CHAPTER 3
—--Day 4
In the morning, Sarah went down to breakfast. She said to Malcolm, "Good morning, Malcolm. Can I get breakfast and tea please?"
He grinned at her politeness and said, "Seven coppers. Good morning to you, Ash." Sarah nodded. He brought her back a big mug of tea and a breakfast of eggs, steak, potato hash and toast. Sarah ate heartily. She was so glad to get decent food after so long. She was going to miss her caramel lattes or coffee in general.
Sarah went shopping and got her food storage and spices stocked up considerably. She bought men's tunics, leggings, nightshirts, women's skirts, blouses and two outside corsets. The bakery was her favorite with breakfast cakes, bread, toasted nuts and pastry. She bought two black leather bags for clothes, a waterskin, four blankets and several different sizes of leather bags from coin purse to big enough for her gold from the cobbler. She made stops in between to drop stuff into her room.
After her third trip dropping stuff off in her room, she found a ring in the women's clothing store that was a large oval bloodstone. It was an endless space for small items. The lady in the store showed her how it works. She put a handful of copper coins inside the 30x22mm oval opening and dumped it back out. It came with a tiny key that was on a long silver thin chain. Sarah bought it for her gold. Sarah even bought a bag of sweet feed and a curry brush in a leather bag from the blacksmith.
—--Day 5
By the next day, Sarah was packed up and ready to go. She got directions from Malcolm through the Unicorn Kingdom. She had mountains to cross and it would take two nights to get across. Malcolm said to beware of treacherous places where the path narrows.
Sarah reached the foothills after a while and started her ascent. It wasn't too bad and she figured it got worse on the mountain itself.
After traveling all day, she stopped to let Shadow eat some dead grass and gave him a couple handfuls of sweet feed. She looked around herself and didn't see anything or any other riders. She continued and found a little cave at the starting ascent of the mountain that was overgrown with vines, scrub and dead leaves hanging over the entrance.
Sarah said, "I 'wish' that nothing was inside this cave that would be harmful to me or my horse for as long as I am staying in there." Bugs and snakes all crawling out of the entire cave entrance. Sarah used her knife and hacked away most of the debris and used her small flashlight to look around the cave as she led Shadow inside. She noticed no footprints on the ground going in and out of the cave and thought maybe it had never been stayed in.
She put him to the back of the cave and said, "I 'wish' for a full day's worth of wood, kindling and enough rocks for a campfire on that wall, with a bail of hay and a trough of water that never gets dirty over on that wall." The items materialized at the places she pointed too. Sarah set up her tent towards the front and stored all the gear in her tent. She made a fire and filled her waterskin she bought and her couple bottles in the trough along with the pans for her dinner and tea.
Sarah sat down and cut up vegetables and dried meat with her rice that was left from her kit. She had bought barley as a substitute instead because they didn't have rice in the Underground. It was a tasty meal because she had more flavorful spices now to cook with.
After Sarah was done, she explored the little cave and Sarah was feeling the walls for holes with her hand. Her hand passed through the stone wall and it surprised her. It was an optical illusion like in the labyrinth maze. She walked down the very narrow corridor that zig zags through solid rock.
Sarah found a room with hundreds of old dirty, dusty and grimey pots stacked on top of each other filling most of the room up to the ceiling. It was dank and musty smelling in there. She found gold coins, silver coins, gold nuggets, silver nuggets, uncut gemstones, cut gemstones, gold dust and silver dust. It was a huge horde of treasure.
Sarah got a bit scared at first to be in someone's horde but thought about it and realized that the pots were all covered in at least two inches of dirt or dust. It would have been abandoned for a very very long time. Sarah opened the oval on her ring and said, "I 'wish' that all gold and silver coins and gold and silver nuggets enter into my ring and any that don't fit make a pile at my feet." The dust in the room started getting cloudy. Sarah held her cloak up to her nose so as not to breathe it in.
The coins all swirled around the room and lined up passing into the ring at a high rate of speed. Sarah was amazed at how it all levitated to do her wish as she held out her hand with the ring opened. Then quite a while later the nuggets followed. She had no nuggets that didn't fit in her ring.
Sarah then said, "I 'wish' that all cut gemstones enter my ring and what doesn't fit or anything else valuable make a pile at my feet." The same thing happened. She had a small pile of cut stones too big for the ring and some were quite large, a huge pile of uncut stones up to the height of her waist and two huge piles of gold and silver dust at her feet.
Sarah said, "I 'wish' all the uncut gemstones and all gold dust and silver dust to enter my ring that will fit." The uncut stones and dust flowed into her ring. Sarah locked her ring, got two large leather bags and bagged up the cut stones and the uncut stones. Sarah went back to her fire and put the two bags with her gear in the tent.
She plopped down in front of the fire and stared into the flames mesmerized and overwhelmed. She exclaimed out loud, "Holy shit!"
Sarah made another cup of tea and started thinking about how much she just took into her ring. She wondered how much gold and silver coins she had. Maybe she could count it one day in a safer place than here. Sarah was tired and organized her stuff, cleaned everything and packed it away. She stored the leftovers for breakfast. Sarah went to sleep amazed at what she had discovered.
—--Day 6
The next day, Sarah made the ascent straight up the mountain. There were precarious places along the way she led her horse through. On the way down on the back of the mountain, Sarah slipped and her heart went up into her throat and was rapidly beating. Falling was not an option with no guardrails. She stood up very carefully on the narrow shelf ledge walkway with a long sheer cliff drop of hundreds of feet. She was walking very slowly and being wary of her footing and the horses. When Sarah got Shadow past the narrow cliff face, she exhaled not realizing she had been holding her breath on and off the whole way. It was a scary area and she didn't want to go this route ever again.
Sarah found a good out cropping as evening came. She didn't see any caves and set up camp there blocked on three sides. She wished for wood and a large bucket of water for Shadow. The horse was thirsty. She gave him a few handfuls of sweet feed too. She got a fire burning and made her tea and barley mixture. Sarah was going to sleep with one eye open.
Sarah said, "Shadow, let me know if someone is coming, ok?" The horse nickered. Sarah slept lightly and it was freezing cold.
—--Day 7
Before dawn, Shadow snorted and hit the tent a couple times with his nose, nickered and snorted. Sarah woke up and it was still dark. She slipped on her boots and came out of the tent. She looked around and saw movement in the dark among the rocks and boulders further up top on the side of the mountain. Sarah threw all the wood on the fire to create more light as she packed up and saddled the horse leaving the bucket of water behind.
Once everything was packed up very quickly and tied down everything in a hurry, Sarah was ready with her gun for whatever the hell was moving in the rocks. She mounted Shadow and they proceeded down the mountain. She was watching her back for anything following because they couldn't go very fast. She saw the fire go out and stepped it up carefully. She knew someone or something was following her, she could see it from time to time darting around. Sarah hoped the sun came up real soon. It was good the path was marked clearly here and she could see it because of the three quarter moon.
Sarah said, "Stick to the path, Shadow. I'll watch behind us if they are coming." The horse nickered.
They made it down the mountain a good amount of distance, before Sarah got to see one of them. It was gray, ugly, muscular, with a huge nose, bugged out eyes and sharp teeth. She freaked out and thought, 'I want off this goddamn mountain now! Thank God, we are almost to the base. I remember reading somewhere that trolls sometimes eat people. Yuck! These must be mountain trolls. They are supposed to live under the ground or in caves. Shit, if I would have known I would have kept going all night to get off this mountain. I sure am glad the cave I stayed in wasn't inhabited with one of these ugly monsters.'
Sarah rode through the morning into the afternoon leaving the mountain and trolls behind her luckily. As she traveled through the foothills, Sarah counted herself lucky that Shadow woke her up in enough time to pack up and hightail it out of there. Shadow was a marvelous horse. He seemed sentient to her or the smartest damn horse ever.
They stopped by a stream and she let Shadow drink and eat what he could. Sarah dismounted and gave Shadow four handfuls of sweet feed.
Sarah spoke softly, "You are the most amazing horse I've ever known. Thank you for warning me and saving us on the mountain. I won't forget that you are a wonderful friend." She hugged Shadow and kissed his nose petting him. He nickered and sighed laying his head on Sarah's shoulder. She ate a breakfast cake and drank some water and filled her waterskin back up to full.
She mounted up and patted Shadow's neck and said, "I love you my friend." They rode northwest to the town of Práis (prance).
It was evening and dark when they got into town and it was very creepy, dark and silent in this town like it was dead. There were no lights on but a flicker of a forge inside the blacksmith's barn at the end of the main street. Everything seemed desolate. There was a pounding hammer noise in the barn. Sarah cautiously dismounted and walked Shadow into the town. Shadow was nickering nervously. Sarah felt his anxiety because she had it too. She wondered why the lights were out everywhere and the inn was dark.
Sarah slowly entered the barn and saw a fae man with dark red hair. He looked kinda dirty and in rumpled clothing. He was pounding a piece of leather out. He stopped and looked up at her with steely gray eyes. Sarah asked in her low voice, "Why is the whole town dark and yours is the only fire?"
The fae said casually like it was of no concern to him, "Because all of the people are gone." Sarah had a bad feeling about this town. Shadow nickered quietly and started to pull on her cloak. She knew he wanted to leave and so did she.
Sarah asked on guard, "Where have they all gone?" The fae creepily grinned at her like he knew something she didn't.
He chuckled and said matter of factly, "They are gone because a group of fae men sold them all to the ogres and centaurs and took over the town for themselves."
Sarah nervously nodded her head and said, "Ah, I see. I'll be going now then. See ya later." Sarah mounted Shadow and rode quickly back through the town to exit and found it blocked by several fae men lined up across the street blocking her exit. Shadow stopped and she looked behind her as more fae gathered blocking her and surrounding her in the dark.
Sarah whispered quietly, "I 'wish' that all the fae men who sold and profited from selling the people originally in this town, were stripped of their magic and turned into naked human women being sold to the centaurs." Suddenly, all around her were naked human women that instantly vanished as they all screamed even off at a distance in the town.
Sarah said to Shadow, "That's what they get for messing with us. After all, they admitted that they were guilty of harming all these people and families. Let's head to the next town, Shadow. This one disgusts me." Sarah rode for a couple hours and found a farm with a forest next to it. It had a large grouping of trees in a dense forest by a lake. She set up camp and was glad there was a bright enough moon reflection off the lake to work by but still dark in the trees. She got a nice fire going to brighten it up. She unpacked Shadow, brushed him down real good l and gave him a couple handfuls of sweet feed.
Sarah asked, "Shadow," the horse looked up at her ,"I'm not going to stake you. I think you're smart enough not to wander too far away from me. Can you just stick close to the fire for me?" The horse nickered and put his head up and down like nodding. She smiled and kissed his nose.
Sarah said, "Thanks. You're the best."
Clouds rolled in quickly and it was flurrying snow lightly but the tight pines were blocking most of the snow from reaching herself and Shadow below them. Sarah had her tent at the base of the biggest pine tree. Sarah started making her tea and dinner. She hoped the next town would be normal and she could stock up on food supplies and take a hot bath after three days of traveling. She ate and stored her leftovers. Sarah laid down and fell asleep.
Sarah was woken up in the middle of the night by growling, screeching animals fighting and kitten's mewing desperately crying out. Sarah got up and put on her boots, grabbed her gun and flashlight. She started looking around outside following the kittens mewing. She found two little kittens abandoned by a nest in the base of a tree's roots. There was a dead red leopard spotted cat laying on the ground bleeding out. It was about twenty to thirty pounds in size. It had to be the mother cat. Sarah knelt down and fished out both kits and stuck them into her cloak by her heart and went back and started up the fire again with more wood to warm up herself and the kittens.
Sarah said, "I 'wish' for a bottle of mother's milk of this kind of cat that never runs out and never spoils with a tight sealing cap and two small bottles with small rubber nipples to feed these kits with." Sarah moved into the tent and took off her boots and put her cloak over the three blankets on top of her. She took the one crying kitten out and fed it and then took the other and fed it. Sarah put both babies under her chin with the blankets surrounding them, had the milk under the covers next to her and went to sleep. She woke up two more times to feed both of them.
