Chapter 5: Surprise your nightmare wolves exist oh and complete strangers know I’m a bastard prince.

I woke up in with a groan and my head throbbing, if this is what a hangover was supposed to feel like I didn’t like it. But when I opened my eye I saw the green of the tent. Then the day’s events quickly came back to me I wasn’t in bed back in my apartment but somewhere in a forest being hunted by my father’s soldiers. I was thrown from my horse when the five wolves from my nightmares magically appeared in front of us. Yulia! What had happened to Yulia? Just as I started to get up a very small man in his late thirties early forties came in. He was wearing a forest green shirt and brown pants. Over his shirt was thick and spike leather armor. His hair was dark red, his beard covered half of his body and across his back was an axe twice his size. I reached for my sword but couldn’t find it.

His laugh was deep and throaty. He turned his head “The lad is up Ãlahea and it seems he doesn’t like the look of me.” He said with another laugh. He turned back to me. “Your safe enough with us lad. Lay back down so Ãlahea can have a look at you. Oh and if you’re worried bout your woman she’s fine, and a damned good cook to.” He left me where I was and immediately and came in the woman that must have been Ãlahea.

Her age was hard for me to distinguish, she looked old enough to be my mother but something about her eyes told me she was much older. Ãlahea was also wearing a shirt and pants but hers were an emerald color and fit her tightly. Her hair came down to the small of her back and raven black that seemed to glow. Her eyes were oval shaped and matched the color of her clothing. She was holding a small bag full of something. As she took a step forward I moved back. She gave me a gentle smile. “We are not here to harm you Amaru where here to help.” Did Yulia tell her my name? “Now if you will please let me have a look at your head.” She waited for me to give her my consent.

           “No.” I said firmly. “I don’t know you and I don’t trust you.”

She gave me an exasperated sigh. “Well I guess I’ll just have to convince you then.” She left the tent. I didn’t take her long to come back and this time with Yulia in tow. “Now my dear will you please reassure your mate that he will be fine under my care.” Wait your what?

Yulia blushed a little to her words. “Amaru they are good people. Wh…” She shuttered a little bit. “When the wolves showed up they weren’t far behind. In fact the wolves were supposed to let them come to us first. So let her look at your head, ok?” I wasn’t totally convinced but I could tell from seeing Yulia that she wasn’t harmed.

As Yulia left Ãlahea thanked her for the help. I let her inspect my head, she unwrapped the bandaged that she must have put on. On it I saw dried blood, so I must have cut my head open when I fell down. Out of the bag she pulled out a vial and a fresh role of bandages. She opened the vial and poured out thick blackish goo onto her hand. “This will help your wound heal and keep out infection.” She explained to me. I winced when she applied the medicine.

Even though it hurt like hell while she was applying the medicine I didn’t show any weakness in front of this woman. I heard laugh and then her say something in a strange language, I ignored it for now. Even though I still didn’t completely trust her I was grateful for what she was doing. While she wrapped my head with fresh bandaging I asked her through gritted teeth. “If we are not your prisoners then where are my weapons?”

She didn’t stop wrapping up my head while she answered. “Right now your weapons are with your horse you can have them back once I’m done with you here.” It surprised me that they would allow me my weapons. So at least now I knew they were telling something of the truth that they were my allies however temporarily and not their prisoners. She tied off the bandage and helped me up. “Those wolves are real then and not just something from my nightmares.”

“Yes they are real and as far as nightmares I need to you to tell me about those “nightmares”.” I told her about my nightmares as we stepped out the tent. We were still under the canopy of the forest so it was hard for me to tell what time of day it was. “Well I’ll just have to have a talk with them using such a way to get into your head just barbaric. Though I’m surprised about the sixth one I thought she had given up following us by now. No matter if she truly wants you then she’ll show up soon enough.” She got up and headed to the entrance of the tent.

I got up and followed her but the last words she said had me confused. “What do you mean if she truly wants me?” This woman seemed to love to speak in riddles, it annoyed me. She chose to ignore my question, which put me even in a more of a foul mood.

There sat Yulia, that small man and one other man. The other man was dressed similarly to the small man, but his clothes look faded. He had short cropped dark brown hair had a small amount of grey in it. If I had to guess he was in his late forties but I wasn’t sure. On his waist was a sword and a long curved dagger, next to him was a long bow already strung. He was deeply tanned and looked weather worn. I sat next to Yulia who handed me a plate of eggs and the meat she had been cooking. Like always my stomach seemed to remind me that it needed food as Yulia giggled at the sound. Her giggle helped put me out of my foul mood if only slightly.

As I ate Ãlahea did the introductions “You’ve already meet Gron. He is nothing more than a barbarian so you don’t have to listen to him too much. Of course if find his fancy to his barbaric ways interesting then by all means be a barbarian.” She said stiffly. Gron just grunted with a grin.

“He’s a dwarf Amaru can you believe a real dwarf.” Gron laughed loudly at expression of disbelief. Ãlahea cleared her throat to get my attention back and to quiet the dwarf.

“And this man is Breaur and he’s both a ranger and wizard. And I am as you already know Ãlahea. I am a wizard as well and a healer. Later when they get back from hunting I’ll introduce you to our guardians. And the idiotic dogs who decided to rush ahead of us and cause this unnecessary delay.” Wait I thought they were giant wolves not dogs. She must have seen the confusion on my face. “I’m merely giving insult to them Amaru nothing more. Now I’m sure like all humans you must have hundreds of questions, I’m afraid I can only allow a few while Gron and Breaur clean up camp.”

“Since I learned about this last night Ãlahea I’ll help them out.” She nodded in agreement as Yulia got up. She kissed me on the forehead and proceeded to help them out.

“Again what did you mean if she truly wants you?” I still wanted that answer.

“I’ll answer that question when we make camp tonight.” I fumed at her response, but at least I had the promise of an answer.

“Then what did you mean by ‘like all humans’?” She moved to her hair and showed me two pointed ears. I heard the old tales of pointed eared people called elves but like dwarves I never believed it to be true. I decided I would ask more about that later. “Are you the one in charge then?” She simple nodded yes. “How come you are here just when we happened to be leaving Heaspicus?”

“I believe you should use the term escaping, but that is a very good and difficult question none the less.” She gathered her thoughts as she chose her words carefully. “We are on a mission to find and rescue the child of the current Emperor. We had received word from two of our spies within the city many years ago that the Prince at the time sired a bastard son. We had only recently been allowed to undertake this mission to come get him. And that’s was how we happened to find you when we did.”

I tried to keep my face neutral surprised me with this information. How did they get word that I was born? “Who were these spies and how do you know this son is even still alive?”

She merely smiled. “Oh I think you know the answer to both of those questions Prince Amaru.” I flinched as she stressed the word prince with my name.

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“I’m no prince.” I said grimly. “Nor have I ever wanted to be.” Apparently Lucas and John will have a lot of explaining to do if I ever see them alive again. And I can add spy to their list of skills. “And what is so important about me? I know I may be the Emperor’s son but I’m just a petty thief.”

“From what Yulia told us last night you’re not merely a petty thief.” She said with that same damn annoying smile. I think I’m beginning to like the ‘barbaric’ dwarf already. “And why are you so important that will need to be explained when we have more time to discuss such matters. For now you must accept that you are more important than you think you are.” She got up and straightened out her shirt. “Finish your breakfast we’ll be leaving soon.” Then she walked away leaving me to my breakfasts and thoughts.

At least one thing was clear I didn’t have to worry as much about how Yulia and I were going to survive to see the border. But now I had a whole new set of things to worry about. What did they expect out of me? What did they really want from me? While I was concentrating on my thoughts I felt like someone was watching me. I looked around and everyone was breaking down the camp and not looking my way. So I looked around I knew someone was watching but from where. I hated the woods if I was on the streets of Heaspicus is would have seen the person by now.

Come to me. The voice was female, sounded cold as ice and it spoke directly into my head. Over here. I turned my head to where I felt the voice coming from. This way. The voice seemed to have changed directions where it came from. Come to me Amaru. Now it was just annoying me.

I stood and yelled to the voice in my head. “Whoever the hell you are come out and stop speaking into my head!” Great now I’m hearing a voice and even yelling at her. I looked for the voice and all I saw was Yulia looking at me weirdly. The rest however seemed unfazed by my sudden outburst.

“Well, well seems someone must be having fun with our princeling.” Breaur made sound like a big joke that everyone else in the world was in on but me. “We’ll I know it can’t be my Firestream she is still at the border waiting for my return. Gron?”

“Nope it wasn’t ol’ Greshlen though he does wish he thought of it.” Gron just grinned but I could tell he wanted to laugh. He looked at Ãlahea.

“You know very well it wasn’t Forjin he would never think of doing such a thing.” Ãlahea sounded very confident about that. “Must have been one of the dogs, or even the stray.” I heard growls as soon as she said that, she ignored them. “Right will just figure this whole mess out later as to who was speaking into Amaru’s head. My gold is on the stray though.”

Breaur and Gron obeyed her immediately with a laugh but Yulia and me needed a little more coaxing. It didn’t take us long to breakdown the camp. Ãlahea instructed both me and Yulia on how to take down our tent and fold it properly. She helped show us the many other chores that came with breaking down the camp so that way we left no evidence behind that we had been here.

We grabbed our saddles and went to saddle our horses. But to my surprise there were only four of them. Thankfully Ãlahea didn’t have to show us how to saddle our own horses. Yulia got on her white and reddish brown and I got on my brown. Ãlahea who didn’t seem to happy, got on the creamed white color horse with such grace that I it made feel I clumsily climbed up mine. While Breaur got on the black horse with the same grace. Now normally I couldn’t tell you from horse bred to the next but the difference between theirs and ours. The best way I can compare them is, is that out horse looks as if they came from a common stock, while theirs looked like horses fit only for an Emperor.

“Where’s Gron’s horse?” I asked when I noticed that the dwarf was still standing there as if he were waiting on something.

“I don’t ride those mangy beasts boy I ride a real beast an Earth Ram.” He replied. Just when I was about to ask him what an Earth Ram was it came trotting into view. The ram was half the size of the horses, its coat was twice a thick, and its fur was white marble. I saw no reins and I know I didn’t hear a whistle or some kind of noise to signal for it to come. “This boy is Greshlen and he is my Guardian.” Gron began to put on the rams saddle.

Hello young Prince as Gron said my name is Greshlen. He spoke! I couldn’t believe my ears? Wait ears or head by the gods I’m confused. I heard his soothing laughter in my head as well. Be glad you said that to me young Prince most Guardians forget that you children of the Empire are no longer used to our kind.  By time the short exchange was done Gron had Greshlen saddled and was on the rams back with the reins in hand.

“I’m not a prince.” I growled. Once we started moving Ãlahea took the lead and surprisingly so did Gron while Breaur took up the rear, this left me and Yulia in the middle. At first I rode in silence while I put on my knife belt and swords. I was still curious on how Yulia was able to handle the situation while I was unconscious. “Yulia how did you handle all of this when I was knocked unconscious?”

“Not very well honestly.” She said sheepishly, she then went into the story. After she screamed my name her horse had bucked her also but she didn’t land as hard. To make things worse both of them ran off with two wolves chasing after them. It impressed me that she kept her head enough to grab one of my swords and hold it out in front of her and I told her so. Then without warning the rest of the wolves left just as Ãlahea and Gron came from where the wolves had. Then with his odd sense of humor frightened Yulia with his laughter when she saw her holding the sword. It took Ãlahea a while to calm her down and convince her to hand the sword over to Gron so she could tend to my head injury. Good I thought at this point she didn’t trust them immediately either. While Ãlahea tended to my injury Gron made want he called a gurney out of tree branches and twigs to carry me back to the camp that Breaur was setting up.

Through this she was still completely terrified but Ãlahea helped calm some of her fears with what little that I been told. By time they had gotten to the camp Ãlahea and even Gron had earned some of her trust. They put me close to the fire while they set up our tent. “I saw the pot over the fire and couldn’t help myself I had to try what was in it. And it was horrible.” We both laugh at that, through all the fear and nervousness she still somehow found a way to end up cooking all of them something to eat.

She surprisingly even ordered Gron around by having him get the spices from our packs when the wolves finally brought the horses back. “I was only thinking about my stomach.” Interjected Gron. Ãlahea told him to be quiet so she could finish the story. Once they got the tent up the put down a bed roll for and put me in the tent while they ate. Proudly she told me that they all agreed that her meal was the best one on the whole trip so she would do the cooking from now on. After night fell they all went to their tents and she with a blush told she sleep next to me the whole night. Ãlahea said that since she didn’t know we were and unwedded couple at the time that would be the last time that happened under her watch.

“I’m really impressed Yulia you did far better under the circumstances than I thought you would.” She gave me a small smile. “But I also have to remember that your far braver than I really give you credit for.” That made her blush again, though I knew that my comment made her happy.

“I would like to know why you didn’t tell me you were a prince back home though.” Even with her cheeks rosy from the blush her eye’s had a hint of ire in them. Needless to say my explanation did not go well for me.