Chapter
2
“Can you
hear me?”
A
voice. A soft and lovely voice, thought Tolian. He opened his eyes. Kneeling over him was the single most woman he had ever
seen. Her hair was as pure gold, and her
blue eyes sparkled with a clarity that he had never known before. She smiled when she saw that he had become
conscious.
“You are
badly injured,” she said.
Tolian
attempted to speak, but his words refused to move past his tongue. It took him a few moments before he could get
out coherent
words.
“You must
help my friend,” he coughed.
“I think
you require some help yourself,” she told him,
“but where is this friend of yours? I shall see that he is tended.”
“The
bridge,” was all he could say. That, and tilt of his
head back in the direction from which he had come.
The woman
turned away from him and called over to someone out of Tolian’s view, “Lira,
take Clarista and hurry to the bridge down the road. You will find the prince’s friend. Assist him and take him to safety, then meet
us en route.”
“As you
say, Brythia,” two women chimed in unison.
Tolian
attempted to get up. His side was
burning in terrible pain. He moaned and
lay back down. The woman whom the
others had addressed as Brythia was looking at him in deep concern. She seemed greatly disturbed over his
injuries.
“These are
troll wounds, are they not?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
Her brow
knotted, staring at the wounds. “We must remove your armor and treat your
wounds immediately.”
There was
something about the way she said “immediately” that sent a chill through him.
Brythia set
about at once to remove the prince’s armor.
Tolian tried to help, but found that he was unable to move. He struggled to bring his limbs into
motion. No response. He then began to panic.
Brythia
noticed this. “You must not try to move, you will
only spread the poison. Your Highness
will be no good to anyone dead. There is
a fair chance that we can heal you.”
As she
spoke she worked to remove his shirt.
She winced slightly when she got a good look at his wounds.
“Myrthis, bring me water,” she said to
someone else who was outside Tolian’s line of vision.
Another
woman leaned over Tolian, handing Brythia a jug of water. They wore short white robes with white
cloaks. Freshly gathered leaves crowned
their heads, and, Tolian realized, they wore Druidic crosses. They were Druidesses.
Brythia
smiled at him.
Tolian offered
a weak smile in return.
As Brythia
hovered over him, he had two thoughts.
One thought was essentially in regard to her bountiful cleavage. The
other: It seemed an utter impossibility
that on the same day he battled a troll he would be nursed by a Druidess, a
creature he had deemed equally mythical.
Druidesses inhabited the same sort of bedtime story realm as
trolls. There hadn’t been any
praeternatural beings of their like in the Kingdom of Lorm in ages. Lorm was civilized, meaning essentially that
the land had been cleared
of monsters or such
was the common thought, and had been fairly well-settled in comparison to the
rest of the world. But Tolian remembered
that they were in the frontiers, and he supposed that in such places there was
no telling what one might encounter.
With utmost
care, Brythia eased him out of his shirt.
“Could you
please get me some elfroot?” she asked someone.
Yet another
Druidess appeared, this time bearing a handful of dark roots. They shimmered as the sunshine hit them and they
emitted a strong, earthy
smell. Brythia poured water over the deep gashes in Tolian’s
side. She seemed somewhat relieved as
the blood and mud washed away and she could examine the extent of the
damage. She took the roots and squeezed
them over his wounds. A cool numbness developed
throughout his body, spreading quickly until he could feel no pain.
“Does that
feel better?”
“Yes, thank
you,” Tolian said.
“You are
welcome, but you may come to regret your gratitude,” she said.
She looked serious,
her brows knit for a moment, and then she got up and moved away. Tolian was left to stare into the trees,
watch the antics of the two wood squirrels that cavorted high above, and ponder
her words. The squirrels raced after one
another in a carefree manner, then would stop for a second, regarded each other
in silence, and dash off in some unexpected direction.
“What could
she have meant by that?” Tolian wondered.
A nebulous menace lingered in his mind.
He could
hear activity around him. There were
definitely several people there, at least five, engaged in some sort of
preparations. He slipped into a relaxed
state as waves of cool
numbness pulsed
through his body. He was aware of his
surroundings, yet
he felt more or less unaffected by them.
Isolated. He could not tell how long he had lain there when
someone approached him. It was Myrthis,
the one who had brought the water. She
leaned over him and looked down upon him curiously. Tolian could ascribe no motive to the
peculiarity of her gaze.
She spoke
with furrowed brow, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to move you. We can’t stay here.”
Tolian
tested his mouth with a question, “Why not?”
“It is not
safe for us to be this close to the village for long.”
“What’s
wrong with the village?”
She smiled
sweetly, “They probably wouldn’t appreciate what we’re doing.”
Tolian was
curious. “What are you doing?” he asked.
His own voice sounded unearthly to him, as the elfroot’s soothing chill
worked its way into his brain.
Everything seemed strange and unreal.
Myrthis
grinned mischievously as she replied, “We’re kidnapping their prince.”
copyright 2002, 2015 Diana Hignutt
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