A mile into the woods, the horse died. The animal simply stopped, lowered itself to the ground, and it lay on its side as it closed its eyes. Calista dragged Rorick off the saddle and sat him against a tree. A few breaths later, the horse was gone.
Rorick was not far behind. Pulling himself upright, the wounded rebel counted his wounds. He had a cut along his side, another on his foreleg, and the two goblin arrows buried in his chest.
“Calista, I ride to the Great Elsewhere soon, but you can have a different fate.” Rorick’s face had gone pale and his eyes were losing their light. “That a dragon has arrived in Sommerdale is grim news. The villages must be warned.” He let out a ragged breath as he held out his arm and pointed. “If you ride east from here, this forest will take you down into the river valley. With your wound and no horse it will be too far for you to reach the fort, but if you turn south along the river, you should reach a bridge that will take you across the border to Southwood.”
Calista could think of nothing to say so she only nodded. She knew there was nothing she could do for him. They had no healing potions, no medical supplies, no magic, nothing. All she could do was sit and watch him die.
“Oh, and one last thing,” Rorick rasped. “If you see Elrys, tell her I thought about her last.” His head then slumped against his chest and as his eyes closed, Calista watched as his chest rose one, twice, and then was still.
She checked the horse and her dead friend for gear, but found little of use. She took an extra water skin off the horse, but nothing off Rorick. Checking her inventory, she had water, she had food, and she was armed. Briefly, she considered trying to bury Rorick, but thought better of it. She didn’t have a shovel and had never dug a grave before. Besides, she didn’t feel comfortable staying that long in one place with a horde of goblins and a dragon nearby. With a knot in her stomach, she took aim for the river.
The rain started shortly after. It was one of those heavy mountain rains where the water ran in rivulets down the hillsides and dripped in fat drops off the trees. Her knowledge on woodcraft and navigation was sketchy at best, so she knew her best hope was that Rorick’s directions were good.
There was no path. Only the twisting trail of empty space between the trees. Twice, branches had come out of nowhere to knock her off her feet and she was beginning to wonder if this forest was populated by sentient trees intent of making her miserable. Then, just as she pushed her way through a thick tangle of underbrush, she burst through to find herself tottering at the slippery edge of a fifty foot cliff. She grabbed the branches of the bush, pulled herself steady, and just managed to step backward without falling. As she walked back through the brush, she silently thanked Yanar for not sending her over the cliff. She then found herself wondering at the nature of divine beings on an artificially generated game world. Were they real? Were they worth praying to? If so, did she really want to be religious? Or was it just something a person did here so that you could have some hope that someone more powerful than yourself might step in and help you live from time to time? Or was it more just that she wanted to feel that this were true?
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A short while after the cliff, she had the bright idea to open her mini-map and was unsurprised to find it all black but for a bit of space around the little arrow that marked her location. She flipped to her stat sheet and found her [navigation] skill was highlighted red. That’s it. I’m lost. She looked up through the trees and the clouds in an attempt to spot Wraath’s twin suns. The rain was pouring down, but she spotted two bright spots against the gray sky. It’s well past mid-day. I either need to find civilization or a place to camp.
She thought back to what the other prisoner had said, ‘If they hadn’t been looking for you rebels, I could’ve stolen a horse and been half way to Yandmouth by now.’ She wondered again if that meant Yandmouth was nearby. Rorick had said they were in Sommerdale, which meant that if this version of Wraath was laid out like the Wraath she had played on Earth that Yandmouth was around eighty miles to the south. He had also mentioned the river. If that was the Sayle, then that would carry her straight to the coast and the city. However, these were all guesses which were complicated by the mountain range she could see to the east. They did not look like anything she had encountered before. Many of them were thin and fan shaped, like the fins of fish hidden beneath the earth. I’ve never known Wraath to have mountains like that. And here I am in these foothills covered in rain with no idea where I am.
Dark was coming soon. Wraath’s twin suns were hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds and now the dim of evening was threatening a chill as the rain continued to fall. At least I have a tent and a bed roll.
An hour later it was nearly dark and the rain was coming down even harder. Calista was soaked and more than a little cold. However, she had found a stream that wound and rolled through the rocks of the hill and so had followed it in the hope it would lead her to the river.
Sometime later, she reached a crest on the hillside where the tree cover broke and Calista was finally able to look out at the valley below. A river, wide and deep, wound through the valley and she followed it with her eyes until, just visible against the dim sunset, she spotted a pillar of smoke. There, poking out of the shoreline, were a series of docks with boats lashed to them. She could even see a cabin where men were working. A quarter mile upstream, she spotted a bridge. Right where Rorick said it would be. Is this Southwood? Whatever it is, it’s sure to be safer than this. She took a moment to refill her water skin and then took aim for the bridge.