CHAPTER 7
Sarah woke up and decided that she was going to completely outfit herself and get a horse. She got up, did her morning routine, got dressed and went down for breakfast. Sarah donned her cloak and wished her room to be secured so nobody would be able to enter but herself. After she finished eating, she went to the stables three doors down from the inn. A human man in his mid fifties and with a full salt and peppered beard looked up at her and asked, "Whatcha be needin'?"
She asked, "Do you have any horses for sale?"
He smiled and said brushing off his hands, "Come let me show ye?" He took her to the back of the barn and showed her the horses.
The blacksmith said, "This be Lorgaire (Tracker) a gelding two year, an next ta him be Breacadh (Trotter) a mare four year, an next ta her be Valiant a stallion three year. I be asking 25 gold fer tha stallion, 18 fer tha gelding, 15 fer tha mare." The stallion was all black with a white star on his forehead. The mare was painted brown and white. The gelding was a chestnut with a black mane and tail.
She looked over the stallion. Valiant was all male and beautiful. Sarah was very happy she knew how to ride a horse. She asked, "If I take the stallion will you board him for two nights for free? And how much for full tack?"
He said, "I'll board him fer ye. Tack be four gold. Valiant got his own all in black leather from tha man who sold him ta me." She emptied out her left pocket pulling out twenty nine gold and gave it to him. The blacksmith went and got the tack and put the saddle and bridle on the wall of the stall. It was all black with silver conchos and very nice. The large saddlebags he handed her that matched with silver conchos buttons were made very well. Sarah was happy with her purchases.
She asked, "May I see your weapons?" He led her to a room with weapons mounted along the walls. She bought a long sword with a heavy black leather scabbard and baldric, a couple boot knives and a large hunting knife for five gold.
Sarah went up to her horse and petted his muzzle. She softly said, "You're a beautiful boy, Valiant." The stallion put his head on her shoulder and snorted as she caressed and hugged him.
The blacksmith said and was curious, "He be seemin' quite fond of ye already. He be not very nice ta anyone."
She said, "Maybe he's just been waiting for me to come along."
The blacksmith said, "Mayhaps. Me name be Devon. Welcome ta Foraoise (Forest). Ye be from far away?"
Sarah said, "My name is Shar. Yes, very far away. Nice to meet you Devon." The horse kept letting her pet him soothingly. The blacksmith was amazed at how kindly she acted towards him being she was fae. They usually were not very affectionate to animals or humans.
She went to the cobbler next door to the stable. She got four large drawstring leather bags, two medium size and two small, two coin purses, one curry brush, two large black leather valise bags, a pair of lace up knee high boots in brown leather, another pair of black leather boots that were looking like pirate boots without the buckle but folded at the top, two large leather sturdy valises for clothes and a smaller black leather saddle bags. She paid 15 gold. Sarah took everything to her room at the inn and dropped it all off.
She left to go to a couple clothing stores she saw. She bought men's clothes: four heavy cotton and linen shirts, four tunics, four leggings in black, and two complete leather outfits one in brown and one in black with waistcoats, vests and pants to match her boots. Sarah bought two heavy flannel nightshirts that were long. She went to the women's clothing store and bought four bars of clothes washing soap, two sets of hair combs and ribbons, four long skirts, four long sleeve peasant blouses in different colors, and two lace up outside corsets.
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Over the next day, she had herself completely outfitted, stocked in fresh, dry and bakery foods that wouldn't perish. She was ready to leave with her gear organized and packed up to be able to be tied down to her horse's saddle properly. She stored in her two sets of large saddlebags, her gold coins in each bag of 100 evenly on each side and surrounded by other stuff. Sarah had purchased a pocket watch that was a twenty six hour two day wind up one on a silver chain. She took a full hot bath washing her hair and slept hard.
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She got up, did her routine, got dressed in her all black leather men's outfit and went down to eat and bring up Valiant from the stables. She turned in her key and tied down her baggage on the horse. She had on all her weapons with her bow on her back in a sling. Sarah mounted up and rode off in the direction of the next city of Calafort (seaport) but it was two days away.
She rode all day and shot a rabbit. She gutted and cleaned it, taking only the legs and breasts while leaving the rest to the local wildlife. Sarah found a dense grouping of trees right next to a half frozen stream.
She set up camp clearing the snow, putting up her tent, unpacked the horse and fed him an apple and carrot. She had him staked off to the side nearby with a large bucket of water that stays clean and won't freeze with a bale of hay. Sarah foraged for wood for kindling and rocks. She rinsed her rabbit well in the bucket. She started the fire and seasoned the rabbit and oiled it up in the skillet with onions, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. Sarah boiled barley, carrot, dry mushrooms, dry red pepper, dry kale, onion, basil, salt and pepper. She also boiled water for her tea. She saved the legs of the rabbit and deboned them for the morning. Sarah cut up the breast meat and mixed it in with the barley mixture and ate her fill. She put it all in a zip plastic bag and gathered up the debris and tossed it into the steam. She washed her hands and heard a noise.
Sarah said out loud, "I 'wish' to secure my perimeter around my campsite and my horse." The magic swirled and made it so. The noise was gone. She went back to the fire. Sarah made another cup of tea.
She went to bed with all her blankets, waistcoat, her cloak and the bear fur over her. It was freezing outside but she was warm inside the tent under the pile. She fell asleep peacefully.
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The next morning after she had packed up after breakfast, she rode on in the direction of her evening campsite. Sarah stopped for lunch, fed Valiant an apple, a carrot and water. She had a rabbit sandwich for herself. She mounted back up and started riding. She came up on a dense forest as the day wore on and a frozen lake on the other side. Sarah proceeded to go around the lake following a trail.
By nighttime, she made a campsite wedged in between boulders next to a rock outcropping on the edge of the lake. After she got set up and the horse settled, she wished for a full night of split logs, kindling and a secure perimeter. She started her fire and was making a mutton stew with tea. The stew was smelling tasty when she saw two fae men approaching her campsite. She took the food and tea off the fire and stood up looking at them with her head inside her cowl away from the fire.
The fae men looked to be rough types, one had long dark dirty blonde hair and the other had dark red hair. They were both leading their horses straight to her fire. Sarah whispered a wish to make them tell the truth and shouted in her low voice, "That's far enough! What do you want?!"
The blonde one said, "We smelled your food and it smelled better than ours."
The red head said, "You should just hand over all you got and walk away or we may have a little fun with you." The blonde elbowed him to shut up. She wished both of their hands were tied behind their backs. The men started shouting and swearing.
She said out loud, "I think not. I wish that both of your valuables would make a pile next to me bagged up." Things started flying off their body's and horses coming through the perimeter to land beside her as she sat back down and put her food and tea back on the fire. Sarah next took all their weapons. She wished them and the rest of their belongings with horses to the Highland Kingdom capital city. They disappeared. She ate her dinner and drank her tea relaxing. After a while she moved everything into her tent and started going through everything. Sarah had 1845 gold, 230 silver and 31 copper coins. She had 6 bags of jewelry, 4 bags of mixed cut gemstones and 2 bags of mixed nuggets in silver and gold. She packed it all up neatly into a valise bag she wished for, including the bags of jewelry. She had 2050 gold and 230 silver in her saddlebags and put the rest in her purse. Sarah laid down and went to sleep.
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The next morning she ate breakfast and packed up on her way to Calafort. Being it was a seaport, she wondered what the docks looked like. Would they be like the docks in Dickens novels old timey? As she stopped for lunch, Sarah noticed three humans in a tarped wagon ahead of her. She went into the woods out of sight and ate her lunch with her horse. She wondered if they were all going to Calafort. Four men on horses rode by next. It was becoming a busier road.
Sarah was about to step out of the woods, she heard a scream and shouts coming from up ahead where everyone who passed was headed. Sarah looked around and didn't see anyone coming so she rode down to just before the woods. She went off road walking into the trees to see what was going on up ahead. She wished her horse safely in a perimeter. Sarah saw two fae bandit men beating up one human man from the wagon and one fae bandit was fighting the other human man from the wagon. The third fae bandit had the human woman pulled to the back of the wagon, ripping her clothes and bending her over, lifting her skirts with her hands tied behind her back on the wagon's back gate. The fae was undoing his pants. Sarah wished for the four bandits to freeze.
She came out of the woods and pushed the bandit guy over onto the snowy ground and untied the woman's hands saying, "It's ok, I froze them."
The other two men traveling with her killed the three frozen bandits and came storming back to the rear of the wagon. They took Sarah and slammed her to the ground on her back. The cowl hood fell back from her head. She glared at the men who became shocked looking at a dark haired fae woman. Sarah yelled, "That was unnecessary!"
The younger man shouted, "Who the hell be ye?!"
She spat back, "The woman that just came along and saved all three of you, but I am starting to regret it!"
The woman stomped up to the two men and said, "He be about to violate me and she done stopped it."
The younger man sneered saying, "Let's get going!" They climbed on the wagon as the woman looked sadly at her and got in the wagon driving away.
She shouted, "You're welcome!" Sarah muttered, "Ungrateful bastards." Sarah wished all of the valuables off of the four men and horses in bags. She gathered it up, put it in valises, brought her horses up and loaded him down with the extra baggage which was a lot. She wished all of the bandits horses, supplies and clothes with belongings of all of them to people that need them. She looked down at the one naked frozen man and wished him to be a magicless naked human woman put in the middle of the Unicorn Kingdom unfrozen. He vanished. Sarah wished the other three dead bodies and their blood to disappear. They did.
Sarah got back on Valiant, wished the load on his back lighter and continued down the road by the time she reached the city of Calafort it was after dusk. She rode through the town and spotted an inn. She took off all of her baggage which was almost more than she could carry even after wishing them lighter. Sarah saw many elves and fae people going from place to place. She took all of her baggage into the inn.
The fae male innkeeper said gruffly, "What do you want?" He was light blonde with green eyes. His hair was pulled back braided from his face and dressed in a gray shirt and all black leather.
She said in a low voice, "A room for a week."
The innkeeper huffed and said, "Let me see you. I don't rent to humans." She looked up at him and he blinked in surprise and asked distractedly, "H… How many… nights was that?"
Sarah smiled and said, "A week."
He smiled and said softly, "Six gold three silver. Room six." She gave him the money. He gave her change back to her and the key. She went up a set of stairs and down a hallway room six and dropped off her bags and noticed plumbing in the room and smiled. Sarah made a wish that nobody else could enter the room until she removed all of her baggage. She went back down and led Valiant three doors down to a stable and paid a week's boarding. She went back to her room and started setting in.
She went downstairs to the tavern part and got a hot meal and a couple wines. She went back up to her room and went through all of the jewelry she had from the bandits. There was 1689 gold, 134 silver and 11 copper coins. They had 11 bags of jewelry, 7 small bags of cut gemstones, 4 medium size bags of gold nuggets, and 7 medium bags of silver nuggets. It gave her a total of 3740 gold, 360 silver and 17 bags of jewelry to go through now. She got undressed and took a hot bath before going to sleep.