The Keepers of Eternity

LI

Their dinner looked good, at least. Lenore held a bundle of foliage aside as she observed a small group of soldiers having their evening meal around a campfire. They were talking, though what exactly they were saying was difficult to tell from this distance, and with their thick Southern accents melding the words together.

She slowly withdrew her hand, and crawled backwards until she was well over the ridge that obscured the rest of the forest from the view of the encampment. Sliding behind a tree for good measure, Lenore waited with trembling hands. I have to be quick and silent. She reminded herself. Blaise would be hiding just a few feet away, ready to jump in if anything went wrong. Glancing behind, she nodded back at him, but Blaise, with this head peeking out, merely narrowed his white eyes. Lenore hoped his instructions would fare her well.

The soldiers' voices grew louder as they laughed and shouted. Lenore was lucky she'd spotted this group in particular--from the bottles they kept drinking from and from their oddly rowdy demeanor, it was likely they were at least moderately intoxicated. They may be trained warriors, but at their core, they were just like anyone else--willing to let their guard down for a bit of fun.

"It'll only be a minute..." Lenore thought she heard one of them say. Her heart rate quickened as footsteps sounded nearby, coming closer, and she slunk down to the forest floor, partially hidden within the cover of fern leaves.

A female soldier with short, tangerine hair rounded the top of the hill, staggering crookedly over to a nearby pine tree where she began to relieve herself. Lenore crept closer as the woman was momentarily distracted, and lunged in with a heavy branch.

The drunken woman crumpled immediately as Lenore's blow connected with the side of her head. It was just as she'd hoped--the other woman was too tipsy to even notice her approach.

Moving quickly, Lenore stripped the Southern soldier of her scaled mail shirt,

shoulderplates and gauntlets. Thankfully, her padded leather pants were already half off. To make sure the woman wouldn't make any more noise, Lenore tied a band of cloth ripped from the hem of her undeshirt around her mouth, hands, and ankles.

"Oeska, what's taking you so long, lass?" A gruff voice called from below, "You're not

puking your guts out like last time are you?"

Lenore bit her lip, then stammered in a poor imitation of their accent, "No, no, I'm all good! Just.." She panicked, "taking care of some business! You lads shouldn't pry on women's business."

Despite how awkward it sounded, the drunk soldiers merely laughed, and returned to what sounded like their previous conversation, their metal cups clanking as they made another toast to victory. That would buy her some time at least.

Lenore's clammy hands fumbled with the straps on her armor, and her heart felt like it was about to leap out of her chest. She'd dragged her new costume far out of the vicinity of the reveling soldiers, but still felt like they'd appear any moment and stick one of their fancy tasseled pikes through her stomach. In a few moments, she'd have to traverse the camp in disguise, and somehow look like she fit in this armor that was so poorly suited for her. Despite cinching the chest and waist belts, the uniform was still far too large to seem natural, even with her sister's scarf and the gloves to fill in the loose areas. The lack of helmet was also concerning--she knew her long yellow curls would stick out like a loose thread, even tied up in the bun that she was so familiar with.

She breathed out shakily, and reached for one of her knives. Despite the beauty of the jeweled knife that Amary had gifted to her, the bone hilted knife had always remained her favorite. Lenore now held it flat in her palm, staring at the odd engravings of the wolves climbing over each other, as if they were struggling against each other, gasping for air . Frosted air wisped off from the still-sharp blade and drifted downwards towards the forest floor. This artifact somehow felt older than anything she'd ever held before--as if it were as old as the glaciers or even winter itself--and it was that mystery that drew her to it.