Into the Land of Valentia

Chapter the Sixteenth

XVI

They had only travelled a few miles from the clearing before Vivica insisted they stop once more. She agreed that they needed to put distance between themselves and the thieves. At the same time, the thieves had received a fairly good beating and would be foolish to search for another. Not to mention that Cayden had been injured.

The slice across his midriff had been persistently leaking blood as they rode. They weren't in dragon country, but that didn't mean that dragons never ventured in the west. The scent of blood was a siren's song to a dragon.

None of Vivica's arguments had much sway over Cayden. 

"It doesn't bother me."

"It bothers me."

Cayden stubbornly continued riding, even when they reached a meadow. The meadow had tall golden grasses that only reached Vivica's thighs when she was mounted. The grasses would provide adequate shelter from any passer-by. They had no need to stop for an extensive period of time. But explanations seemed to be futile. Cayden rode on.

She tried anew. "You're not the only one who was fighting. Garrett may have hurt one of his hocks, or cut himself while trampling that thief. And Narick was fighting by himself for quite awhile. He might need to rest."

In fact, Vivica had checked Garrett before they rode out the clearing, a quick survey that consisted of her running her hands along his legs and sides to make sure that there was no chance he had been injured. She would never mount before making sure the stallion was alright. But persuasion was key.

Narick seemed unaware of her strategy. "I am quite fine. Perhaps a few bruises from the one lad's slingshot. But otherwise uninjured."

Sighing, Vivica tried another approach. "You're slowing us down with your injury."

She could tell that Cayden didn't like the idea of this. He pulled back on Tansy's reins, and the mare came to a halt. A breeze rippled across the meadow and the grasses waved back and forth. "You won't stop with this?"

"No."

Cayden squeezed Tansy's sides and they began the descent into the meadow.

As they rode down, Vivica let her eyes drift to her quiver, then drew her gaze back up. She didn't want to think back to the clearing or to the arrows she had shot. The group had left in a hurry. She hadn't had time to search for her missing arrows. The only one she had seen was sticking from the thigh of the burly thief, and she had been grossly unwilling to pull it free. Her quiver, once containing twelve of her brother's handcrafted arrows, had been reduced to eight. 

She felt a burn in her eyes, but blinked it away. She needed to start working on not thinking about things when she told herself to.

Garrett stepped around a large boulder and ended up alongside Knickers and Narick. The stable master seemed to see this as a perfect opportunity to open conversation.

"Will this take us off schedule, do you think?"

Clearly what Vivica had said to threaten Cayden into allowing her to bind his wound had worried Narick. She had to ponder his question. It was still near midday, though the sun would surely have slipped a bit further in the sky by the time they returned to path. "Mid-morning was always an estimate. Regardless, this shouldn't take us far off."

This seemed to reassure Narick. "Good. Getting the river water should be the easiest task. We shouldn't have to waste time on it."

Wanting to divert his attention to something less worrisome, Vivica said, "Tansy and Knickers did well during the attack. Did you train them yourself?"