Chapter 1, Pages 24-28

 

A
rustle in the leaves caught the mans attention and he turned his eyes
for a brief moment giving Rielari the perfect opportunity to strike.
With a swiftness undetectable by the human eyes she flicked her wrist
dagger out and in one fluid motion severed the mans spine. He
crumpled to her feet and made a loud gurgling noise before he stopped
twitching forever.

“I’m
sorry.” Rielari whispered as a single tear made a path down her
cheek.

Walking
back to the grouper she guided it out of hiding and back to the road.
Gingerly reaching into her saddle bag she withdrew the collapsible
shovel she carried with her. Returning to the body that was growing
cold and stiff she began digging next to the road. Satisfied she had
dug the grave deep enough she went back to the body of the poor man
to search it for anything useful. She took his scimitar and placed
it to the side, a warrior should be buried with his sword. Sifting
through the mans pockets she found his purse, it had several gold
coins in it. He also had a few strategically placed daggers that she
placed aside to look at later. Removing his quiver of arrows, she
grabbed the dead man under his arms and slowly drug him to the grave.
Rolling him into it she walked back to retrieve his scimitar.
Kneeling beside the grave she placed it gently across his chest.

“Khaine
please forgive me for taking this life, watch over his journey to the
underworld,” Rielari bowed her head. Taking her shovel she filled
the grave in with dirt, placing a stone at the head she walked back
to the grouper.

Returning
the shovel to her saddle bag, Rielari climbed back into her saddle.
She nudged the grouper forward again down the road. Hopefully they
wont send anyone looking for him, she thought. She really didn’t
want to kill another innocent man if she could avoid it. What the
man had said bothered her though, if he was right then she was
already trying to kill an innocent man. She shook her head to clear
the thought from it. Someone had killed her beloved and she would
find out who one way or another.

Reaching
a river that crossed the road Rielari stopped the grouper. She
needed to wash the filth off her from digging the grave and the blood
she had managed to get on her clothes. The bridge that crossed the
river would give her a descent place to hide for the night.

Building
a small fire Rielari stripped her clothes from her body with disgust.
Wading into the frigid waters she submerged herself. It was a
welcome relief to be in the cold water and it soothed her aching
muscles. She swam around for a little to clear her head and think
more on what the man had said. If indeed this Lord Zefrik was
innocent and someone was trying to frame him than that person knew
who she was and how dear Yislon was to her. If that was the case
than she had not been doing a good job of keeping her identity a
secret. Only a few people knew her true identity and one of them was
now dead. No one else at the brothel knew who she was, they knew her
name but that was it. The revelation puzzled her and she did not
like it. Someone was trying to use her to do their dirty work, what
she didn’t understand was why they didn’t just hire her for the job.
She had to find this Lord and find out what he knew and why people
wanted him dead.

Leaving
the waters quickly Rielari stood by the fire to warm herself and dry
a little. Her mind was racing and she needed answers. Pick up her
filthy clothes she took them and some of her soap to the river.
Scrubbing the dirt and blood from them she wrung them out and placed
them by the fire to dry. Sifting through her saddle bags she found
her spare clothes and quickly put them over her goose pimpled flesh.

Pulling
out more of the travel food the cook had given her, Rielari sat by
the fire to think. It all made no sense to her and she was beginning
to get agitated. Extinguishing the fire she curled up next to the
warm grouper and was soon fast asleep.

Waking
early again Rielari quickly packed her things back into the saddle
bags. Cleaning the area as best she could she attempted to make it
look as if no one had been there. Someone could be following her to
make sure she finished the job and she didn’t want to make it any
easier for them. As she tracked Lord Zefrik she would also have to
hide her own tracks. She also had to make up all the time she had
lost the day before, it pissed her off. She hated rushing, that’s
how mistakes happened.

Leaving
the river behind her Rielari slowly settled into a routine of hiding
her tracks while still tracking this now mysterious man. She tried
to search her memory on everything she knew about Friat, the Friatian
people, and their hierarchy. It wasn’t much but she categorized it
for contemplations.

Friat
was a large island off the coast of Dakrim, a coastal city ruled by
Gelro

k. Gelrok was a relative of the ruler of Friat, Rielari thought
perhaps a grandson or nephew. The ruling king of Friat was Tobrik,
Zefrik’s father and she thought she had heard rumors that he had
fathered a few other children. She knew very little of Friatian
society they were a very guarded people. She didn’t think she had
heard anywhere about a war between Friat and Dakrim. Friatian’s
depended on Dakrim for everything from daily supplies to the exotic
trade so it would not be in the Friatian interest to start a war.
Dakrim covered most of the coast that Friat would be able to reach by
ship so if they didn’t get along the people on Friat would either
starve or be forced to travel very far for supplies.

Rielari
violently shook her head scaring a deer in a meadow she was passing.
The politics of it all made no sense to her, nothing of the past few
days made much sense. The more she thought about it all the more she
realized she would have to thoroughly question Lord Zefrik before she
killed him.

The
sun was setting again as Rielari noticed she was very close to Sairk,
she would reach the city limits before the night was through.
Unfortunately she would have to sleep in one of the smaller villages
surrounding the city because the gates would be locked before she
reached them. She would not sleep outside the gates, it would be too
easy for someone to ambush her there. Only the homeless and
degenerates slept outside the gates at night and they were almost
worse than the thieves in Geal. Not that she couldn’t handle them
but with the events of the past few days she was a little leery about
everything. She would feel more comfortable with a roof over her
head for the night.

The
small villages she began seeing were all part of Sairk, they were
just the farming community. The larger ones she knew would have
inn’s. The closest one to the city was perhaps the largest and
Rielari guided the grouper down it’s dirt streets. Locating the inn
was easy enough, it was the largest building in the village.
Dismounting she tied the grouper to a low post in front of the inn
for just that purpose.

Walking
through the front door, Rielari squinted her eyes at the brightness
of the reception area. Adjusting quickly she saw the round inn
keeper standing behind a bar like counter.

“Can
I help you,” the lady asked suspiciously.

“Yes
ma’am I need a room for the night,” it was obvious to Rielari they
didn’t get many visitors from out of town, “I was trying to make it
to the city before they closed the gates but it appears I was to
late.”

Rielari
hoped the excuse would ease the woman’s suspicions of her. She
lowered the hood to her cape to appear as nonthreatening as possible.
An inaudible sigh escaped her lips when the woman let her shoulders
slump slightly in relaxation.