman. It couldn't be healthy for her to think about it all the time. But with the absence of the woman to fill her thoughts, they turned to her complicated feelings of Derek. What had this morning been all about? Why had her heart raced when she looked at him? Why had she wanted to look at him?
Did… did she find him attractive? She gapped at the thought. Never in her life had she ever found a man attractive. Sure, she had seen hundreds of beautiful men, Robert one of them, but she had never been attracted to them. But Derek was so different. He was just… so mysterious to her.
She knew that sometimes he watched her. And when she looked at him, sometimes he had a mysterious look in his eyes. Sometimes, she had almost thought the looks had been soft, but she was certain that wasn't it. And this morning, he had been hurt by what she had said. If he had thought of her as simply a soldier, he wouldn't have been hurt. Did that mean that he also had feelings for her? And if he did, did she have reason to worry? Was he attracted to her even though she looked like a boy? Or was it something else. Did he see her as only a friend, in a brotherly fashion?
She fervently hoped that it was a brotherly affection. Otherwise, she would have a great cause to worry.
Again, rustling on the path startled her from her thoughts. She pushed them all away and leapt to her feet, ready to meet the bandit that would face her. She got into her defensive stance and waited.
When the man did indeed enter the clearing, she was startled by what she saw. He didn't look at all like a bandit. He was dressed in rich clothes that couldn't possibly belong to a bandit. She knew that he hadn't stolen them, for the look on his face and in his gray eyes suggested that he was a man used to power, a noble's look.
She was about to step aside to let him pass when he drew his own sword. It fit easily in his hand and she was startled to realize that he was, in fact, the leader of the bandits. He had escaped Derek and now he was here to take her out.
He lunged at her, ready to strike and she moved to do as she had always done, to push aside his sword and cut up through his mid-section. But the force of the blow surprised her and had her staggering back. Her teeth clenched as she mustered the strength to turn the sword aside, but she didn't have the speed to swing it up.
Instead, as she was swinging up, he brought his sword back and struck her down again. Again the force amazed her, it was so strong. It pushed her back until she was on her knees before him, struggling to get out from under the force. He lifted his sword and she tried to get up, but he struck again and with her halfway to her feet, it knocked her clear to the ground on her back.
His sword was inches from her face when she pushed up. But it was no use. In but a mere minute, she would lose all strength in her arms and he would kill her. In desperation, she rolled, bringing the hilt of her sword up and the tip down. It surprised the man, and he also lost balance, as his sword slid of hers and its tip dug into the ground, slicing part way into her rope, a mere inch from were Tori's head had been.
Seeing her chance, she jumped to her feet and swung down at him. But he managed to pull his sword free and block it. He pushed up and with pathetic ease had her stalking back. He struck again, but instead of killing her, he knocked her off balance onto her back again and started off at a run for the ravine path.
She cursed, scrambled to her feet and grabbed her bow and an arrow where she had left them on the ground. She swung the bow up and got the arrow in, but as she sighted on the man's back, she couldn't find the strength in her arms to pull back the arrow. Her arms were shaking and her shoulder muscles were cramping.
He had done it on purpose. He had known that her arms were weaker then his and he had deliberately weakened them so she couldn't do what she had just tried to do. He was sneaky bastard, she had to admit. And as she did, she felt a smile tug at her lips.
She replayed his strategy in her mind as she turned to drop her bow and arrow on the ground, dropping herself beside them. And something became clear to her. She had seen his fighting style before, a lot less refined then his had been, but nonetheless, the same. But where?
She looked back down the path trying to find the man, but he was gone. She frowned puzzling over it, but before she really had time to contemplate, she heard more clattering coming down the trail.
She spun, lifting her sword though she knew it was all but useless, her arms were so tired. But she wouldn't go down without a fight. As she turned to meet the person, he tried to jump her, take her by surprise, but she managed to push his sword out of the way and jab up furiously. She sliced through him about halfway before the muscles in her arm gave on her and she had to pull back down.
The man staggered, gagging with the pain and fell to his knees. He clutched at his rent midsection and began to scream. A terrible, horrible sound that made her want to whimper. Instead, she sliced her sword across his throat and sunk to the ground beside him, fighting back tears.
The blood was seeping into the pants at her knees, but she couldn't make herself care. She stared down at his dead face and gagged herself. But she managed to hold it back. She was exhausted now, physically and emotionally. Killing people stressed her nerves so very much.
She staggered to her feet when she heard yet another person on the path. She didn't think she could manage to fight another person. But to her great relief it was Derek and the rest of the squad. The fight must be over.
"You got him, Boy!" Derek came to her and gave her a hefty punch on her shoulder making her wince with pain. Had she mentioned yet that her shoulders hurt also? The others were crowding around her, giving her congratulatory pats on the back. She smiled at them, that funny little tug at the corner of her lips, and tried to explain to them that she wasn't really in need of congratulations. Hadn't she let the first man by? The man that had the exceptional sword skill?
Jon, not to be left out, came running up to the growing crowd, trying to get attention. He did, quite on accident, startle one of the soldiers who swung about, his big hand knocking into Jon's head and sending him staggering backwards, as Tori watched. He would have been all right, that was of course, if he had had ground to stagger back on. Instead, his little feet carried him right off the edge of the ledge.
With a frightened shout, she pushed through the crowd and jumped off the ledge after him, not before Derek jumped also. Only, Derek didn't have a rope secured around his waist like she did.
In a panicked move, she wrapped her right arm around Derek's waist as they sped down the side of the cliff. With their combined weight, wasn't it logical that they would fall faster? Whatever was logical or not, they reached Jon and Derek gripped his skinny arm, even as the rope caught on the ledge. She heard a sound close to a tear in cloth even as she felt the rope tighten around her, biting into her flesh. She felt a rib or two crack.
Only, during the fight, when she had drove the enemy's sword into the dirt by her head, the tip of the sword had sliced partway through the rope. When the rope caught on the ledge, she felt the rope snap into her stomach, crushing her ribs and knocking them into the side of the cliff. Derek's head hit the side and he fell unconscious, slipping from her grip and loosening his hold on Jon. She frantically wrapped her legs around Derek, under his shoulders even as she was clutching Jon towards her mid section.
But the rope was fraying. She could feel it give more each second. With a panicked thought, she scrambled through the bag at her hip until she found the field rock and gripped it in her hand, shouting at the top of her lungs, "Sheshmaru!" just as the rope snapped and they begun a free-fall down into the water.
In a blink she felt them dropping into the water, the home rock secure in her hand. With Jon under one arm and her arm under Derek's shoulders with fast maneuvering, she pulled them to the surface, each gasping for breath. Derek was still unconscious, but she saw that he had managed to stay breathing.
Jon scrambled onto her back, clinging to her like a monkey as she clung to Derek, keeping him afloat even as she struggled to keep her and Jon afloat. She could hear Jon sobbing with fright as she kicked her legs and free arm frantically, heading for shore.
It took some time with her exhausted arms, and she had swallowed more water then was healthy when she managed to pull all three to shore. Jon scrambled up out of the water once he was able to get purchase with his feet, but Tori had to drag Derek up to land by herself, her aching arms making her whimper.
By this time, they had passed the ravine and were several miles away from where they had entered the water. The current in the river had been strong and had taken them far. She was just glad that they had made it to cover, a forest. If the man that had escaped happened upon them, none of them were strong enough to fight them off, not with her tired shoulders and arms and Derek unconscious. No, in the forest they would be safe.
She was panting when she sat hard on the ground. Her ribs hurt, terribly. But first, she had to worry about Derek and Jon. She knelt beside the unconscious figure, even as she called out to Jon, "Jon, are you hurt?"
She examined Derek's head carefully and saw the slight gash on the side, a knot forming. But other then that, he seemed unharmed. Jon still hadn't answered her and she was about to yell at him when she saw a yellow thing washing up on shore. She found it odd to be there, but as she looked closer, she knew what it was.
It was her blond wig.
A/N hehe... yep... that was indeed the end of the chapter. Do you hate me yet? Cause I have been extremely evil in my cliff hangers. lol. Welp, hope you enjoyed it! Review me!
Nubia