The Queen of Shadows

Chapter 6: Into The Depths

Over 2 millennia ago...

Day finally broke in the forest, but it was just as foreboding as ever. There was still a considerable fog, obscuring sight in every direction. The girls were stumbling their way through it with no obvious sense of direction, still wet and cold from last night's storm. The forest grew gradually greener as they ventured deeper, shedding the barren, desolate atmosphere it had last night. Scathach was walking ahead of her sister Aife, using her red spear as a walking stick and keeping weight off her injured leg. Aife had a spear of her own, fashioned by her sister after their encounter with the dire wolf. She held her crimson weapon close, looking around nervously for anything that could attack them. Even with the thinning fog, they had no idea where they were going. And what was worse...

(Growl)

Scathach's stomach ached in protest. They've been walking for hours and haven't seen a single animal they could kill to eat. Her mouth was dry too; the sisters haven't had any water to drink. Dehydrated, the muscles in her good leg started to cramp.

"Wait," Scathach said to sister, sounding absolutely exhausted. They stopped walking and Aife looked to her sister in worry. "Let's rest here..."

They sat down on a piece of dead-fall. Scathach set her spear down and stretched her legs, letting out a sigh. Aife moved over towards her and said:

"Let me see your leg."

Scathach obeyed and lifted her leg on to Aife's lap. The sister pulled back the hem of Scathach's clothing, which was essentially a rag, and revealed her bare leg. On it was a blood-soaked bandage, improvised by Aife by previously tearing a piece off of her own clothing. She gently undid the knot holding the torn piece of cloth to her sister's leg, revealing the wound. Four thin gashes made by the claw of the dire wolf still bleeding ever so slightly. The leg needed more time to heal, so Aife replaced the makeshift bandage by tearing off a piece of cloth off the hem of her sister's clothes and wrapped it around the wound. Scathach winced as Aife tied it securely.

"There. It should last another day."

"Thanks..."

Aife set Scathach's leg back down. They sat in silence while Scathach was massaging her uninjured leg, trying to relieve the cramping. Her sister was rubbing her feet, sore from all that walking barefoot. A sad thought crossed her mind, and she let it escape her lips.

"I'm scared Scathach... we could die out here..."

Scathach heard her and realized so herself. However, there was no other alternative for them. They either go back to work as slaves for those barbarians, or take their chances in this gods-forsaken forest.

"Don't worry," she assures Aife. "We'll make it through this, together. We just have to watch over each other. Alright? At least we won't die as slaves."

Scathach put an arm over her sister and hugged her in effort to cheer her up. Aife looks into her sister's hazel colored-eyes and lets a soft smile form on her face, lifted by her sister's confidence as well as her affection. Of the two sisters, Scathach was the adventurous one, usually going with their father and fellow tribesmen to hunt while Aife tended the livestock. When the invaders came, the sisters were captured and thrown into cages, forced to watch their parents being executed for resisting. Aife was hopelessly distraught as they were transported away, but Scathach had the resolve to push past their sorrow and create a way to escape. Aife admired her sister so much for it and wanted to be just like her.

The sound of a twig snapping alerted the sisters. Scathach instinctively grabbed her spear and looked around. Aife's eyes followed where her sister was looking. Their gaze falls on a silhouette slowly emerging out from the fog, and Scathach recognizes it.