In the Valley of a Thousand Footprints

[xi] Our Killer's Trust

Efa and her company had been travelling for a while. Nothing overly important transpired in the week or so of travel. They had repeated the simple formula of riding on horseback through the day, stopping halfway through for lunch and a nap, then moving on again, finally sleeping for about six hours through the majority of the night. They rested during rain in the daytime and covered the distance by moonlight. Other days they slept in longer and rested the night, ready for a long day of travel when dawn broke. 

In this way, they had been travelling for just over a week. Eight whole days had passed since that fight with followers of fire and the trio were resting under a large tree on a small incline, a few yards off the beaten path, at the edge of a large forest. Both horses, Raven and Bou, were grazing nearby. The horses had been a great help. Their riders made sure to reward them with the occasional apple or sugar cube. All three of them had decided to take the day off and just laze around for once. 

They were quite close to a large town so they wanted to rest and head into the town fresh and energized. And after this town it would be another week or so of travel to the next. All in all, they could reach Targarth by the end of the month. 

The tree they were under was tall and had low-hanging branches. Efa had rocketed to the closest branch she could find and was lounging lazily. She sighed. Hours of constant riding and travel had taken its toll. Efa had random cuts and grazes from slamming into trees and aches from sitting in the saddle too long. But she had gotten used to that. The thing that took the most out of her was managing the boys. 

To all intents and purposes, Clytyn was definitely the oldest. . . but he never acted that way. Her initial impression of the boy was that of a cold, calm, collected killer. She even thought he looked endearing, in a very small insignificant way. His prowess during that battle was amazing and Efa believed him to be extremely powerful. And truth be told he was powerful. . .its just that, that power came with a slightly mischievous streak. This mischievous streak only became a problem when he was with another person who had that same mischievous streak. In this context it was Ellian. The two of them, with nothing better to do, unanimously decided to annoy Efa.

On many occasions Efa had woken up with a giant bug on her face or had water dropped on her face or had charcoal drawings on her face or had water dropped on her face again. But that wasn't all. She was also pushed into a river, a lake and a puddle (the last one was by Ellian, who was chased around by Efa after his attempted pushing into a puddle did absolutely nothing) Her clothes were hidden in a tree hollow, her food had too much salt in it, her hair had been painted with green color extract from flowers, once she even woke up in a tree. 

The Boys' pranks were driving her up the wall. She wanted nothing more than to clobber them on the head with a stick. Unfortunately she didn't have a stick, she had a knife, and she did still need them to have cognitive function. . . What amazed her was that all of this nonsense had happened when they stopped for breaks. They had managed to annoy her in such a short amount of time. 

She had hoped that Ellian would retain his humanity and not devolve into an animal but no, even he got roped into it. She suspected Clytyn as being the reason Ellian went from the sweet little boy to the prank loving little boy.

Efa wanted to rant about all of this to someone. Unfortunately, they met no one so far. It had been very calm and solitary travel. Efa didn't mind. Neither did anyone else from their company.

Anyway while Efa was relaxing on her branch, Clytyn and Ellian were sparring below her. Shouts and sounds of clanging steel were heard. Efa had lent her dagger to Clytyn and Ellian was using his looted short sword.

"When you're on your nondominant backfoot, I'd recommend dodging to the attackers dominant side. This is because as long as you have footwork the attacker can't really push you back with his nondominant feint, so while his dominant will be occupied with pushing you back, you can take advantage and jump in. He wont be able to reciprocate your attack so long as you're fast and nimble, got it?"