In the Valley of a Thousand Footprints

[ix] Hide and Seek

"What are we gonna do about it then!?" Ellian asked in a panic, "How can we be sure that whoever it is, isn't just hiding in some tree waiting to stick our heads with an arrow?"

"Listen, if they wanted to kill us, they would have," Efa reassured the boy, "it leaves us with two possibilities; either they need to bring us in alive... or what I believe, that they didn't want to kill us."

Ellian calmed down a little, then flared up again, asking, "Then who is it that's hunting us?" His expression turned fearful as he said, "what if its the authorities from Mynwent... coming to capture me, because it's my mother who..."

"It's not," said Efa, "I've seen this amulet on another person. The same group that burned my town. Followers of fire I call them. They are almost certainly here to kill us, possibly as revenge or to get us out of the way." She clenched her fists but relaxed them again when she saw how distraught Ellian was becoming. She gave him a pat on the back and said, "Let's get going. I want to try and track this person who's hunting us." "You can stay back," she said after a pause, noticing the boy's hesitation.  

Efa bent down and picked up the amulet, shoving it in her satchel and said, "lets go."

They mounted Raven, Ellian sitting in front of Efa, and set off through the forest back to the road. There was no sign of the sun today as well, rain clouds gathered to the South sky this time. Efa had tried her best to track the footprints but to no avail, they had become too hard to make out the further out of the forest they got. They had just broken through the treeline and onto the road, when Ellian shouted out and pointed to a spot on the ground in front of them. Very clearly visible was a small pile of horse feces.

"It's horseshit!" he exclaimed. 

Efa nodded in affirmation. "Quite surprised you caught that," she said, "Well, this proves he came on horse, got off and came to stare at us."

"Kind of creepy when you think about it," Ellian said with a laugh.

"Better than having out heads cut or something," Efa countered.

They noticed hoofprints some ways away and continued in that direction; which was coincidentally the direction they were supposed to go in. The two of them carried on in silence. They were well rested; albeit a little hungry. Having gone on for a while, the hoofprints faded out behind them, leaving them to push on based on speculation. They were nearing a flatter part of the terrain.

The scenery hadn't changed much for the duration of their travel. Roving fields and occasional woodland, intermixed with shrubs and small creeks or ponds made up much of the countryside. Efa had a general idea of where Targarth was, not including what she had extracted from the maps. The maps she had were only of the area near to Cayrnr and slightly beyond. On the maps the lush prairie they were in was called 'The Grieving Basin'. She had evidently left the Dyffryn o aur according to the map. All the locations and landmarks were giving her a headache, the names were beginning to change as well, less olde tongue the further North we go Efa reasoned.

She was snapped out of her aside when Ellian suddenly jerked up. The road they were taking went down a sudden bend and down into a meadow. 

"Efa... something's up ahead."

"Wha...? I cant see anything."

"Its not visible... I think. Its just I can feel that something is hidden somewhere close."

"Magic?" 

Ellian nodded. 

If something is hidden... wait which Rhaniad do cloaking incantations come under Efa wondered for a second. "You're sure you sense something hidden?"