storm winds will follow

Chapter six - monotony

Dinner was brought to her by a woman she had never seen before. She washed, briefly, before going to bed on the cot in the corner, where she wrapped herself in a blanket and closed her eyes until she could no longer take the silence and fell asleep.

Gwendolyn was plagued by dreams, of fire and wandering in an endless hedgemaze, followed by dark figures that only ever appeared in the very corners of her vision. In the morning it was Bertold, who released her from her misery with a bell, similar to the previous daybreak.
"Time for breakfast, then we move."
He set down a bowl by the door, and closed it without another word. Gwendolyn hated the dismissal, but she ate the entire portion in silence. When she was brought back outside, Ulfric could not look her in the eye, and elected to stare into the frozen layer of snow on the ground instead.

Stepping up onto the wagon, she found Freki already waiting for her, head bedded faithfully onto a small rectangular object. Gwendolyn carfully wiggled it free from where it lay and found it was a book, small, compact, and obviously barely used.
"Witchfinder's codex"
She opened the cover. Inside, underneath the print reading "required handbook for all witchfinder groups and other non guard military groups issued by the high castle of imperium secundus, Mcragge", a scribbled note read:
"You did it again, lass. You got your way."

She smiled, as she flipped to the opening pages. It was something to do at least, and maybe she would be able to learn something new while she was entertaining herself.

It took Gwendolyn three days to fully finish it, and she kept hidden how she devoured it. Most of the rules were fairly benign, but a few had stood out to her as odd. Rules limiting the use of certain tactics and the numbers assembled, but they were intransparent to her. They were the kinds of rules that had a reason for being there, but she was missing some piece of information that made the pieces all fit together. She doubted Ulfric had ever read the manual through, main indication being the dried out leaf she had found not ten pages in and used as a bookmark since.

The feelings between her and the hounds was still tense, Ulfric avoided her, but the few moments they did speak, he was courteous. There was a strange longing within her to... well she wasn't sure what for. They had hardly been friends and she had no reason to want to befriend him, in fact she distincly planned to betray Ulfric, and yet. Talking to him had been nice, a kind of casual human connection. Ulfric was intelligent, and he knew she was intelligent as well, and they had a mutual respect that was... refreshing, to say the least.

At the very least he had let her have Freki, who never left her side again, not one time.

Otherwise the journey was turning out to be very repetitive. She rose in the morning, ate her slurry of boiled grain and whatever else was available, got in the cart, thumbed the pages of the codex until noon, then repeated the activity until night, when she was fed, bathed and put to bed. There was comfort in the routine, which Gwendolyn realised was unfortunate. A comfortable woman did not run, and she was surprisingly at ease. After a life of hunger and struggle, being fed twice a day and getting to sleep in the warmth every night was new.

On the other hand, with every day they travelled, the danger of the end of their journey came closer. The topography had shifted from tundra to a dense pine forest as they slowly moved further and further away from Morvitzka. Perhaps she was imagining it, but the air here felt warmer. Still not warm, but not quite so crisp and biting on the nose and lips.

Currently, they were resting for the noon, and Gwendolyn had discovered that not just Freki, but all three of the large wolves enjoyed a good game of fetch. Unfortunately due to the size of the canines, throwing the stick far enough was no easy feat, especially for an underdeveloped, short girl like her. Still she was having a grand time.

Out of the corner of her eye, Gwendolyn observed the men, and it was obvious they were observing her in return, though Afkarr and Bertold had quickly let their guard back down after she had been compliant and meek almost the entire journey. Particularly Afkarr seemed disappointed. Gwen had the impression that he was the type of man who sought a challenge, perhaps the reason why he had become a hound in the first place. It was the eldest of the group, Bertold, who she could not get a read on. 

She rarely heard him speak, and when he did speak to her, his words were short and never more abundant than necessary. It made her uneasy. She could trust Ulfric, she could rely on and predict Afkarr, but Bertold... what drove him? What set him off?

Freki's whining returned her attention to the here and now.
"Sorry, boy..."
She reached down to pick up the stick- no... the branch, but it was pulled out from under her grasp. A tremble went through Gwendolyn and she almost stumbled into the woods like a startled deer, but a hand fell on her shoulder.
"Relax, lass."

"Ulfric, you scared the daylights out of me!"
She swatted at his arm and he clearly bit back a chuckle. The hound wound back and hurled the wood far, much further than Gwendolyn could have. The canines darted into the trees after the projectile.
"We're getting ready to head out again."

He removed his hand from her shoulder, Gwen sighed.
"Alright, I'll be with you in a moment. Just let me-"
The hand that had rested on her shoulder suddenly cupped over her mouth, dragging her backwards, away from the trees. She did not think long, and bit down with all her force. She could taste blood and heard a strangled exclamation of pain from Ulfric.

"Fuck- Lass be quiet. Do you hear that?"

Gwendolyn paused, she heard absolutely nothing...

No panting wolves, no birds, only the rustling of wind. And that was exactly what Ulfric meant. It was unsettling... unnatural. She gave a court nod of confirmation, that she had understood his request, and Ulfric slowly removed his hand from her face. A few drops of blood fell to the snow and he hissed.
"Go back to the cart, slowly."

"What about Freki?"
She whispered back, suddenly panicking for the safety of her fluffy companion.
"He has claws and teeth to defend himself, in fact he is already preparing for battle. Go, Gwendolyn."

Hearing the urgency in his voice, she nodded and began to back up towards the cart. She could have sliced the tension in the air with a knife. The other hounds were on edge as well, standing with weapons drawn and staring into the trees. There was a rustling, just out of reach, and then, in a moment, everything turned to a blurry mess.

Gwen could hear someone shout her name, her body whipped around, and her power flooded her veins like lightning, and discharged into the air, striking something she could only perceive as a white hot well of energy. This repelled it, and sent her tumbling into the snow.

It took her several agonisingly long moments to return to the correct side of the veil, where the howling of wolves filled the air that had been cold before, but was now hot, boiling, unbearably hot. Gwendolyn rubbed her eyes as she watched the wolves and their masters take down a... gigantic bird with a razor sharp beak... the same one that had been aimed right at her neck moments ago. She remained on the ground and felt the heat waft around her like she was the source of it. She tore at her clothes, feeling like she wanted to peel them off along with her skin.

As the men brought down the beast before her with a terrible, hellish noise, the energy slowly subsided, and she gasped, first in relief, then shock, as her sweat soaked body was hit by a wall of cold air. where before there had been torturous heat, there was now the lash of frigid wind. She could see Ulfric approaching her as if in slow motion. He knelt down to her side, spoke a few words. Worry clouded the icy blue of his eyes, an expression unfamiliar to Gwen, who was used to being regarded with disdain and mistrust.

His hand reached out to take her hand, but he recoiled, looking down at his own palm with disbelief painted across his features. Finally, everything snapped back into place, and the world spun at the right tempo again.
"Lass..."
She wrapped her arms onto herself and shook from the cold, not seeing the steam rising from her skin. Ulfric's worry turned to disbelief as he gingerly reached his hand out to her forehead, and bit back the unexpected agony he found there.

"Get her a blanket! she'll develop hypothermia..."
He started to tug on her prisoner uniform.
"And a change of clothes, she's wet as a rag..."