Lingering Shadows-Chapter 26

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Chapter 27-Mistakes

“Of course this would happen! Oh, I am so stupid!” Artham hissed to himself in a quiet, hard voice. They were back in the forest. The warrior, of course, was gone. The red cloak was gone too, so Artham and Esben couldn’t be sure how he had gotten away. It would have been very difficult, however, for anyone to untie such a hard knot behind him, so all that was left was either that the warrior had had a knife hidden in his sleeve, or one of the accomplices had returned and set him free.

They had caused quite a stir with their dramatic entrance to Oak Hill, both of them dirty and sweating, and Esben still trying to staunch the blood flow from his hand. As Artham wouldn’t allow Esben to leave until his cut was taken care of, and Esben didn’t want to wait any longer, the doctor merely wrapped his hand tightly in a clean bandage, a temporary treatment that only took a few minutes. All in all, they were back with a small company of Durgans, along with Dru, who had insisted on coming, before fifteen minutes had passed.

They had stared in slight confusion at the quiet forest pathway. It looked completely undisturbed. Esben, who was still pressing on his hand with an extremely exasperated air he learned from his brother, stood for a second looking appalled before he turned, hearing Artham muttering to himself.

“What else could I have expected?” Artham grunted in frustration, clenching his fist, then pressing it to his forehead. “I’m such an idiot!”

Esben stepped toward his brother, lowering his voice so that only Artham could hear him.

“Artham, that’s not true. Stop it.” Artham just shook his head with a bitter laugh.

“I should have listened to you and rushed right back. Or even risked taking him with us. We could have done it! And after all this I let him get away!”

Dru had stepped up from behind, putting a hand on Artham’s shoulder.

“Artham, you did what a Throne Warden would do. You saved your brother’s life, took him as fast as you could out of a situation of danger, and made him get attention for his wounded hand as quickly as possible. Now it seems to me like this is the kind of situation where any course of action would have wound up with something going wrong. At least it’s only this.”

Esben nodded his agreement, but looked slightly annoyed. Artham shrugged and turned away from them to examine where the warrior had been, the frustrated look still on his face, despite when he said,

“You’re right, Dru. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do here,” he turned to Esben. “We're going to have to call another emergency council. I hate to do it, it seems like we’ve had one an annoyingly frequent amount of times lately.”

“Someone’s been trying to kill us an annoyingly frequent amount of times lately,” Esben muttered with a huff.

“Well, we should probably get it over with.” Artham said, smiling humorlessly. He rubbed at a long, deep gash in the dirt with the toe of his boot, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“That sword went deep. Whoever it was was strong,” he said flatly, not bothering to mention that the sword that had caused such a deep gash in the cold, hard earth was originally aimed at his chest.

They started on their way back to Oak Hill, and yet another dreaded late-night emergency council that would need to be called, Artham still with the hard face and stormy eyes that indicated he was still fuming internally, berating himself with everything he thought he could have done better.

“At least one good thing came out of this,” he said to his brother.

“What?”

“We know who it was. Well, sort of. The bloodrock dye, the black masks, all of it says that they were Wanderers of the Woes. Which only answers one question and creates tons more,” Artham said in frustration. “But at least no one can suspect the Durgans anymore.”

*

Aro sat on a dusty crate in the shadowy corner of an abandoned building, swinging one foot over the edge of the crate, scuffing at the filthy floor. One or two other black clad warriors waited around the room, either sharpening a knife or stabbing it randomly into the wooden floor.

Aro himself was fiddling with one of his daggers, by far wishing he had his bow with him instead. He watched Ryith nervously out of the corner of his eye, and with every passing moment Aro grew more tense, waiting for the return of the three who had gone out after the Throne Warden and the King. He had stopped thinking of them as Artham and Esben.

Finally, Ryith snatched his dagger out of the air and flung it with deadly accuracy at a knot in the center of the door.

“Where are they?” He demanded, exasperated. He turned and strode over to Aro.

“Are you sure you got your information right?” He asked in a low, deadly tone. Aro lifted his head and met Ryith’s eyes. When Ryith’s glare turned on him, Aro’s heart started beating faster in his fear. He never would have admitted it, of course. “I’m sure,” Aro said. “But if they changed their minds it’s not my fault!” he finished defiantly.

“You had better be sure,” Ryith said, his eyes and tone and everything about him dangerous. “Because if you aren’t, you’ll wish you never came on this mission.” Ryith whispered the last words in a low whisper, leaning over Aro with one hand on the wall above the young man’s head. Aro swallowed, closing his mouth tightly, but never looking away from Ryith.

“I told you exactly what I heard. I can’t help it if they decide to go home a different way,” he said in a quiet, steady voice. Ryith stood up and nodded, smiling his deceptive smile.

“Good. Don’t make me regret everything I’ve done for you,” he said, still quietly as he turned and strode to the wall, jerking his knife from the door, running his thumb over the long blade.

“You never did anything for me,” Aro muttered under his breath. “You just didn’t stop me.”

The other two in the room had been listening intently and discreetly watching the little drama unfolding before them out of the corners of their eyes, and when Ryith returned to flipping his knife on the other side of the room, the younger of the two, who leaning against the wall close to Aro, moved a little closer.

“Ryith’s pretty hard on you,” he said quietly, stabbing deep grooves in the ground.

“Yeah, I think he’s waiting for me to slip up,” Aro muttered. “He’d just love to see me fail again,” the man shrugged indifferently.

“It was pretty bad when you missed that shot in Anniera.” The man spat out the word ‘Anniera’ like it was poison. “They shouldn’t have trusted you with it. I would have done much better,” he finished in a half joking, half serious tone, nudging Aro.

“Thanks a lot, Jaid,” Aro said flatly, not looking up from his knife.

“I think you got this one right though,” Jaid continued. “He’ll see. Your information will prove to be right and you’ll be back in his good graces. Knowing you, you’ll make your way back to being his favorite in a few weeks,”

Aro huffed. “Definitely,” they sat in silence for a while longer, then Jaid leaned over.

“I have a bow your size at home,” he whispered confidentially. “You can use it until Ryith cools down enough to stop threatening the bowyer against making you a new one.”

Aro finally cracked a smile. “He would do that,” he said wryly. “And thanks. But don’t think this means I’m ever going to let you win when we compete in archery. I’m pretty sure I’ll always surpass you there,” Aro finished with a smirk. Jaid chuckled.

“Remember now, I am your superior, in rank and in years. You shouldn’t be allowed to surpass me at archery.”

“Well I do anyway. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not supposed to be allowed to do.” Aro said, still smiling.

“Don’t I know it,” Jaid said, leaning back and inspecting his knife blade, turning it this way and that in the flickering light of a lantern in the dark room. Night had fallen long ago.

Aro fell back into his depressed thoughtfulness, wishing that all this business was done with, and that they could go back home, where he belonged. And where he had plenty of ways to stay out of Ryith’s way.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jaid asked, slightly frustrated. “Look, it will all come out all ri-”

He was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door. Everyone in the room turned as one, hesitating to answer. After a few minutes, there was another, weaker knocking, this one in an odd pattern of thumps and raps.

The other man in the room scrambled to the door. Ryith stood imposingly in the center of the room, waiting with a hand on the hilt of his ornate sword. The door was unlocked and pulled in, and two warriors in black staggered into the room.

Both were wounded, but they managed to stand upright and bow to Ryith.

“What happened?” He asked. He glanced at the door. “Where’s the other one?” He asked impatiently.

“We-we did attack them. They were right where he said they would be.” The first said, trying to catch his breath. Ryith shot an indecipherable look back at Aro, who was now standing rigidly upright, out of the dark corner he had been brooding in.

“They’re too much, sir. You know we’re three of your best, and we barely left a mark on either of them. Neither of us escaped unscathed. The two of them had to retreat,” The man said, gesturing to the one warrior at his side.

“I was nearly captured. He came back and got me free though, and they never got anything from me.”

“And where is the third of your company?” Ryith asked in a calm voice that was far more frightening than a shout.

“H-he didn’t make it, sir. We underestimated them. Far underestimated them,” the warrior continued. “Why didn’t you tell us?” He asked, raising his voice to a shout, turning to Aro.

“I tried! You all thought that three would be enough to take them down. Is this what it takes for you to believe me? Artham is a far better fighter than you’ll ever be!” The room was full of silence for a few minutes.

“Then its time we made a new plan,” Ryith said warmly. He gestured at the two warriors, and they made their way to the far side of the room, where they began pulling wrapped food out from one of the crates. One of them started ripping a black cloak in strips and wrapping it around his badly injured forearm.

Ryith made his way over to stand next to Aro. He stood thinking for a long time, silent and sinister. All the while, Aro felt himself as tense as his bowstring, trying to prepare himself for whatever Ryith would say or do. Finally, Ryith smiled and put a hand on Aro’s shoulder. Aro jumped involuntarily, and tried to cover it up by coughing.

“Well Aro,” Ryith purred. “It seems you’ve done something right this time. And you didn’t underestimate our enemy. A valuable skill for a warrior. As of course, is confidence in your own, which is what I had. After all, you haven’t been reliable enough lately for me to risk too many of my men, to risk getting found out, based on your advice. Now prove yourself once more, and things will start going better for you. We are going to finish this once and for all.”