Knife of Rebellion: Battles of Eyenwar, Book 1

Chapter 4- The Adelina

On the day that my bandages come off for good, an escort of six soldiers came to the caravan. Two women and four men outfitted in the formal dress of the Queen’s guard. Mirabel and I had been packed for days, our trunks stowed away in a tent all their own. Three of the best horses had been gifted to us by the horse breeder as an early wedding gift. We have a sturdy little pack horse to share, Mirabel was given a beautiful gelding, kind in temperament, and sure footed.

My own mount is the stallion I’ve been eyeing for nearly a month now. He’s young, only three, and still not entirely broken. The stallion’s name is Heartfire, partially for his shiny bay coat and partially for his passionate spirit. He’s faster than the wind, strong and lean with the spirit of a fighter. That’s what I love about him.

It practically killed me that I couldn’t ride until the bandages came off, and now that they have, I will be riding Heartfire only to leave my home.

Our departure was unceremonious. Gypsies don’t believe in goodbyes, only ‘until we meet agains’. Not to say that the circle of guards around the princess and newest spirit bridge don’t cause many curious stares, but no one cries, or throws flowers to mourn or celebrate our leaving. The only time we ever do that is when someone passes on to the spirit world.

The first several hours of travel I converse with one of the soldiers, a woman in her mid-thirties with plenty of rough and tumble stories to tell. Mirabel sits on the other side of our shared pack pony, humming. I was expecting stony silence, but her mystifying good mood is worse by far.

As the caravan was on the westernmost edge of the forest, it does not take us long to reach the border Torrain, only one day. We joined the main road of Torrain early on in the day, as no caravan is ever far from it. It is the vein of our country. Now it splits into two forks, one continuing straight westward, the other veering mildly to the south.

Before the defeat of Idrigal, there was a prosperous road due west through the wheat fields. Now that the fields are strewn with recovering refugees and ruled by bandits or unruly soldiers most people take the rode along the southernmost border, where the forest continues along the mountains all the way to Skevet.

We spend the first night there, at the edge of my world. I stay up with my back against the trunk of a tree, looking out into the foreign landscape, indistinguishable from my home. I slept that way, after hours contemplating my unexpected fate.

When one of the guards shook me awake, the first rays of sun were trickling through the trees. My back is sore from the tree, but the discomfort is welcome, at least it distracts me from the feeling of longing and unease that grows heavier with every step we take out of Torrain.

I pass this day in silence, while Mirabel only becomes more chatty. She seems interested in the capital of Skivet, asking all of soldiers if they know anything about it. Only the sky seems as depressed as I am. In the early afternoon it got cloudy and began to drizzle relentlessly. Our thick Torranian cloaks keeps us warm and dry, but we are all soaked from the knees down. The horses will need time out of the weather fairly soon.

We’ve seen only a few travelers thus far, and most of those have been Torranian traders returning from summer markets. They will rejoin their caravans when all Torranian citizens gather at the capital for the Winter Solstice Festival. I wonder If I’ll be back in time for the Solstice. Somehow, I doubt it.

Sometime in the evening a biting wind swept the clouds away. All of our party, horses included, are shaking from the cold. Even though we still have another hour of sun left, when we happen upon a cute little inn nestled into a clearing in the wood it seems impossible to pass it up. The stable isn’t big enough for all of the horses, so the pack pony, Heartfire and Whisper, Mirabel’s gelding, are housed in the stalls while the soldiers tie blankets around their mounts and tether them to the post provided.