Love you forever

Chapter seven/ in the jungle

Thinking of you keeps me awake. Dreaming of you keeps me asleep. Being with you keeps me alive." — Unknown

They had reached the end of the narrow path, from where onwards the jungle started. The darkness had just about started to lessen. They had been travelling for the past one hour. The landing after they had crossed the bridge was a huge piece of flat land, but it had high mountain walls on one side and the gorge on the other. The only exits were the road and then the bridge. Although the road was reasonably wide, and not too steep, it was still long and curvy. When they had come to the start of the curved road, it had still been very dark, so dark that she had, had serious doubts as to their ability to cross the dangerous road. They could barely see a few feet ahead of them, one wrong step or reaction from the horses could plunge them to their deaths. They had crossed the entire tubular road with just two mashaals lightening the way.

"Ballu, let us go a little further down from the rocky point." he spoke softly intruding onto her peaceful contemplation.
"Fine, the grazing along that entire stretch is very good, so we can leave the horses anywhere there."
Nodding to each other they carefully held on to the mashaals. They were going to need the light from them for some more time, at least till the sky lightened enough some more. A few minutes later, a small meadow appeared. Stopping his horse near a tree, Rudra got off his horse and he led it to a stream flowing nearby.

"We will walk from here, the horses can go no further" he informed her.

Ballu too had led his horse to the stream. Handing his mashaal over to Ballu, Rudra turned and raised his arms to help Gaura dismount. She bent forward, putting her hands on his shoulders and slid off. He effortlessly picked her up, holding her high up by the waist. Slowly he put her down, his arms letting go of her, but his eyes held spell bound by the dark intensity of her big round almond shaped eyes....she was so close to him...he stood there reluctant to step back... he kept looking at her before Ballu's ranting brought him to the present.

Giving her a smile, he raised his arms and leaning over her he removed the bow and quiver of arrows from the side of the saddle and a small bundle hanging on the back side of the horse and then stepping back he looked at her again before turning around he walked over to Ballu, his sword swinging loosely on the side of his hip.

Looking at Baalu's smirking face...he resisted the impulse to land a fist in the centre of it...he simply took a deep breath..

"I will go through here, you take the route to the right, that way we can meet back here by evening."

"And our charge?....... Who will she go with? I can take her no problem.... I do know this part of the forest well.....(taking a deep breath and then sighing) I will do this for you.....my friend...not that......."

"Shut up!! She is coming with me!" His looks broking no further talks... "come Gaura, we go towards this way..."

So saying he turned in the direction they were to go, with out looking at her he simply walked away.....

They had been slowly trekking through the thick wilderness for sometime, Gaura's sling bag was filled with a number of bundles by now, the remoteness of this area had let a treasure of herbs grow here undisturbed. She had been surprised at some of her finds. She had seen the katuki which were extremely rare for this region, grow in abundance. The Haridra, amazing for the liver, the Ghrit Kumari, and the Guggulu and the Arjun tree with its many properties, most of them were so rare down in the plains, so much so that Baba treasured them more than gold! Here they were growing abundantly!!! Baba will be very pleased....she couldn't help the pleased smile shining on her face. The rustling of leaves brought her around to where they were. Rudra had been very quiet since they had parted from Ballu. He had been looking around as though trying to find something... squatting down on the ground, parting the grass, or debris, seeing some marking in the mud....observing the sound of the jungle...she  had realised after a while that he was looking at the foot marks that the animals wandering around had left, he was scouting the area they were in, making sure there were no wild animals near about....