morgan; beginning

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3'Four?' I whispered, afraid the men hadn't gone far.'Where did he come from?''I don't know Morgan, they've either sent someone from the Keep or I can only assume they've found themselves another tracker along the way.' he summised before taking a mouthful of the stale bread he ha in his hand.He had passed me the biggest piece and I stared at what felt like a chunk of rock in my hand. I knew I had to eat to keep any form of energy levels up but the thought of eating even staler bread than yesterday was still very unappealing.Aran forced himself to swallow the piece he'd been chewing on.'Its the last of what we have, I'm going to have to find a river to fish from or set a trap for a rabbit if we want to eat again.''And once you've caught it then what? We have no pot to cook it in? No water to wash it down...we're going to starve Aran or die of dehydration, just face it.'I couldn't help myself from snapping at him, I was exhausted from the walk from our home in Gollewynde, which must have been at least 50 miles from here. Although it hadn't been much of a walk really, more like a staggered jog, especially across the plains. There had been no other town or village, not even a single farm between home and the large tree we were now taking refuge in and I was starting to feel so very alone in the world even with Aran pushing me along.'I know you're tired Mogs,' My pet name from when I was a child, mother used to call me it when I got upset or down,'just have a little faith...I promise we'll have something to eat by the end of tonight. That's not stale bread! 'I know,' I sighed,'Considering that I'm eating the last of the stale bread there'll be no chance of us eating it again will there?! Unless I throw it up, which IS a possibility!'It wasn't so much of a joke as I would have liked it to be, the bread had made me gag and left me so thirsty I could've drank the water from a malignant pond. We stayed on the branch until I'd forced down the last mouthful of our rations and then we climbed down the rope onto the forest floor. I'd slipped as I had tried to get a hold of the top of the rope and the friction burns had made themselves known within seconds, the sting didn't help my mood. Once I had reached the floor Aran had bound them with the sleeves of his shirt to stop them from getting anymore dirt in the fresh burns. He quickly scouted round the area to make sure the men weren't hiding in any of the nearby bushes. After a couple of minutes he seemed satisfied that they weren't and nodded at me to follow. We began walking deeper into the forest away from where Lento and Stello had gone.'What did they mean by Mirdan's the one with the talent?' I asked Arans back as we stepped through the thick undergrowth.'I'm not sure.' Aran stopped while he thought of an answer, 'Maybe he's really good at tracking people.''Maybe,' Although my head was saying it was something more than just being good at tracking. We had made many different decisions on the way here like walking through the branches of trees, back tracking in our own steps and taking another direction. Aran even carried me on his back for a while. But still they had kept on our heels, maybe what we thought were good diversion tactics were actually really dumb or maybe this Mirdan guy knew where we were going. Which was an impossibility right, because even we weren't sure where we were headed.That was the last of our conversation until Aran signalled me to stop, he cocked his head slightly to the right straining to hear something. I copied him and heard nothing at first but then the quiet gurgling of a nearby stream interrupted other forest sounds. Aran motioned for me to stay close as he quickened his pace towards the water, brambles were scratching at my legs as I struggled to keep up with him before we came across the small brook.I looked quizzically at Aran as he scooped the water with his hands to drink. 'Have fun finding fish big enough to eat in there!'Aran smiled at me shaking his head. 'At least we can wash down that stale bread.'We didn't stay long by the brook. Just enough time to have a quick wash and drink our fill of the crisp clear water. I hated to think how I must have looked, at least I could be thankful for the lack of reflection from the water. I wondered what colour my eyes would be right now. Everyone said I had strange eyes, they had a habit of changing colour depending on what mood I was in, green for happy, blue for when I was sad and grey for when I was angry.Aran thought if we walked downstream in the water our trackers might have a tougher time trying to follow us, at least for a good few hours. So we started wading ankle deep in the water, which had numbed my entire feet after a minute. There were a couple of little waterfalls we had to climb down, slipping on the mossy rocks as we trudged through the water. We got out after a while and decided to follow the stream down through the forest but not close to the bank as our footprints would leave impressions in the mud. Not that I could feel my feet now. Aran was getting more careful as we walked, he even tried to cover the tracks we left by sweeping behind us with a leafy branch he found. Nightfall came quickly and we stuck closer together for fear of losing each other in the dense brush. We couldn't see the stars in the sky but luckily the water caught little sparks of moonlight. After walking for what seemed like hours we came upon a waterfall that must have been as tall as a house. The ground around it was a patchwork of boulders and mud, as if someone had taken slices out of the earth. A route around it eluded us in the dark and Aran suggested we find somewhere to 'set up camp' until dawn came and we could find a way down. Otherwise we could lose sight of the river and our possible food source. So we searched around for some kind of shelter for the remainder of the night. He found it in a hollowed out tree, I hadn't seen it, Aran must have better night vision than me. The tree looked strange, like fifty seeds had been planted and as they'd grown they became entwined the others to reach the sky. The space inside was so small that we could only sit down but at least there was enough room for both of us to fit inside and be sheltered from the elements, the floor was covered in dead leaves and dry dirt which I was actually thankful for,at least it wasn't as hard as the branch from last night. Aran made me sit towards the back of our 'shelter' so he could keep watch on our surroundings and listen for any sign of our followers.It didn't take me long to fall asleep again but tonight I was restless, falling in and out of dreams filled with monstrous creatures and strange ships. I woke at one point to find Aran gone but before I could panic sleep swept me off into her arms again. I woke again to find Aran untying the bandages from around my hands, he wiped them with what I can only assume as the bottom part of his left trouser leg that he had dipped in the stream.'Nice to see you're awake at last Morgan,' he said quietly,'with all that snoring I think the entire mountain knew where we were.''Shut up, I don't snore!' I muttered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with my one free hand.'I managed to find some herbs and moss by the waterfall that should help with the burns.' Aran applied a gooey green mass to my burns and bound them with the torn sleeves again.'How did you manage to get it into a paste,' Aran grinned at me.'ohh that's disgusting...now I have your spit on my hands as well, just great!' I rolled my eyes.Aran span around. 'Shh!' I couldn't hear anything outside of the tree apart from the rustling of leaves being rolled around by the wind. As I strained to listen Aran began acting oddly, stroking one of the tree roots around the entrance to our shelter, his eyes were closed and I could hear him whispering quietly.I went to ask him what was wrong, maybe he was praying, but as I opened my mouth to ask him he opened his eyes.The strangest thing started to happen.