Chapter 17 – The Captain, perhaps?

The next morning when Leisa shook her shoulder to wake her up, Maeve felt like a horde of elephants had trampled her during the night. Every muscle in her body felt like it had been torn like an old rag and stretched into hard knots, silently protesting against another tough day of trekking through the cursed woods of the Blind Mountains.

"Rise and shine," she heard the Radakeel calling. "We leave in twenty minutes."

Snuggled up in her bedroll for warmth, Maeve sat up reluctantly, wincing against the pain in her back, stiff as a wooden board. Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she saw her weary expression mirrored in the sleepy faces of all the soldiers and civilians around her, everyone moving in careful slow motion to eat breakfast and gather their packs and their weapons with grunts of physical discomfort.

"Mighty Thorren, kill me now," Coop groaned in protest on the ground as Mark nudged him with his boot to wake him up.

"Careful what you wish for," Leo warned him as he stuffed his bedroll into his pack and eyed the forest vigilantly. "Your wish might come true any moment in these woods."

Maeve glanced around at the uninviting creepy trees and shabby brambles, the darkness of the night shifting to the usual dimness of the forest, a graveyard painted in grey, which only served to cast shivers down her spine.

After a few moments to gather enough strength and willpower, she finally stood up and went about the task of packing up her things. Robin handed her a big orange and a few nuts to eat and she nibbled at them while securing her sword on her back and the satchels of fruits at her sides. Her shoulders screamed when the straps dug in her skin heavily but she had no choice but to ignore their complaints.

Then, sooner than she would have wished, after Simon and Coop trotted back to the rear of the convoy and Mark and Leo weaved their way back to the middle, they were on the move again, like a string of ants traveling one behind the other.

Unsurprisingly, it barely took less than an hour for the cuts on her palms to reopen and her neck to officially get a painful strain, yet she could still count herself amongst the lucky unscathed as opposed to all the people who fell victim to the endless series of mishaps that happened every hour in these wicked woods, like a fortress of trees littered with booby traps fashioned by evil spirits.

The injuries just kept coming like rain; a woman twisting her knee on a slippery rock, an elder man slashing his forehead on a low branch requiring stitches, a young soldier tumbling down a slant and needing to be pulled back up with a rope, a toddler stung in the eye by a bug, and many more cuts and bruises to count, not to mention that those had all happened in the first third of the convoy, not accounting for all the mishaps that had befallen the rest of it further down the trek line.

It just seemed poor old Lobelia, their current healer, was simply overwhelmed with patients to tend to and it could easily be blamed on people's soreness and lack of vigilance after a restless night, which only meant everything would simply get worse as the days trickled by. Fortunately for the old woman, she could also count on Leisa's aid for pain management, the Radakeel's Sleyans possessing the strange property to remove and ease pain depending on the type of wounds as well as providing some degree of healing, instead of inflicting the formidable agony Maeve had already gotten a taste of. It was a strange mix in a weapon, the twin capacity to hurt and to heal, and she was sure Firouz would be absolutely fascinated by it, showering the warrior with questions to solve its mysteries.

But Maeve chased those thoughts away for the time being, focusing instead on her steps as she carefully followed after Robin, although at the moment she couldn't actually see his feet as they were all trudging waist deep in the slimy black waters of a narrow swamp, cold and sticky, with everyone forced to lift up the packs and satchels they were carrying to prevent the food from dipping into the disturbing mixture of moss, worms and weird-looking plants.

With strands of stray hair falling in her face, she could feel her boots unpleasantly digging in the mud at the bottom of the swamp, with the constant, silent fear in her limbs that she might step on a slimy creature at any moment, so it was no surprise she nearly jumped out of her skin when Leisa's hand whipped the air an inch from her face to ward off a spider the size of her fist.

"I hate spiders," the Radakeel muttered under her breath with a grimace of disdain.

"Who doesn't?" Maeve commented mildly, quickly returning her concentration to her invisible footsteps under the black waters.

"How much longer do we have to plod in this filth?" Leisa asked Robin annoyingly.

But as a reply, Robin stopped dead in his track, his entire body going rigid.

Maeve froze.

The whole convoy behind them came to a halt, people craning their necks to see why they were stopping as a dreadful silence quickly settled all around them like a cloak.

"What is it?" Leisa asked grimly, growing still as a statue as well.

"Don't move," Robin said lowly, his hand slowly going to his waist to unsheathe a dagger on his belt.

Maeve held her breath and scanned the slimy waters, her nerves twitching with dread. She had no idea what had made Robin stop so suddenly but she could tell by his tensed posture that it was nothing good.

The yelp of a woman further down the trek line made them all flinch. "There's something in the water!"

Robin's strong hand immediately clenched around Maeve's arm while Leisa's Sleyans flicked in her hands like lightning, the weapons buzzing in the air with lethal power.

People began to scream in panic, trudging and twisting in the black waters to escape whatever creature was lurking at their feet while soldiers unsheathed their swords and slashed through the filthy swamp.

Maeve tried to remain as still as possible, her heart racing in her chest as her entire body steeled itself for imminent danger.

"Stop moving!" Robin's commanding voice rose above the commotion, loud and strong.

As people muted their screams and calmed down a little while mothers tried to soothe their frightened children, Robin held his breath and his raptor eyes skimmed through the flapping waters, his grip on Maeve's arm unyielding like an iron shackle.

Sandwiched between him and Leisa's protective stances, Maeve surveyed the dirty swamp too, searching for any odd movements or ripples on the surface. She wanted to reach for the daggers lodged in her boots but she feared to move an inch lest she provoked whatever monster they had disturbed.

A scream slashed through the air again.

In the blink of an eye, the woman behind them was pulled under the water with her little boy, the two of them vanishing below the surface with a splash.

"Ally!" David the soldier shouted in wild terror. "Sam!"

Leisa deftly stepped back from the dangerous spot and swiftly pushed Maeve behind her while Robin yanked her back as well by the arm, the two of them shielding her from the invisible threat. Their protectiveness baffled her but she quickly shrugged them off and reached for her daggers, her heart hammering against her ribcage like a war drum.

Frantic, the terrified soldier, David, gave his crying daughter to a woman behind him and began to search the opaque waters for his wife and son, plodding everywhere around him and calling out their names like a mad man. A second later the soldier behind him disappeared in the swamp in a splash of water, stirring up a bigger commotion amongst the volunteers and civilians who jumped back and screamed in fright.

"Stop moving!" Robin shouted again over the rising panic but it was no good as more and more people were pulled under the black waters further down the trek line, like weeds plucked by an invisible hand.

"What's going on! What is that thing!" Maeve asked over the screams but her questions went unanswered in the rising chaos.

"Robin," Leisa said gravely, as if to get his approval.

"No," Robin quickly protested. "You'd be touching everybody and half of them cannot swim."

"Half of them are already drowning, General," Leisa insisted. "If I don't do it, we'll all be pulled under."

Robin locked eyes with the Radakeel for brief quiet seconds while Maeve stood still as a rock, wondering just what on earth they were talking about.

"Do it," he finally said with a grim nod before securely grabbing Maeve's arm again while his free hand reached for the coiling branches of the twisted tree next to them. "Hang on as tightly as you can," he warned her.

"Wha-" As he held her arm in a death grip, Maeve choked on her question when she saw Leisa plunge her Sleyans in the opaque waters, the buzz of magic ringing in her ears.

Instantly, a terrible pain arced up her legs all the way up to her waist, making her knees buckle. A scream caught in her throat but the infernal sensation killed it off and all she could do was grit her teeth and claw at the branches for support.

Amidst the chaos of miserable cries and groans of pain all the way down the trek line as people suffered the merciless touch of Leisa's Sleyans, some dashed for nearby branches and rocks while others slumped powerlessly into the water. Maeve could feel Robin shaking against her, battling the agonizing pain while the muscles in his arms flexed and burned.

At last, after endless seconds, the unbearable pain finally subsided as Leisa removed her lethal weapons from the swamp and everything suddenly turned eerily calm, the swamp gently flapping on the muddy banks on each side as everyone down the trek line recoiled from the abrupt surge of pain, looking like they had unexpectedly been hit by lightening.

Robin abandoned his grip on the twisted branches, his chest heaving as he painfully caught his breath. Next to him, Maeve panted and struggled to stand on her legs, her knees feeling like they had been bent in the wrong direction.

Standing tall and unaffected in the middle of the swamp, Leisa put on a satisfied smug. "That wasn't so bad, now was it?" she asked with a smirk.

Robin didn't return her smile, wincing as he stretched his back straighter. "Are you alright?" he asked Maeve concernedly.

"I'm fine," she replied, unable to resist throwing a glare in Leisa's direction. "What was that thing?" she asked no one in particular while her heart gradually stopped trashing.

Robin adjusted the straps of his pack and opened his mouth to speak but then, in a fuzzy splash of water, Ally and her son Sam emerged from the surface, coughing like crazy to get air back into their lungs as they splattered to get their balance. With a wild yelp of joy, David immediately dashed for them even if he could still barely breathe properly, gathering his wife and his little boy in his arms, smiling and crying at the same time with overwhelming relief.

Exclamations soon spread all around as other missing soldiers splashed out of the water like flames spurting to life, earning smiles and hugs from their comrades who helped them to their feet with joyful cheers.

"Do you think you killed it?" Robin asked Leisa under his breath and Maeve realized she still didn't know what the creature was.

Her answer came as fast as the crack of a whip slicing the air.

In the blink of an eye, a white enormous snake-like creature with clawed paws and a crown of spikes bolted out of the water with a screeching clicking sound and dove straight at Robin, coiling around him and swallowing him beneath the water.

"Robin!" Maeve's blood spiked with fear before she even really knew what was happening.

In a flash, Leisa dashed in front of her to shield her, Sleyans at the ready as her cat eyes desperately scanned the flapping waters. The people behind them gasped at the unexpected attack and worried whispers quickly spread down the trek line, everyone going wide-eyed and holding their breath.

Maeve's mind reeled, horrified, as she watched the surface of the black swamp take on a reddish tint.

"Leisa! Your Sleyans! Now!" she shouted, blind terror crawling in her veins like liquid fire with every second that passed by.

Without hesitation, the Radakeel flicked the weapons in her hands but right before their black deadly tips touched the water, Robin splashed to the surface a couple of feet further away.

"Robin!" Maeve shouted again, her bones thrumming with fear while she plodded through the swamp to reach him.

As he spit out water and attempted to stand up in the slimy waters, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up, steadying him on his feet while her hands patrolled his face and shoulders and arms, checking him all over for a bleeding wound as he caught his breath.

"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly, her pulse still pumping in her neck like a storm.

As he properly regained his balance, Robin wiped water out of his eyes and nodded reassuringly. "Never better," he gave her a small smile, his blue eyes meeting hers for an arresting moment as he seemed to notice her apparent worry for him.

She caught herself then, as if tripping on a nasty trap, and quickly released him. She took a step back to give him some space and felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment at her open display of concern for his safety, betraying how fond she had grown of him in the span of merely two days despite her better judgment.

Luckily for them both, Leisa sliced through their tensed bubble as she prodded the dead body of the white snake with a twisted branch, its pale scales glistening with slime. "Can't say as much for this fellow," she pointed out with a satisfied smirk.

"That's a Borg," Robin explained as he sheathed his dagger back on his waist belt. "In all my crossings I've only seen two of them and they were always on dry land, never under water."

"Wonderful," Leisa said, grimacing at the dead creature. "Another good reason to get out of this filthy pond. Shall we?"

After straightening themselves up and quickly checking on the rest of the convoy for wounded civilians or missing soldiers, they resumed their march up the swamp, picking up the pace as everyone was pretty eager to travel on solid ground again.

But it was still another string of long hours of harsh trekking. Maeve's feet and ankles ached like rusty joints and as her clothes dried from the slimy waters of the swamp, the chill of the Bind Mountains bit into her bones like poisoned fangs. And she was covered in mud again, like a drowned rat in a filthy alley. In fact, they all looked like rats, a queue of trembling animals silently begging for food and rest.

When dusk was almost upon them, it felt like a blessing from the good spirits. Robin motioned the trek into a halt at the base of a scruffy-looking rocky cliff, its high walls searing high up with the canopy of trees, the perfect place to make camp for the night, with only one side to defend against potential assaults.

Leisa approved of the location and chose them a spot to camp slightly higher above ground, where they would be able to have a global view of their entire camp site.

Maeve dropped her things next to the Radakeel's, because she knew the black-leathered woman would want to sleep next to her anyway, a second shadow always watching over her.

When they were done eating supper and cleaning themselves up with a nearby brook, and after Robin finished the tale of the Borg to Simon and Coop who, at the rear, had had absolutely no idea what was going on up front and could only guess what the screams reaching their ears and the sudden pain in their legs were all about, everybody called it a night and disappeared in their bedrolls, more exhausted than the previous day and most likely less than the upcoming one.

Alone by their little camp fire, Maeve changed the bandages around her hands again, old and new cuts and bruises half opened and itching uncomfortably. She also tried to massage her neck but in vain, the simple task of rolling her shoulders and bending her arms too painful to endure.

Instead, staring at the dancing flames with drooping eyelids, weary and drained, she lost herself in thoughts, her mind inevitably heading to the place she had come to call home, a ship with white sails on the high seas, with its brave and noble crew going about their tasks on the main deck, her brother perched high on the main mast with his feathers ruffled by the ocean wind, and the captain standing tall at the tiller, a watchful guardian keeping a weather eye on the horizon, perhaps searching for her…or perhaps otherwise engaged in kissing some random nymphet fawning over him after one of his heroic deeds…

Maeve kicked herself as soon the intrusive thought crawled into her mind, like a nasty thorn digging into her flesh.

It was a bitter picture to conjure, but whereas deep longing usually coiled itself around her aching heart when she thought about him, ever since she'd watched him kiss that paled-skin woman the other night, now there was anger as well, foul and wicked and nibbling at her nerves. Anger, jealousy, possessiveness, all those feelings were blending together, threatening to swallow her whole like a formidable beast if she wasn't careful enough. But she was too exhausted to keep them in check right now in the shadows of the woods.

Biting her lips and fighting against the curiosity burning in her blood, she knew she would regret her next move, but she slipped one of her daggers out of her boot anyway.

Just a glimpse, she thought, trying to convince herself that it couldn't possibly hurt to get one small peek just to check if the crew was alright.

Staring at the reflective surface of the blade in the firelight, quickly checking if everyone was asleep around her, Maeve let the magic flow through her fingers and into the blade.

In the darkness, it flickered with soft light and an image slowly materialized, at the center of which shone a little dot of rainbow colors. As the picture became clearer, she realized it was Sinbad's rainbow bracelet, glowing brightly with its mysterious array of magical colors.

But that was not what caused her heart to flip in her chest.

Standing in front of a wall where an old lady seemed to be trapped, her entire body literally encased in the stone as if she'd been molded there by clay, Sinbad was clasping Bryn's hand in his, both their bracelets shining together as one, their magical connection blazing like a bonfire and glaring right back at her like a cruel trick.

It felt like a slap in the face. A painful blow to her pride.

Shutting her eyes closed immediately as if burned by what she had seen, hoping to wipe the image from her mind entirely, Maeve lowered the blade abruptly and gritted her teeth against the swell of emotions inside her chest, pressing her lips together firmly as she remembered that the magic worked by showing the beholder either what he wanted, needed or feared to see, the latter option seeming to exclude all the others in her case.

Controlling her breathing in the dark, she was tempted to raise the blade up again to steal another quick glance but instead she slammed it in the ground next to her, plunging the dagger in the dirt as the black taste of anger rose in her mouth.

Quietly fuming, she pulled at the hem of her small blanket to better secure it around her shoulders, then crossed her arms over her chest for more warmth and proceeded to glare at the flames in front of her, trying to convince herself that what she was seeing was too easy to misinterpret and that such magic was dangerous precisely because of that, as Dim-Dim had carefully warned her.

But it was no use. Misinterpretation or not, watching over the crew and over him seemed to bring her nothing but blistering frustration and crushing sadness. She had to stop.

"Who is he?"

Robin's voice nearly made her jump out of her skin as he sat down in front of her across the fire and placed a new log into the flames.

Except for the pops and hisses of the wood licked by the heat, the silence of the Blind Mountains suddenly felt like a tight cloak, heavy and suffocating as she stared at him, her pulse rising in her throat.

"What?" she asked, snapping at him despite her best effort to remain unfazed. "Who?"

Had he been spying on her? Had he seen what she had seen reflected in the blade of her dagger? No, he couldn't have. She would have heard him come from behind her if that were the case.

He watched her across the campfire, an imperceptible smile tugging at his lips before he gazed down at the flames, poking at the embers with a stick. "There's a man in your eyes."

Maeve froze, her hackles rising at his intrusive comment, her blood abruptly turning to liquid heat. "Excuse me?"

Robin continued to look at the fire, lights and shadows dancing across his face in the darkness and carving his features into soft angles. "Is he one of the sailors you travelled with?" he asked conversationally, honest curiosity lacing through his voice. "The captain, perhaps?"

At that, she shot him a glare across the flames, her temper flaring up like a dangerous spark, and she met his raptor eyes in a wordless confrontation of truth and denial. There was something shining in the depth of this gaze, something she couldn't quite name, but nevertheless he was venturing in a perilous territory, one into which she refused to follow him. "There's no one."

She lied. A blatant lie, foul and sipping into her bones like a blight. And he knew it.

He held the weight of her gaze, measuring her answer like the obvious falsehood it was, but he said nothing. Instead, a flicker of sympathy surfed on his shadowed features, some kind of deep sadness laced with a trace of judgment, and she suddenly felt uncomfortably exposed.

He knew where she came from, knew that her previous residence had been on a ship with a crew of sailors, men of the sea who did not have the best of reputations when it came to matters of the heart. Was he feeling sorry for her? For falling for a sailor who could never settle down?

But he didn't know the real truth. He didn't know the sailors she used to travel with were the legendary crew of the Nomad, far from ordinary men. He didn't know her captain was none other than Sinbad the Sailor.

But she would not tell him that, no matter how many flickers of concern dwelled in his eyes.

After a long, wordless moment, he finally offered her a small smile. "I'm sure your friends miss you just as much as you miss them."

His voice was strangely comforting, gruff and warm in the darkness of the night, like a small balm on her scathed nerves after what she had seen in the reflection of her dagger, but not quite so soothing after his intruding inquiries about what lay in her heart.

She watched him across the flames, studying the shadows of his gaze, and was momentarily rattled by what she found buried there. His concern for her was nothing new, nor was his protectiveness, but now there was the unmistakable glint of longing…envy…or was it jealousy?

The sight of it, shining softly in his caring blue eyes like tormented ghosts, was so unsettling she had to avert her gaze away, returning it to the flames between them.

He looked away as well, as if she had wordlessly exposed him in return, and a few seconds later she was standing, unable to bear the uneasy tension between them anymore.

"Good night, General," she said, addressing him formally, as if to remind them both where they stood in this trek, then walked away to her spot next to Leisa to settle in for the night.

"Good night," she heard him reply in the dark, words barely above a whisper.