Forest Girl

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 – The intruder

Kiara lied in her sleeping sack resting; she was starting to get really tired. She had to stay awake, because she was not far from the camp, probably only a few hours of walking. Kiara looked over at Alue who was yipping and yowling in her sleep; her paws twitched and her nose crinkled. Suddenly Alue woke with a jolt, and growled at the entrance of the tent. Kiara put her finger to her lips and Alue went silent.

Kiara heard noises outside of the shelter. It was most likely a boar scrounging for scraps, but Kiara grabbed her cooking knife anyways, not that it would do much damage. It was hard to see, she shouldn’t have let the fire burn so low. She heard something fiddling with the rope that was holding together the flaps; now Kiara was sure it was a hunter coming to kill her. Kiara was defenceless; if she moved to grab her bow, then the hunter would see her, if she stayed still she would not have a very good weapon to fight with. The intruder walked into the shelter, and approached her quietly, and leaned down. Kiara squinted so it would look like she was asleep, it looked like the intruder had something in his hand, but it was hard to see because it was so dark.

Kiara jumped up at the intruder, and he stumbled backwards tripping over his own feet landing on his back. Kiara jumped on top of him pinning him down on the ground. Kiara tried to push the blade of her knife to his throat, but he was too strong and easily over powered her. The intruder shifted his body and rolled on top of her, he was so heavy, she was having trouble breathing. The intruder pulled the knife out of Kiara’s weakening hand. He grabbed her wrists and pushed them to the ground beside her head. Kiara struggled to get free, twisting and turning, but he was to strong.

“KIARA!!! KIARA IT’S JUST ME!!!” Said the intruder, but Kiara blocked out his voice and shoved her knee into his crotch. The intruder yelled in pain and dropped her knife as he released her wrists. She grabbed for her knife and turned to see Alue pinning him down snarling at him.

“I wouldn’t move or speak if I were you.” Kiara stated as she grabbed a rope from her deer hide pack. She grabbed the intruder’s wrists and tied them together with the rope.

“Now let’s see the face that tried to kill me.” She said as she pulled the hood off of the intruder’s head. “Koda?! I’m so sorry I thought you were a hunter! Don’t scare me like that!” she said as she quickly untied his hands.

“Hey, I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that, I thought you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you.” He said as he gave her a warm hug and stood up to throw another log into the fire.

“Where are Luca and Echo?” Kiara asked,

“They went hunting after I came into the clearing.” He replied,

“I’m so sorry Koda, I-” Koda cut her off and gently kissed her lips.

“It's ok, now go to sleep we have a long walk ahead of us.” He said,

“Where are we going?”

“My parents will meet us at the Thundering Valley; it is very far away from here, it took us a whole moon to walk to the River Otter camp.”

“Well, it won’t take too long if we ride Storm.”

“Kiara, there is no way I’m going on that forest horse.” Koda said as he rolled out his sleeping sack and lied down in it. Kiara moved her sleeping sack a little closer to his and lied down as well, and they both drifted to sleep.