Hello again! Goodness I am so terribly sorry for disappearing on you guys! I absolutely hate it when writers drop off the face of the earth but it appears I am no better myself. :( I really suck at maintaining a regular schedule for updates and for that I apologize a thousand times. My internships have just been much more busy and hectic than I thought they would be, coupled with important exams and a bunch of other stuff on top of it all. :( Again I am so very sorry.

But here's to 2018! I wish you all a very happy new year! May all your wishes come true, sprinkled with happiness, love and health for you and all those you hold dear. :-*

Here's my gift to you to begin the year! Three new chapters, delving into Maeve's story as she is catapulted to the Island of Kalladrell! The next couple of chapters are entirely dedicated to her. The next one with Sinbad's POV should be around chapter 13-14 if I remember correctly. ;)

Enjoy! :)

Chapter 3 – Dodging Arrows

Maeve drew in a breath, her eyes fluttering open. She winced against the harsh light and brought a hand up to shield her brow, blinking several times to adjust her vision. For a moment her entire mind was blank and her body felt numb and heavy, as if she'd been asleep for days.

She squinted past the bright light and saw a thick canopy of green leaves smiling down at her amidst patches of clear blue sky. The distant branches were swaying in the wind, the leaves ruffled by the breeze, and a few birds were calling and answering each other with happy little chirps. The quiet sounds of nature were sweet and the air smelled like pine trees, but still Maeve had trouble registering where she was, her mind foggy and slow.

Groaning in discomfort, she felt the hard ground underneath her, with a root digging in her lower back. She craned her neck to look around and a maze of trees welcomed her from all sides.

She was in the middle of a forest.

Grunting quietly again, she lifted herself up to a sitting position and slowly assessed her limbs for damage, all the while forcing the gears in her mind to start working again.

Her thoughts immediately latched on to the one person she instinctively used to anchor herself down: Sinbad. She wondered when she last saw him and the sudden spark of realization had the effect of a fist punch in the gut.

The storm.

She hadn't seen Sinbad in two weeks.

Dim-Dim had whisked her away to his cursed prison, only to send her off again on a perilous mission.

Maeve felt her blood run cold, her thoughts roaring and colliding together. The Island of Kalladrell. The village of Denwood. A vague prophecy about an upcoming evil. The prophet, Jacob. An attack conducted on his village.

Her nerves jolted with alarm like the mighty crack of a whip, a wild sense of urgency coursing through her like a lightening strike. In a flash she shot to her feet, her breathing quickening as her head spun around, her eyes surfing on her surroundings as utter confusion swelled inside her.

She was in the middle of nowhere. Why was she in the middle of nowhere?

The travel vial was supposed to take her exactly where she wanted to go so why hadn't she landed directly in Denwood in the middle of the attack in Jacob's village? Had something gone wrong with the magic? Had she not thought of Denwood hard enough for the vial to pick up on where she wanted to go? What if she wasn't even on the right island?

Maeve swallowed hard, fear creeping into her bones. The life of Dim-Dim's friend was at stake. She was supposed to find and protect this man. She had promised Dim-Dim that she would.

With her heart hammering in her chest, she looked around frantically, scanning every direction as she cursed under breath. She wasn't even close to any road. She was literally in the middle of nowhere, in a luxurious forest of tall green trees and well-furnished brambles of all sorts.

Mind racing, Maeve turned on her heels to try and determine which way to go. Time was ticking. She could pick a direction at random but what if it led her the wrong way? She would lose precious time then and she couldn't afford it. Straining her ears, she tried to listen for any sound that might be of help, like the rumble of a river she could follow inland or the distant rolling of cart wheels on a dirt road. But there was nothing but the sounds of isolated nature.

Glancing up at the tree tops and the dancing shafts of sunlight through the leaves, she guessed it was a little after dawn. Since she had left Dim-Dim around that same time, she figured the magical trip hadn't taken very long so maybe there was still time to save Jacob, but she knew she had to hurry nonetheless.

One thing was for sure; she couldn't stand there forever debating where to go. She had to move.

Cursing under her breath once more, and uttering a silent prayer as well for good measure, she broke into a run.

She plunged through the trees like a mad woman and raced ahead in the light green woods with a random heading, eyes flicking from side to side to spot anything that might indicate the presence of human life. Thoughts swarmed inside her head with all the possible worse case scenarios and right now there was nothing she could do to prevent any of them from coming true. All she could do was run. Run and pray she was heading in the right direction.

Jumping over a fallen sapling here and spitting out spider webs there, she zigzagged through the maze of pine trees with as much speed as she could, her mind soaring in every direction all at once as the sense of urgency threatened to overwhelm her.

She felt like one of Firouz's exploding sticks, seconds away before the fuse burned off and the blast occurred. It simply made no sense. Where on earth was she? Where the hell was Denwood?

Her clipped breathing and the thumping of her boots on the forest floor, crunching dry leaves and breaking twigs, were the only sounds she could hear as she ran on and on, weaving her way around rocks and roots, up and down soft rises and slopes in the dirt ground, and finding little comfort in the fact that the trees were spaced wildly enough to spare her the lashing of low branches.

Startled squirrels skittered up trunks and branches as she rushed past, her heart trashing in her ribcage. In the back of her mind she feared she would be too late but she angrily shrugged the terrible thought aside, pushing herself harder in her sprint and ignoring the growing stich at her side. She couldn't fail. She simply couldn't.

As she side-stepped a jagged grey rock, distant roars of laughter suddenly reached her ears.

Maeve skidded to an abrupt halt, her eyes darting around the woods while her heart skipped a hopeful beat.

Had she run in the right direction against all odds?

She strained her ears to orientate herself amidst the trees, hurriedly following the voices while getting her wind back, her steps light and silent on the forest floor.

Peeking around a large tree, her gaze soon fell on the source of the crude hollers, and dread immediately soaked into her bones.

It wasn't a village under attack she had stumbled upon. It was a small caravan. A caravan of thieves by the looks of it.

In the middle of a small clearing, a band of rough-looking thugs wearing dark tousled clothes and black bandanas on their heads seemed to be inventorying their latest loot. Silver cups, bead necklaces, gold encrusted chests, silky scarves of every color, and much more was packed in the back of a wagon harnessed to two massive draft horses.

The road.

Her eyes went wide in sudden realization.

If the thieves were travelling with a wagon then the road had to be close somewhere. All she had to do was circle around to the other side of the bandits' party and follow the wheel tracks back to the road. Maeve thanked the good spirits silently. She had run in the good direction.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" A raspy voice called out.

Alarmed by the overt tone of the question, Maeve's attention quickly jumped from man to man. When she spotted who had spoken, her eyes locked with the gaze of a tall ruffian sporting a disheveled blond ponytail, standing by the wagon. He was looking straight at her across the clearing, a gruff smile stretching his lips.

Maeve's breath caught in her throat. As silence settled in the forest like a thick blanket, the rest of the gang's attention left the wagon's stolen rich goods and focused on her. Before she had time to react, the tall man snickered at his companions and pointed in her direction with the silver cup he was holding. "Looks like we're in luck, boys! Bonus merchandise!"

The thugs dropped their loot and started towards her, a woman's warmth probably worth twice the cold touch of stolen gold coins judging by the heated looks in their eyes.

Maeve didn't lose a minute and broke into a run again, hearing them shout in unison as they dashed after her to catch her. With a rough count, she estimated there were at least twenty of them. Those were bad odds for her, not to mention that they were all carrying swords and bows and she was completely weaponless against them, if not for the dagger lodged in her right boot. She could always resort to the use magic but she didn't know if that would scare them away or if it would only kindle their desire to capture her.

Zigzagging through the trees, Maeve ran as fast as she could with no idea where she was heading, quickly losing her bearings in her escape sprint. The thieves were rapidly closing in on her and she knew she had to make a stand before they encircled her completely.

And she had to find the bloody road.

As she crashed through the thick shrubbery of a green bush, she stifled a scream as the ground suddenly disappeared under her feet and she felt herself falling through thin air, the coldness of water enveloping her a second later as she plunged head deep into a large pond.

Emerging with a gasp as the unexpected cold sensation clawed at her skin and her core, blinking droplets out of her eyes, she saw the thieves scurrying down the abrupt slopes on each side.

Muscles springing into action, Maeve kicked her legs and trudged her way out of the pond as soon as she found her footing on the slimy floor beneath her boots. Dripping wet, she rushed back on solid ground and broke into a run again, heading for the nearest rise to clamber out of this large ravine she had cornered herself into.

But she barely had time to make five steps on the rocky ground when a thief skidded down the slope and blocked her way, his hands spread apart as if he was about to try and tame a wild horse. He smiled a toothless smile before diving forward to grasp her but Maeve kicked him in the stomach and backhanded him across the face. He hadn't even hit the ground when two other ruffians appeared behind her, and quickly realizing what she was capable of, they purposefully unsheathed their swords before lunging to grab her as well, trying to sandwich her between them.

Luckily for her, since their primary aim was to capture her to enjoy what attributes she had to offer, the fight was much easier to tackle. As the first thug with a thick black beard tried to poke his blade at her mid-section to corner her towards his companion, Maeve simply side-stepped and kicked his wrist. The other ruffian, bald as an egg, used the opportunity to snatch her arm but she gripped his instead, twirled around and flipped him over her shoulder. The man landed hard on his back with the wind knocked out of him, while Maeve kicked the bearded man down again before he could pick up his fallen sword.

The duo was grunting in pain on the edges of the pond when another thief jumped into the fight with a battle cry. This time Maeve dove for her former opponent's blade lying on the ground and blocked her new attacker's assault just in time, the clash of steel ringing in the forest like chimes. The gruff man grinned at her evilly but Maeve easily deflected his next blow and rammed the hilt of her sword in his face, sending him careening backward into the pond with a heavy splash.

Not losing a second, she then turned around to resume her escape run but a meaty hand backhanded her across the face without warning, catching her by surprise. The blow sent a burning sting in her left cheekbone and she staggered to the side, losing her grip on her sword, but before her new aggressive attacker could touch her again Maeve thrust her knee up in his groin with all the strength she could muster and as he doubled over in pain, she elbowed him hard in the kidneys.

When the gruff man sprawled to the ground motionlessly, she took a second to press her fingers to her cheek to check if the bone was broken. She doubted it was, but her ear was still ringing from the unexpected strong impact.

Breathing hard and still wet as a fish, with droplets trickling from her hair, she glanced down at the stunned thieves wriggling in dazed pain on the ground, counting five of them, but then her attention alarmingly shifted when she caught sight of all the rest of the thieves as they appeared like dots at the top of the ravine, crowning its outline amidst the trees. Seeing their companions sprawled on the forest floor at her feet, they yelled in anger and yanked their bows free, most likely deciding that killing her was better than capturing her at this point, if only to avenge the pride of their fallen comrades, with the obvious conclusion that she was worth more trouble than pleasurable warmth.

As they cocked their arrows in place, Maeve hurriedly scurried away, circling around a small ridge for protection and then struggling to clamber up the slope to get out of the ravine. She could hear the thieves skittering down into the small gulley to chase after her, determined not to lose sight of their escaping target.

As soon as she reached the top of the slope and was back on the forest ground, Maeve broke into a run yet again, her heart hammering against her ribcage as the shouts from the band of ruffians echoed behind her, much too close to her liking.

She sprinted and crisscrossed in the woods and the green brambles, cautious not to lose her footing on any rock or root, and soon arrows were whistling past her in deadly swifts, splintering the bark of trees and sending chips of wood in the air.

Maeve cursed under her breath and hunched her shoulders, switching from a straight-line race to a zigzagging sprint through the wide-spaced trees.

What on earth had she gotten herself into! She didn't have time to play cat and mouse with a band of outlaws!

She raised an arm to cover her face as an arrow flashed past her, missing her shoulder by an inch.

She had to get to Denwood! She had to find the road! She had to-

A body crashed into her, heavy and snarling, knocking the wind from her lungs as they hit the ground hard.

The angry thief pinned her roughly under his weight, his meaty hands gripping her wrists before she could punch him in the face. He leered at her hungrily, his face inches from hers and his churning breath filling her nose as he trapped her arms on each side of her head.

Maeve wriggled under him furiously, trying to push him off as he buried his dirty face in her hair, her neck, sniffing at her and groaning in heated desire. She tried using her knees to buck him off but he was too strong, his hips pressing down on her like a mighty anchor that wouldn't budge.

But then he made the poor move to try and hold both her wrists with one hand, to allow the other one to roam free down her body to explore what she had to offer. It was the opening she needed. As soon as he lifted his face from the slope of her shoulder, Maeve head-butted him with all her might, breaking his nose. His grip on her wrists instantly loosened and she violently pushed him off of her.

The thief rolled over with a growl, clutching his bleeding nose while she hurriedly pulled herself up on her feet, shuddering at the thought of what he would have done to her. But there was no time to allow the dreadful feeling to settle in the pit of her stomach.

The rest of the caravan was aiming straight for her, shouts reverberating in the woods while fingers pointed to her location to guide the thrilling chase of the group, the men almost howling like a pack of hungry wolves.

Maeve's shoulders slumped down in frustration at the sight, but she had no choice except break into an escape run again, scampering amidst the trees with no idea where she was going and well aware that this stupid hunt couldn't go on forever. As she ducked under a low branch, magic trickled down to her fingertips, announcing the impending arrival of fireballs. If this is what it took to get them off her tail then so be it.

She had wasted enough time as it was. Jacob's life couldn't wait any longer. She had to find the village of Denwood, now. She had to-

As she sprinted past a massive old tree, a strong hand suddenly gripped her arm and yanked her aside. Before she could even scream, callused fingers clasped over her mouth and an iron arm locked around her waist. As the man firmly pressed her against him, her back to his chest, he squeezed them both in the hollow trunk of the big tree while the rest of the thugs ran past them with angry roars, now chasing after an invisible prey.