Red Queen Fan Fiction - Red Huntress

Epilogue

It was pure instinct that made her jump over the root before stumbling. Farley realized it only in passing hindsight, just in time to prepare for the next root. Her heart raced; fear sweat broke out on her back as she thought on what a Silver greeny tracker could do with the roots – with her. She wanted to run faster, despite her body weakened from weeks in lakelander captivity and all the obstacles in the path. The darkness deepening in the twilight forest with its roots, uneven ground, frequent stones and her thin slippers unsuitable for of all of that. She panted in exasperation. The general called Huntress had become a hunted – an irony she'd chewed on throughout her whole captivity.

She couldn't stop, had to get away with the chance given her by Scarlet Guard operatives before the Cygnets and their lackeys caught up on her – speed and cunning were essential. But she was on their terrain, a favoured park on the way to a palace where Princess Iris expected to interrogate Farley.

Or so she'd thought. Yet her planning retorts to her captor suddenly had to change to escape tactics. Maybe her due reward for slightly hoping to be ransomed at the meeting – even a highly ranked general like Farley wasn't worth paying every price for to the Guard; perhaps her talents were precisely why better was expected of her.

That would just smell of the colonel, she concluded. She snorted and gasped as she leaped over another hole in the track.

She considered eschewing the paths completely but her trail would stay visible as much if she went through the bushes growing in patterns deceptively wild. The path and the surrounding woods seemed so peaceful, quiet apart from the birdsongs. Well, that was a relief, to not hear from any trackers yet. They shouldn't even know she was gone at this point. From the map her helper had showed her briefly, she couldn't be far from the river where a boat waited for her. For now, she didn't hear the water's waves.

A part of her was flustered at the idea of travelling water when a Cygnet could be near. Now her pulse throbbed louder and louder in her ears, dimming the sounds of the landscape along with her ragged breaths. She couldn't keep up this pace for much longer but she accelerated for a last sprint. The next slope, she'd risk to throw herself down and roll off to gain a few precious seconds. She jumped.

The impact hurt, still, but that pain she could deal with. Harder it was to get up at all, making her rue the stupid move. She wasn't thinking straight. She rose with a groan, biting her lips raw until she reached the denser trees she'd seen on the map and which promised the river mere meters away –

Stepping into the boat and starting its motor came almost close to a loved one's – Clara's! – embrace.

The boat trip was a well-needed break still dominated by creeping anxiety. Farley's fingers tapped nervously, her legs shivered from exhaustion, cold, and hunger. Her prison clothes weren't made to withstand a spring night outside. Too bad she was alone on the boat, unable to hide and leave another to steer. At least the area grew somewhat familiar; she could navigate through difficult and into defensive spots, right into the bog in a forest close by.

She didn't like to step off there; because she feared what a nymph could do with a bog, but also for the reason why the place was familiar, and the memories it woke.

Fingernails cut into palms. She would keep running, wouldn't she? She had no time for sad memories.

When the river flowed into the bog's lake, she was ready. She prepared to let the boat sink and dove into the water, to hide her tracks before she'd cross the bog to the village beyond.

Her helper, a Guard operative dressed as a lakelander escort, had not given her detailed instructions. Awed by his mission to free the general, he'd flashed the map to Farley and mentioned some keywords of the plan before wishing her luck as she sneaked out of the running transport.