The God's Reign: Book one, The Knowing

chapter 5- okay, so now we know the truth

My eyes flickered open. I noticed my surroundings: I was in a small hammock inside a beige tent the size of a cement truck. Sunlight seeped through the opening of the roof. Daytime. I realized.

I sat up slowly. I was covered with medical supplies, as if a first-aid kit vandalized me. On my shoulders, right arm, and left hamstring, bandages were wrapped with the sickly sweet scent of medicine clinging to them. The pain of my injuries was rated on a scale from 1 to 10. Last night, it was rated 10 out of 10, perfect score. But now, it dropped drastically, probably down to a 6, only throbbing when I made sharp movements.

Hillary sat beside me. She was a little less patched up than me, an ankle sprain and a couple of gashes on her face. Despite her scars, she looked like the fight never happened. Hillary wore new clothes, the same clothes as the hunters. Her azure hair was neatly braided with silver ribbon intertwined.

She held my hand, smiling at me with a hint of kindness. "Are you okay, Sierra?" she asked. The truth: my body throbbed as if I was in the eighth ring of Dante's Inferno. My answer: "I'm fine. Where-where are we?"

"We are in the camp of Artemis and her maiden hunters." Hillary responded to me. "Artemis will keep us here until we're fit to travel on our own, with our condition, might be about five days, 14 tops."

Great, I thought. More time with the Orphan from Hell, Lia...

Few seconds later, a huntress about our age, 15, poked her head through the entrance of the tent. She had short, curly blond hair with green eyes. By her expression, she looked completely harmless. I knew that wasn't true because she was the one that stabbed my arm with the arrow last night.

"Lady Artemis would like to talk to both of you," the girl announced. She glared at my ragged and dirt-colored clothes. "Maybe you should freshen up before then," the girl gestured to a pile of neatly folded clothes near my hammock; a brown sweater, jeans, a white shirt, and, of course, converse.

"Thanks," I said. The hunter nodded and slipped out of to join her friends in training and scouting and other Huntress bull-crap. I stared at the clothes. I slipped out the hammock, wincing in pain, and picked up the pile of clothes. The brown sweater had an imprint of a bull-dog, my favorite animal. I put on the clothes and shoes, which fit me seamlessly, and the pair of converse was my favorite colors, red and black. What did they do? Look me up on Google?

Hillary and I headed out of the tent. Tons of tent and teepees were set up in a colony around the forest. There were so many twists and turns, I almost got lost twice... now thrice. I let Hillary lead the way, since she seemed to know here she was going. We stopped at a tent with the sign of a silver crescent moon on the door flap. That must be the leader's tent, since there is no other tent with this symbol on it. 

"Come in," a voice on the inside called. "Both of you," Before we went in, I looked at Hillary. She noticed me and smiled desperately. She slipped through the entrance. Here goes nothing.

The tent was littered with books (on mythology and fighting techniques, it looked like) and weapons of all sorts. Beautiful sheets of cloth and blankets covered the floor. Pillows with ancient designs were placed in a circle, like a tribal sitting area. In the middle of the circle, a fire blazed on top of a wood pile. That's strange. I thought suspiciously. The fire lay right on top of the cloth floor, and yet, not a single string caught on fire.

Artemis waited inside, along with Lia and two extra hunters. The four women sat gracefully on their knees on the pillows, so we did the same. Hillary and I chose the seats closest to the exit, just in case Lia wanted to play another game of "Rocky vs. Apollo" with us.

"I called you here on a peace term," Artemis started. "But my hunters attacked you without my leadership, thinking that they knew better than an Olympian goddess!" the leader sneered impatiently at her hunters. Lia grimaced in guilt and cursed under her breath as the other girls awkwardly shifted their knees under them.