"What?"
"I said go home. Go back to Jabol."
He struggled to his feet. "But-"
"Listen, Writath wants me dead at the moment. You know that. Why risk your own life? You have nothing to do with me, you don't know me."
She disappeared between the trees.
"Wait!" he shouted.
"Stay there! Don't come any closer!" she ordered him from behind the trees.
He sat down dutifully, but muttered to himself darkly. After a few minutes she appeared again. She had changed into her trousers and a shirt and she was carrying her dress in her arms. She folded it neatly and stuffed it into her dufflebag, which increased in volume immediately.
Ahro watched her as she continued to put on a studded leather armour.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Never you mind." She said as she fastened her dufflebag to Silta's sadle. "My plans don't include you."
Ahro jumped up and went to his own horse. He fastened his sadle and looked back at Calandra defyingly.
"I'll follow you anywway. You won't be able to go anywhere without me following you. You're stuck with me."
Calandra let out a loud sigh. "Why are you so persistant?"
"I only want to help."
"Even at the cost of your own life? Don't you have a family? A mother and a father or a brother waiting for your return? Perhaps a young bride waiting for you at the altar?"
He shook his head. "No. My family died long ago and I have no home to go to. And as for a bride...look at me. I'm penniless, a manservant. I have no real profession or anything worth mentioning to my name. What kind of girl would want to marry me."
Calandra jumped on Silta's back and looked at him thoughtfully.
"...So you are alone? Not running away from anything...just alone?"
He nodded. She felt a shadow grow inside her. She was alone too. Abandoned by her love, betrayed twice like some gullible woman. Scorned.
She had never felt this alone before and this boy here showed all of those feelings just by standing there, looking back at her. She could see in his eyes that he felt just like she did.
"So...will you let me travel with you?"
"...No."
She whipped Silta into action and disappeared in between the trees. Ahro cursed and mounted his own horse and followed her quickly.
Calandra rode as fast as she could. Looking back every so often she noticed she was shaking him off slowly. And after a while she felt had been able to lose him. Immediately she felt more relieved. She didn't want a city boy like him with her. He'd slow her down and be in her way.
She set out towards Marek now that she could travel more relaxed. She rode on till the sun had gone down, wanting to reach her destination as soon as possible. She continued through the night, not taking a moment to rest.
When the sun had come up again, she found her way down a main road. She looked back again, now more out of habit than out of anything else, just to make absolutely sure she had really shaken Ahro off.
She halted near a couple of rocks at the side of the road. She tied Silta to a rock and pulled out a piece of cloth and some nearly stale bread so she could eat. Her stomach was grumbling.
When she had rested for a while she wanted to pack everything back up again, but then she heard the sound of hooves and a carriage. She looked down the road and squinted her eyes. In the distance she could see a caravan coming down to meet her.
She sat down on a rock and waited for them to pass her. She would be safer if she could persuade them to let her travel with them. When they passed she called out to them and they halted.
"Please, kind sir." she said in her loveliest voice. "I'm afraid I got lost and here I am, all alone. I was hoping you'd let me travel with you."
The man jumped down from his cart. "Join us? My dear young lady. I'm afraid I can't let you join us. I am under strict orders from my boss not to let anyone join. Seeing as how bandit raids have increased so much lately."
"Oh my!" she said, making sure she gasped like a shocked young girl ought to have gasped.
"Yes! Even lovely young ladies like yourself can be bandits nowadays. There's no telling who you can or can't trust anymore."
Another man jumped down from the cart.
"Oi, Thain! Can't we take a break? The lads could use some lunch."
The first man hesitated, but then nodded and smiled. "Right then. I hope you don't mind us keeping you company during our lunch."
Calandra smiled. "Oh no! Not at all. At last I will be able to talk to people again. I've been traveling on my own for days and it was frightfully quiet and boring without anyone to talk to."
The men opened a big basket and pulled out meat and wine. They sat down in the grass and passed it all on to each other. Calandra enjoyed the lazy sunny weather and talked to the men if they sat next to her.
She allowed some to put an arm around her and blushed like she knew she ought to, but only endured it so she could sneak a hand into their pockets. Every time her hand closed around another pouch or trinket she felt wonderful.
When the men started to pack the remnants of the lunch, she pouted and waved at the cart for a long while after it had gone. When it was far out of sight, she eagerly returned to Silta.
From the depths of her sleeve and pockets she produced a fair amount of money and valueables. She laid them out on a piece of cloth and looked at it. It was no where near the amount of money she owed Writath, but at least it was a start.
She sighed and wanted to throw it all into her saddlebags when she heard someone in the bushes near her.
She took her bow and arrow and listened closely to detect where the person was exactly. She took aim and waited for the right moment. When she let the arrow fly, she knew it wouldn't hit him. It would only scare him out of his wits to have an arrow pierce itself into a tree right before his nose.
'Foolish boy.' She thought as she heard Ahro's voice shreak.
"Come out, you idiot. I could have killed you if I had wanted to. You just thank your deity on your bare knees that I knew it was you."
Ahro came out, shaking and pale. He handed her back the arrow and sat down quietly. Calandra chuckled, but her laugh got stuck in her throat as he pointed at her newly aqcuired treasure.
"...You're a thief, aren't you..." he said slowly.
She found herself nodding. No one had ever called her that, even though she knew very well that she was exactly that. A thief and nothing more. She pushed past him and stuffed it in her sadlebag.
"You are..." Ahro repeated breathlessly.
She ignored him and jumped back on Silta's back. "I told you to go home."
"And I said I would follow you wherever you went." He answered calmly.
She rolled her eyes and trotted towards the road. Ahro let out a tired sigh, also jumped back on his horse and followed her closely in a steady pace.
"Wait! Miss Robin, please."
Suddenly she halted.
"...You're not going to go home, are you." She said as she turned to face him.
He looked back at her with determination.
"Very well then." She sighed. "It's better to travel with someone than to have him follow you the entire time."
Ahro smiled broadly. Calandra just turned around and rode on. Ahro steered his horse to her side. After a while he started to look bored.
"...Where are we going?"
"Marek." She said without looking at him.
In her mind she was somewhere else. She was sharpening the edges of her plan, but Finnaen kept creeping into her thoughts too, distracting her and confusing her. Though having Ahro at her side was distracting too, and not only, she felt, because he was constantly asking her questions.
"Why? What are you going to do there?"
"Miss?"
She sighed. "Ahro...please stop calling me 'miss'. It makes me feel nervous."
"Oh...sorry m- Sorry."
They continued in silence for a while again. Ahro looked at her from time to time. She looked angry at something but he couldn't tell at what. As if it was something she was thinking about.
He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but he didn't dare. She had this air about her as if she was in a trance and that, if he would break it, she would lash out at him.
He looked back out in front of him and pondered about what he was doing. He was on the road with a woman he hardly knew. They were on the run from someone and he was far away from the only city he had ever called home.
Yet he didn't mind and he wanted to be nowhere else. He felt slightly faint every time he looked at her. Perhaps he was ill. He looked at her again and she was still in a deep pensive state.
He noticed suddenly how much weaponry she carried with her. She had a quiver and a bow on her back, a sword hung from her belt and he suspected she had a dagger in each of her boots. He wouldn't be surprised if she had one or two of those up her sleeve too.
Suddenly he felt quite vulnerable with only a dagger and his crossbow. He had been an easy victim for robbers the entire time and he hadn't even thought about it.
He let out a nervous chuckle. This startled Calandra and she snapped out of her trance.
"What?" she asked irritably.
He looked at his horse. "N-Nothing. I just-"
"Hush." She said suddenly, raising her hand.
She craned her neck and listened carefully to the silence.
"I don't-" he started, but she hissed again.
He watched her hand slowly crawl down to her boot. Nervously he pulled his dagger from his belt.
"Who's there!" she called.
Ahro couldn't help noticing how her stance had changed, changing the way she looked too. She looked almost like some sort of magical creature, proud and still. Her hair fluttered around her head like a flame and she had a determined air about her.
The thought she might actually be some sort of magical creature lingered in his mind for only a second.
"Who's there!" She repeated.
"Friend or foe." Ahro added, feeling the need to show bravery.
But as soon as the words had escaped his lips he knew how stupid and rediculous they sounded. An embarrassed blush crept to his cheeks.
A chuckle rose from the bushes and three men revealed themselves.
"Easy does it." One of them said with a smirk as Ahro's horse whinneyed and started to take a few nervous steps back.
"Yeah. We only wants a bit of yer money. So hand over whatever gold yeh have and we'll leave you two youngsters be." Said the second one.
Ahro looked at Calandra. She didn't look frightened or nervous. Her face was emotionless.
'She's measuring them up!' It shot through him.
"Well, let's have it then!" The first man said impatiently.
Calandra looked at him with a sort of superiority that could bring most men to their knees. This time it worked too. The two who had spoken shuffled back and muttered to each other.
Calandra ignored them and looked at the third, who was staring back at her calmly. It was obvious to her that he was their leader. But why a man like him would want to employ men like that was a mystery to her.
The leader looked back at her without blinking.
"Let us pass and I shall not harm you and your men." She said.
Well, I'm sorry it took me so long to update. But with my midterms and all i just forgot...
Kar-Vermin: I am very happy with your review. You might think that I might have been slightly annoyed or insulted by what you wrote, but I want to tell you that this has actually been the first review EVER to give me good and useable advice! I've never been more happy and grateful with a piece of review than I was with yours. I'm glad you think Calandra comes across like a real person. But I'm also glad about what you said about contracting the sentences and all. I kinda thought the same thing myself, but after you said it, I realised it REALLY needed changing. And about my spellcheck...it's not working and I don't know how to get it to work. So I have to do it all myself and to be quite honest, I miss a lot of things. And sometimes I plainly just don't know the proper spelling. But thank you for your honest but very useful review :D
Grayangle: Don't worry, she'll encounter Finnean :D She needs to get her own bacl, doesn't she. Calandra is a strong-willed person. She won't let this rest before she can show him she doesn't need him to get by. She'll want to do something to make sure he sees she doesn't need him anymore. You'll see what happens in a while ;) But I can't promise that there will be any sharp objects but her whip and tongue innvolved in it :D Thanks for the review!