Yngvild and the Forest of Dreams

reunion

Jerre, Erik and Olaf had stopped just after a copse on the road west from the Wheel. They'd let their string of horses graze while they made lunch and waited for us all to catch up with them. As we walked towards them I could see Jerre sorting out saddles while Erik was building a fire. Olaf had a small axe and was chopping a fallen branch into smaller pieces.
'Hello there!' Inibrakeme called when we were still fifty yards off.
All three stopped what they were doing and looked in our direction.
I waved and smiled. It was good to see them again. 'How are you?'
'Well met.' Olaf stepped away from the branch, keep a hold of the axe.
Erik stood too, putting his left hand on the pommel of his sword as he took a couple of steps towards us.
'Would you mind if we joined you for some food?' Inibrakeme said.
I noticed Jerre looking around.
'We can help gather wood for the fire, and we can entertain you with some stories.' Inibrakeme had her arms wide palms out.
'I'm not sure we've got enough spare. The rest of our party is out collecting wood.' Olaf gestured into the copse. 'They'll be back any moment.'
'We're the people you're expecting, Olaf.' I said.
Olaf gaped at me.
Erik drew his sword.
Jerre dived over to a saddle for his sword.
'Stop!' I flourished Jafnadr.
Inibrakeme changed back to her usual self.
The swords went down.
I turned back into Yngvild, and used one hand to prevent tripping myself up on the now too long breeches.
'My apologies, I didn't recognise either of you.' Olaf said.
'I thought we'd been followed by two of Ormrun's agents.' Erik said.
'We saw you both come out of his hut earlier.' Jerre added.
'It's okay, we should have agreed a recognition signal or something.' Inibrakeme said. 'You might still have been followed, so Yngvild and I should stay in disguise until we're sure.'
I hugged each of them in turn. I was so pleased to see them again. Especially Jerre who had looked after me so well when Noren had been at his worst. I held him a little longer than the other two.
'I couldn't have helped Noren without you, Jerre.' I said while we embraced.
'It was the least I could have done.'

We resumed our disguises and helped with firewood and cooking. Jerre saddled one of the sleeker looking horses and rode off to look for Noren and Alfinna ahead of us on the drover's way. We'd warned him that they wouldn't look like themselves, and suggested that since they wouldn't recognise him either that he should ask any pairs of people that he met if they had spotted any bears, since he'd heard that there were two in the vicinity. I figured that would be enough to make them curious enough for Jerre to speak more openly.

In the end though, they were behind the rest of us, and they came from the direction of the Wheel at the point where we thought we were going to have to start moving on anyway. With Jerre's assistance Olaf and Erik had used most of the money they had brought with them to buy extra horses, grain and fodder. The cart was full with provisions and had four horses pulling it, they'd extended the bar at the Wheel. This made it faster than it had been. We also had three horses each, two mounts and a pack horse. There were four spare horses too, in case any of them became lame.
We were able to spend longer moving, because we could switch horses. Jerre showed us how the cavalry did forced marches. We alternated walking and trotting, with short stops for water and grain, every hour. By nightfall we were thirty miles away from the the Wheel Inn. We didn't stop at any of the inns we passed. Now we had provisions and the cart we kept moving until nearly dark, although we did a second long stop in the afternoon to let the horses rest again and for us to have a hot meal. We then carried on until it was twilight.
'How long until we get to Ocaso?' I asked while we were taking saddles off the horses.
'If we keep going at today's rate, then it's about four more days.' Alfinna took the bridle off her horse and replaced it with a feed bag.
'We can probably go slightly further tomorrow.' Jerre said. 'We won't need to wait so long to start, and the load will get lighter, hut we'll need to let the horses rest a bit the day after.'
'I thought we'd sell some of them, and the cart, when we got to the market outside Dacidade.' Olaf said.
'Not sure that we want to go that close to Dacidade, it'll be crawling with people.' Alfinna said.
'I'm with Alfinna in this. We're better staying well away from lots of people. Less chance of someone recognising us.'
'I appreciate the risks. I thought of that too.' Olaf said. 'If anyone asks what we're carrying then prime horses to Dacidade makes sense. It was the only cargo I could think of that sped us up rather than slowing us down.'
'That's a fair point. We could use it until we need to turn off the road.' Alfinna said. 'But we do need to turn off before the market.'
'What will we say if we get stopped by a patrol after we've left the road?'
'We'll tell them we're taking them to a client just up ahead. I know quite a few of the farms on the way.' Alfinna said.
'Where's the best place for us to strike off?' Olaf asked.
'If we stop for the night at the Troll's Head just outside Campedra we can ditch the cart. Then it'll be easier for us to cut across country.'
'How far is it from there to Ocaso?'
'Maybe fifty miles, we usually take two days to cover it.'
'You've done this route before?'
'Not recently. When I was younger we made a few trips to the Southern Isles, and we went from Ocaso because it was quieter.' Alfinna said.
'Why is an Inn in the middle of Cottalem called the Troll's Head? We're over a thousand miles south of Trollheim.' I said.
'It's run by a couple of Skyssians. It's a long story, maybe I'll tell you tomorrow while we're moving.'