The Unknown Princess

Chapter Three

"It doesn't look so scary," I mumbled around a piece of beef jerky. We were approaching The Living Forest, and I was thrilled to see the towering trees that we'd soon be among. There were a few trees near the castle, but they were more solitary like willows along the river, or at best in small groves. But certainly they were nothing like the vast tract of forest that stretched across the entire western horizon. It made the dry grass we were riding through look lifeless. Okay, it was lifeless, but now it was even more pronounced. "It's gorgeous."

The beef jerky had been my breakfast once we'd camped out in the open sometime after midnight, and now again my lunch. It wasn't something I was used to, but seeing Imogen wolfing it down made me want to do the same. Of all the people in my life, she was the best role model I'd ever had, even in something as little as what to eat on a trip like this, and I'd keep following her. I wasn't exactly ladylike, but since she was my primary influence, I hadn't been in years. We'd been riding westward steadily all morning, each on a horse, with a spare mount with saddlebags full of supplies tied to Imogen's saddle, and I was looking forward to another break.

"It is," agreed Imogen. "But that doesn't make it any less dangerous." She pointed off to the north. "The further that way you go, the hillier it gets, and there are dozens of forest wyrms there that would gobble you up like you eat cherry pie. Hidden among the treetops and bushes are other little creatures that are just as bad."

Yes, cherry pie was a particular vice of mine, though it was hard to imagine whatever a forest worm was doing too much to me. All I could imagine was the earthworms I saw in the gardens as a child. "How big are they? How could they hurt me?"

She turned to look at me with a smirk. "Not worms in the ground, wyrms are like wingless dragons. The biggest ones I've seen are about twenty feet long, but even the juveniles can be a dozen feet and would kill you as soon as they looked at you. Keep those weapons handy."

My weapons were my gorgeous longbow, and a nasty dirk that was as long as my forearm. I didn't like the dirk, there was too much blood involved in a fight, but I adored the bow. You might think it would be hard to learn how to shoot a bow while confined to a tower, but Imogen was a very sneaky instructor. She brought the bow to the tower as though it were her own, along with the dagger, and simply left them in my room along with a dozen arrows. I practiced using them in my room, shooting from one end to the other for hours on end. When my skills had grown beyond the space of the tower, she would bring me more arrows disguised among the bundles of firewood that I needed for warmth, and I started shooting the arrows out of the window at targets that she set up further and further away across the moat. She would just pick them up and return them the next day. I learned the dirk as well, drilling whenever Imogen visited, but the bow was my love. She told me many times I could have been one of the best archers with the war maidens back when she served, which I considered a great honor.

I hefted the bow in my hand, knowing that I could hit almost anything I wanted, but now more worried about if it would matter to a ravenous twenty food creature that might want to make me a snack. "Is there anything else I should know about the woods?"

She thought about that as she kept scanning the area, making sure to look behind us occasionally, as well. "Ask me before eating any fruit. Some of the berries will kill you, but some are tastier than anything you've eaten. If an animal is pretty, don't touch it. It's probably either venomous or poisonous. In the case of the glowface, it would be both."

I looked at her in alarm, now even more worried. "What in the name of the gods is a glowface?"

"A fanged frog." She looked behind us once more, a frown on her face. "It is very venomous, and then makes pools of its own venom to coat its own body in. It might be the deadliest creature in the forest."