Chapter 9

True to her word, Amaryl gave Gwendolyn two minutes to gather her stuff. She had disappeared back into the kitchen, and Gwendolyn was only just tying the knot to secure her rucksack when Amaryl emerged. Glancing up, she saw that Amaryl had hoisted the skirt she was wearing up, and as she exited the kitchen, she threw a sly wink Gwendolyn’s way. Amaryl was carrying an amount of mead that was quite ungodly for barely seven in the morning.

“You men need another round of drinks? It’s on the house,” she says, and she starts to pour them more mead without waiting for an answer. But it was clear the answer would have been a resounding yes, as the men perked up immediately. “Searching for a missing girl must be such thirsty work, and we felt so bad that we couldn’t help…”

Gwendolyn didn’t hear the rest, as the men started chattering and cheersing and she quietly slipped out the back door. She took one glance left, then one right. She was on the west side of town, and she needed to be heading east.

She slipped into the semi-shadows of an alley, the sun not yet high enough to properly light the small space between the inn and the home next to it. She dodged a few bottles laying loose to one side and tried to move as quietly as possible.

She snuck, slowly, painstakingly, toward the street on the other side of the alley, her cap pressed low on her forehead and her eyes wide for any danger. On her back, she felt Marelon shifting in the rucksack, trying to get comfortable. Or possibly trying to dislodge the scraps Amaryl brought him from the napkin she had tucked them into. When she reached the corner of the building, she edged one wary eye around the corner.

The street was empty but for a few early morning shopkeepers sweeping their front stoops and a few merchants setting up their stalls for the day. None of them so much as glanced up as she meandered, attempting to look casual, through the little plaza and toward another alley. It was a beautiful and pleasant day, and nothing exciting ever happened in the small villages and hamlets of The Floating Valley. There was no real reason for anyone to be suspicious.

She continued this pattern across several streets and yards, although as she got further from the plaza, she encountered significantly less alleyways and shaded, secluded spots. The buildings were becoming farther and farther apart, as rather than shops they were houses. She moved from yard to yard. Many of the residents kept chickens, some even pigs, so she ducked behind pigsties and chicken coops wherever possible, using the cover to make sure no one had spotted her. She also used trees to hide her presence, ducking into shade and behind thick trunks whenever she spotted a person in the distance.

As she was approaching the outskirts of town, she heard a yell. It was a loud, brash voice, a man’s voice. It startled her and although she didn’t know why, hadn’t even seen where it came from, it scared her. She ducked behind a chicken coop instinctively, then peered around it. In the distance, men were crossing a road, peering into random yards and outhouses. They were drawing closer to her, moving apace. Though she couldn’t be sure, she felt that they were looking for her. They were too far for her to pick out their faces, but she wouldn’t have been surprised to see her father or her brothers. They hadn’t been in the pub, or she would certainly have been caught, but if as she suspected, the men were looking for her, her family was almost certainly among those searching.

She waited until they gathered several houses south of her around a large pigsty, poking their heads into the enclosed hog house.

“You in there, ‘eh?” She heard one of the men yell as he poked a stick into the hog house, waving it around wildly. There was a cry of agreement and general encouragement among the men, and she knew that that chaos was her opportunity.

She darted across the last street before she would have a clear shot to the trees, keeping low until she crossed it and stood against the wall of the next house. Then she continued around the side, out of their line of sight.

Straightening up, she took a deep breath in and bolted for the forest ahead of her, hoping that the men weren’t looking her way.

She didn’t stop running for a long time, probably far longer than she had to. Unfortunately, she also didn’t try to find the road, so focused on putting space between herself and the town that she had moved in a straight line eastward through the trees and she had not given thought to what she would need to do once she was free and clear of the danger.

“Damn,” she muttered under her breath when she finally slowed to a jog, then a walk, before stopping under a shady elm tree. Gently, she took off her rucksack. Marelon hopped out.

“Mrrrww,” he seemed upset, probably shaken about by the running. Still, he wound his way around her legs, looking up at her lovingly.

She stopped to pet him gently. “I’m glad you came with me,” she whispered. Then she stooped down, pulling the map out of a pocket of the bag. It was a beautifully detailed map of Imirene, and Gwendolyn suspected she had purchased it for well below its actual value. She wondered if it was stolen. Spreading the map out on the uneven forest floor, first she found the town of Furness. Locating the plaza, then the inn, she traced her route eastward from there. She seemed to be a bit north of the road, which had turned south from the center of town before looping to the east further down. She’d followed a more or less straight east path from the inn, which was slightly north of the town center.

She furled up the map once more and stuck it away. Then she pulled out the scraps Amaryl had provided, which she had hastily folded into a napkin before leaving. She lay the napkin out on the ground for Marelon to help himself, which he immediately did with great enthusiasm. She had no cup or bowl, and she had stopped following the river, so she pulled the cap off her waterskin and filled it. She lay the cap carefully on the ground, hoping Marelon wouldn’t knock it over and waste the water.

She took a sip from her full waterskin, cursing herself for not thinking to fill the new, larger one she had purchased the other day. But the road, she knew from the map and the instructions that Osmont had so kindly scribbled onto the back of it, would turn north slightly in a few miles, eventually reaching a large lake at which she could refill both skins.

She sighed a little, and Marelon gave a little contented chirpy sound as he finished the small meal she had put in front of him, so she folded the napkin up and tucked it away as he began to drink out of the cap with a surprising amount of care. She pulled out a second napkin, containing a small hunk of bread that had been sliced down the middle and filled with fresh cheese.

As she walked southbound toward the road, she chewed on this little makeshift cheese sandwich and pondered what she would do when she finally reached the Eastern Pass. She had no real idea what lay in Imirene beyond The Floating Valley. She knew that the country was bordered to the southwest by Krastiv and to the northeast by Parcee, with whom Imirene had been at war until just a few years before. The peace between the two countries remained unsteady, but it remained. She also knew the rest of the country was bordered by two immense oceans, the southeastern of which contained Shark Isle, also ruled by Imirene.

She only knew of three cities in all of Imirene that weren’t on The Floating Valley. The capital city Ardelen was just east of the center of the country, not far from the large Lake Killingshire, which supplied much of the country with water. Where the lake met the ocean stood Scaled Harbor, a small city mostly set up to receive shipments of goods headed across Imirene. Though it would certainly be an unexpected destination, she also didn’t know what she would do there. Job opportunities were sure to be more plentiful in Ardelen. Ardelen was also, according to the map, on the way to Scaled Harbor. She could always decide to move on from Ardelen if she couldn’t find a way to survive.

Finally, everyone knew the City of Gold, the near mythical abandoned city in northwest of Imirene, birthplace of dragons and the Maitala family, the only family to ever control the dragons. But Gwendolyn knew she couldn’t go there. No one could, or at least no one ever had and had made it back alive, unless they were a Maitala. The members of the Royal Family of Imirene were the only living beings besides dragons who had seen the City of Gold. No one even knew for sure why it was named the City of Gold. There were rumors abound, of course, but no evidence.

She knew there were at least two other large cities in Imirene, though neither as large or grand as Ardelen, but she wasn’t sure where they were or how to locate them on a map.

“Maybe the capital… what do you think Marelon?” She mused, but her companion said nothing, silently trotting along next to her, stopping occasionally to sniff the ground and snap at bugs. He didn’t even acknowledge her question, too busy frolicking about. But he was careful never to stray too far from Gwendolyn, suspicious of the unfamiliar surroundings.

“Yeah,” she sighed, addressing her four-legged companion as if he agreed with her, “I guess we can figure it out once we find the Eastern Pass.” Finishing her sandwich, she tucked it away into a pocket of her rucksack. “At least it’s nice. And the road should be right up here,” she added.

After a minute, she added, “you know, the only thing about going to Ardelen is that I’ll have to protect you from becoming a dragon’s dinner.” She looked up toward the sky, almost as if she was checking for dragons. Wyverns were more of a concern, but they were nocturnal. The sky was beautiful and clear, and the sun had risen quite high in the sky, though it wasn’t quite noon. She thought that she was making excellent time if she would arrive at the road before noon.

Sure enough, she only needed to walk a few more minutes before she connected with the wide dirt road. It was sunny, but the trees set back a few feet from the road did provide some intermittent cover. Marelon took one step onto the dirt road, then lifted up that paw disdainfully. He stopped, contemplated Gwendolyn as she moved a few paces down the road, then ran along beside her, staying on the grass.

“I guess we are on our way now, huh?” She said, “no more cozy inns. Not going to risk that again,” and as she said this she hoisted her pack more securely onto her back. She had enough food to last her at least two weeks, maybe more if she was careful. If she supplemented her stock with fish or small game, maybe she could even last longer. She had no idea how long the journey to the capital from The Floating Valley was, but she was beginning to feel that she could fend for herself long enough to make it there.

Though scared, she was once again hopeful. Maybe this would work.