Just a quick note before we begin, if you bear (bare? You know what I mean anyway) with me. Sorry it took so long for me to write this chapter. I could fill this here section with excuses but I'm not going to do that, all I want to say is that I haven't forgotten this story and I WILL finish it.

I re-wrote this chapter a few times and I'm still not entirely happy with it, so let me know what you guys think. This story is posted also to my deviant art account, also named RiganteWarrior, if you want to keep updated or look at some crappy illustrations I did for it :D

Cleaver whinnied angrily at Jane as she dug her heels into the horse's flanks, just that little bit too hard. Jane muttered a half hearted apology to Cleaver before continuing to stare stony-faced at the horizon.

'Talking to a horse, Jane?' Gunther goaded, glancing sideways at her to check her reaction. When he didn't get one he continued with a sneer, 'you know it cannot understand you? Or perhaps you are just too desperately lonely to care?'

Still no reaction. Dung it! Gunther cursed to himself. Besides, she was so dependant on those annoying friends of hers, out here without them it was probably true anyway. Poor little Jane, without that kitchen wench to feed her and the giant lizard watching her back all the time, she cannot last two minutes on her own. Gunther sniffed angrily. That must be it. She thought so much of herself that she would rather talk to the horse than acknowledge her fellow squire riding beside her. No wonder he could think of nothing to say to her but insults.

...

Jane was struggling to keep her temper. She knew Gunther was just trying to provoke her and she refused to give him the satisfaction of a response. Only minutes before he had made an obscene remark about her friend Pepper, and gleefully watched her face grow hot and her knuckles whiten as they gripped the reins tightly in her balled up fists. He even laughed as she threw insults back at him. No. She was not going to let her anger entertain him any longer. Jane was sure that he did not always annoy her on purpose, but that was just who he was. Something about him just ticked people off. Even his own father seemed to prefer to spend as little time with him as possible, although Jane was not particularly fond of the merchant either. But, Sir Theodore had recommended that they stick together for as much of their journey as possible. Safety in numbers, he had said. Even so, Jane was beginning to wish for an excuse to leave Gunther behind.

'There is a fork in the road up ahead,' Gunther called.

Instantly irritated by his whiney voice, Jane retorted, 'I can see that, dung brain!' So preoccupied had she been that she had not seen it of course, but that was beside the point.

Gunther opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of insult of his own to throw back at Jane, but it would not come to him. He decided to let Jane have this round and continued on in silence. At least the fork in the path would provide him with an opportunity to get the skinny squire off his back. Gunther had made up his mind. Whatever way that Jane went when they reached it, he would go the other. After all, he had yet to discover what his quest even was. The sealed note his father felt heavy in his pocket and his father's words ringing in his mind: "Do not open it in front of Jane."

As they approached the fork in the road, a low rumbling sound disturbed the tense silence between the two. Gunther looked up, angrily expecting to see that giant green lump Jane called a best friend and his forever rumbling stomach. What he saw instead however were thick black storm clouds just visible above the mountains in the distance.

Jane's blazing bob bounced from side to side as she instinctively began to seek out shelter.

'There's a small cave over there through those trees,' she gestured after consulting her map. 'We can shelter there until the storm passes.'

'You can shelter wherever you like, I'm getting out of here,' Gunther replied, still determined to be rid of her. The storm, however, chose that moment to open up the skies and rain began to fall thick and fast upon them both.

Jane glanced at Gunther smugly and said, 'Well go on then, don't let me hold you back,' and she headed off in the direction of the cave.

Gunther watched her a moment before sighing and sulkily trudging after her.

Gunther sat brooding in a corner as he watched Jane feed and water the horses, then pull some dry tinder from her pack and light a small fire. She pulled a small bow and several arrows from her pack and left the cave. After a while she returned, wet through from the storm, with two skinned rabbits and a handful of wild mushrooms which she threw together in a pot and placed over the fire.

'I'd ask you if you need a hand with anything, but you seem to have it all under control,' said Gunther, his spirits rising with the smell of roasting meat. He took a loaf of brown bread from his own pack and broke it in half to offer to Jane.

'Thank you Gunther,' said Jane, slightly taken aback by his sudden amiability. Jane sat down by the fire to dry off, and there was a comfortable silence as they ate.

At last when the rabbits had been eaten, the two decided on a three hourly watch rotation. You could never be too careful in the woods, and there were bandits about the area. Gunther offered to take first watch and Jane unfurled her bedroll and settled herself as comfortably as she could on the cold stone floor of the cave.

As Gunther sat contentedly by the fire, warm and with a full belly, he regretted his earlier pettiness towards Jane. She had obviously come well prepared despite not having Dragon and her other friends to bail her out. He watched her sleeping form for a moment, admiring the way her hair spread from her head like flames, framing her face from the darkness of the cave. Maybe Jane was not so bad after all. In the morning, he would make a special effort to try and make it up to her.

When Gunther was sure Jane was asleep, he got up and removed his father's letter from his pack. Tearing open the seal, his feeling of content vanished instantly, to be replaced by dread upon reading the words of his father.

Gunther's quest? To become a dragon slayer.