That night the atmosphere in the camp was still tense. Horace kept on trying to start up conversations between me and Evanlyn by talking about stuff he thought we'd like. It was mostly about food and what our favourites were.
At least it was sweet that he tried.
I sat watching the grass with great interest while eating a piece of old bread with dried meat. The blonde girl was joking around with the two apprentices, but I felt her gaze on me a few times. I looked up and noticed that she was staring at me with a frown. I raised an eyebrow at her, as if asking her what she wanted. She nodded her head towards the road. My pulse immediately sped up and I quickly turned around to look. There weren't any Wargals to be seen. I relaxed and then gave Evanlyn a confused look. She shook her head and motioned for me to come along with her, taking a large leather water sack with her. Out of habit I grabbed my bow and quiver along too and threw it over my shoulder.
"We're going to get water." She told the boys and didn't wait for their answer, but just dragged me along. At this point on the trip getting water had become more a way of getting privacy. Something I'd needed a lot the past few days.
As soon as we were out of sight she put a hand on my arm. "Are you okay?" she asked with a soft voice.
The question hit harder than I could've predicted, suddenly I couldn't keep the tears in anymore. I shook my head wrapped my arms around myself. I suddenly got very cold and wished I had put on the extra vest Gilan had offered me the first night in Celtica.
"Hey," her tone was dripping with sympathy, which made me feel guilty about ever disliking her. "what's going on?"
I wanted to tell her all about my fight with Gilan, but nobody was even supposed to know we were in a relationship, or rather, that we had been in a relationship.
Just as I was about to open my mouth we heard a sound. It was carried by the wind, this low rhythmic song, almost like a deathly lullaby. It sent a shiver down my spine. I'd only heard it from afar, when I was far away enough to be out of harm.
Evanlyn's green eyes went big, like those of a spooked animal.
"Wargals..." she breathed out.
As if stung by a bee I turned around, and indeed there were some black shapes at the end of the road, and they were coming closer, closer than I would've held possible. As a first instinct I grabbed my bow and laid and arrow on it. "Get back to the camp." I ordered the girl with a hoarse voice, "get the horses, all of them and ride as fast as you can."
Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I made my way towards the shapes and hid behind a pile of rocks. I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Gilan had always said I was a worse shot when I was nervous, so I focused on getting my head clear. But that was hard when all my mind wanted to do was think about him.
Thwang! The sound of another arrow landing on the targets echoed over the training field. It had hit near the edge of the straw bale.
"Ugh!" I wiped some strands of hair out of my hair viciously. Sweat was running down my back, from all the hours of training. First it was the cleaning, then knife throwing and then last but not least archery. Though the last one was taking up definitely more time.
"You're thinking too much." Gilan hopped down from a fallen down tree behind me. He'd been with me and watching me patiently, trying to give me tips and such.
Out of breath I asked him:"What?"
He walked over to me, the fallen leaves crunching under his steps. He positioned himself and with one swift movement had taken his bow and immediately shot three of the targets in their centre.
"Hmpf, showoff." I said so softly my mentor couldn't hear it.
Then he turned to me. "You need to clear your mind when you take a shot," he explained. "If you take too long to calculate and think it through you'll lose your window."
With his loving green eyes he studied my face and then gave a short nod to say that I had try it now.
I shot him a doubtful look before raising my bow again and placing and arrow on it swiftly. That part I had mastered. I drew back the string with great difficulty and tried to guess how much I'd have to compensate for the wind and my terrible aiming skills itself.
"No!" I was abruptly interrupted by Gilan. "You're doing it again. Start over."
I raised my bow again. I tried focusing on the target and imagining where I wanted the arrow to go. Only that. When I let go of the string I followed the arrow with my eyes and I watched it fall nearer to the bullseye than before. With a little smile I looked at Gilan. He nodded approvingly and then said: "Good job, now you just have to practice until you don't get it wrong anymore."
The song of the Wargals drew nearer and every muscle in my body was tensing in preparation. I could feel the hairs on my neck stand up at the sounds. With all of the courage I had left I looked over to the pair of rocks which were my shelter, and that's when I saw them.
These creatures were so ugly they made me want to cry; they had heavy jaws, dog-like noses and mean little prying eyes. Quite frankly they resembled my mother a bit, but just less scary and a lot taller. I scoffed and put the first arrow on my bow and waited a few seconds so I knew they'd be in the perfect position. I got up, jumped on the rocks and fired. There was a deafening deep roar from one of the Wargals which I'd hit in the eye. I had aimed for it's chest, but this was working too. They all turned around to look where the shot had come from and saw me standing there on a silver plate. I smiled joylessly and looked behind the monsters to where the camp was. In that moment I saw three horses take off, which normally the Wargals might've noticed, had they not just been attacked.
Multiple pairs of small red eyes were aimed at me and they were furious, probably because I hurt their mate. Guilt ached in my heart, before I fired at the others, biting through it's bitter taste. The whole group were running around and in chaos. I nodded, satisfied with the result and was just about to jump off when I was hit on my head, very hard, and it all went black before my eyes.
A/N:
Guys it's offical!! 'Like a thief in the night' is getting a sequel!!! We're nearing the end of the book, but no worries I've already got the cover and the name for the sequel :)) And for all the Dutch peeps out there: HAPPY SINTERKLAAS❤️❤️
Xxx. HeelsAreCute
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