We walked into town, feeling like wet rats, and probably looking about the same, earning us odd looks and wary stares. It was a small town with a meager main street where most of the businesses were located. We made our way there, hoping to find some kind of inn or at least a place to rest our feet. We lit upon the buildings, most no taller than two stories, in the main square.

“One of these is bound to be some kind of inn or tavern with rooms,” said Tom.

Most of the signs read vague names, like, ‘The Yellow Dog’, and ‘Ruddy Fruits. They left no clues as to what the businesses actually were, but I had hope that one of them would be what we needed.

I sighed, disappointed with the lack of available information. “I guess we just have to try one and see what they say. I’m sure they could point us in the right direction at least,” I suggested.

“Right,” he said. “But I’m not liking the looks we’re getting here. I don’t want to stay too long; it seems like they’re not fond of tourists.”

And Tomas was right. A lot of the passerby had given us dirty looks, eyeing us like we were ruining their day just by existing. To be fair, though, we were still excessively muddy and wet, and neither of us smelled fantastic. We’d been traveling for a while, and one collects a lot of dirt and sweat along the way.

We decided on entering the building labeled ‘Ruddy Fruits’, hoping they at least had some food for sale. The field rations that Sage had given us were helpful and sustained energy well but lacked a certain… refinery in their tastes. I looked forward to a hot, home cooked meal.

Tom opened the door for us, and we sauntered through into a relatively deserted seating area, considering the time of day. It was nearing dinner time, and I would’ve expected more people sitting at the tables than there were. We looked around cautiously, and then Tomas approached the woman at the bar. She was very thin, with baby fine dark blonde hair, tied up in a miniature ponytail. Her mousy features were screwed up in displeasure, as if she had smelled something foul. Which was us, I supposed.

“Can you tell me where I can find a room for rent? And maybe some dinner?” asked Tom politely.

“That depends. Who’s asking?” said the little barmaid as she vigorously cleaned a dirty mug with an even dirtier rag.

Tom exchanged sideways glances with me. “An esteemed demon hunter and his… friend,” he said finally, standing proud, puffing out his chest.

I raised an eyebrow at this. Wouldn’t it do better to just be traveling citizens instead of announcing that he was a demon hunter? Just because Demon Hunters were theoretically neutral, it didn’t mean that the general public approved of them. From what I’d heard, most of the commoners feared the Demon Hunters, using them in children’s tales to encourage their kids to behave. When they weren’t using the demons themselves, of course. In any case, it was too late now. At least he hadn’t told everyone I was a fugitive princess.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some of the people sitting near us mutter to themselves, staring. A few of them got up and left. My muscles tensed apprehensively. This place gave me the creeps.

The barmaid squinted her eyes at us, then exchanged looks with some of the patrons nearby. She sighed begrudgingly. “We have rooms here if you have money,” she said, her frown twisting further. “Food, too.”

“Excellent!” Tom exclaimed, as he rustled in his sack for his coin purse. “How much for a room and two dinners?”

“Ten copper marks for a room, two per dinner,” the barmaid said, falling back into her customer service voice.

Tom shuffled around his bag, which wasn’t very full to begin with. Sage had been kind enough to give us any money at all, but he hadn’t been able to give us much. Being retired doesn’t allow for a lot of income. Tom peered into the bag, and I heard him counting quietly to himself.

“Erm, one room please, and two dinners,” he requested sheepishly, holding out fourteen copper marks.

The barmaid took the money and nodded towards an empty table. “Have a seat, I’ll bring you out the special tonight. I’ll let you know when your room’s ready.” She took a second look at me, soaking wet and muddy, and shook her head, changing her mind. “Actually, I’ll get you a room ready now. Go take a bath, and then you can come down and sit at my tables.”

I made a face of awkward compliance as she bustled out of sight, grabbing the necessary items.

I reached up to touch Tom’s shoulder and pulled him down to my level. “An esteemed demon hunter, eh?” I whispered sharply. “What, were you trying to get a discount?”

He rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed, mussing his hair. “Ah, I just… yeah, pretty much. I got excited. I’ve always wanted to say that when introducing myself. Figured now was the time.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

The barmaid returned, a thick, fluffy towel in hand, and indicated that we follow her. We tramped up the stairs behind her, meekly following. She led us to a door, which she opened for us, revealing a modest room with a single bed. I groaned internally.

She gestured to the corner of the room, where a bathtub stood, filled with hot, steaming water.

“Wash up. Your dinner will be waiting on you downstairs.” She took her leave swiftly, eager to get away from us.

Tom and I exchanged reluctant looks; this was going to be a long night.

~

We had settled in after our respective separate baths, into the single bed, rather begrudgingly. Fortunately, it was large enough, or rather, I was small enough, that we could sleep without having to touch each other. I barely even knew Tom, and here we were, sharing a bed. My mother would be furious right now, if she knew. Though she’d granted me free reign, I’d been taught the basics of propriety. I didn’t think of Tom in a romantic way, barely even as a friend, but that didn’t matter in the eyes of outsiders. It would look bad. Thankfully, nobody I knew was here, and nobody knew who I was. I held onto that thought, desperate for comfort.

I tossed and turned, and despite the relatively comfortable lodgings, I couldn’t sleep. My eyes were heavy, lids glued shut, but throughout the night, I kept getting the urge to look out the window. Despite dozing off occasionally, and never sleeping, the urge kept nagging at me. The room felt warm, maybe that’s why I wasn’t sleeping well. And, come to think of it, it seemed rather light in here for the middle of the night. Did somebody have their lanterns lit, right outside my window?

Frustrated, I got up to look, hoping it would satisfy my inner anxiety and allow me to sleep for once. I stumbled over to the window on the opposite side of the room, my movement from the mattress eliciting a few mumbled words of nonsense from my travel companion.

“It’s not valid to edit that pattern” he mumbled quietly in his sleep. “Those colors just don’t go together.”

…What the fuck.

I shook my head, wondering what sort of odd dreams he was having, and peeked past the curtain in my window. Pulling it back, I saw a fire.

Or rather, many fires.

A mob.

Stunned, I let go of the curtain and let it fall back against the glass. There was no way I saw a group of angry people with torches outside our window, gathering. Or had I? I crept close to the window once more and peeked the tiniest bit around the curtain.

The group of people had gathered, and there were even more torches lit. They must have been lighting each other’s as I stood there, watching them. Were they here for us? Why? I remembered when we’d walked in, everyone looked okay until Tom mentioned he was an esteemed demon hunter. I cursed; I didn’t know exactly what was going on here, but I was sure it was his fault, like everything else that had happened.

“Tom!” I whisper-shouted, running back to the bed, shaking him awake. “Get up!”

“Not the gravy!” he replied, one eye still closed, the other only partially open. He rubbed them, waking up. “What?” he asked. “What time is it?”

“It’s time to leave, that’s what,” I said hastily, rushing around the room and grabbing our packs. “There’s an angry mob outside, and I don’t know if they’re here for us, but I don’t want to fucking find out. Let’s go!”

“Okay, okay!” he said, tumbling out of the bed and scrambling to find his boots. “Wait!” Tom said, stopping me with an arm. “We can’t just waltz right out the front door.”

“Well what do you suggest?!” I whispered angrily. “It’s not like we could climb out the window either – they’re right there!”

He bit his lip, thinking, while staring at me. I gesticulated wildly – if he had an idea, I wanted to hear it too.

“Follow my lead,” he said determinedly, but without further explanation.

Frustrated and scared, I resisted the urge to screech, and instead, followed him out the door. We crept through the silent building; it seemed like most of the usual patrons and inhabitants were outside. We made it to the landing, where we were able to see the main floor.

It was empty.

We each let out a sigh of relief. Tom looked at me, now unsure of what to do.

“Please don’t tell me that was all you had in mind,” I pleaded. “We are so fucked.”

His silence was suspicious.

“Dammit Tom, you had one fucking job,” I said, peeking around the room for a back door or something else helpful. “You just had to brag about being some awesome demon hunter.”

A sideways glance showed me a green faced Tom, his features skewed into an expression that made him look like he might vomit.

“Perhaps I overexaggerated,” he said. “And it’s clear that the only exit is the front door.”

“Perhaps I overexaggerated?” I mimicked, snarling. “We’re fucked, Tom.”

“We know you’re in there!” shouted a voice from outside, muffled from the distance.

“Oh, fuck,” we said in unison.

“What could they want from us?” I asked quietly, floundering. “Would it… be such a stupid idea to go outside and talk to them?” Personally, I’d much rather be burned alive, but I couldn’t speak for Tom.

“Zaavi will have your heads!” shouted a different person from the crowd.

“I guess that answers my question,” I said.

Tomas looked confused; it looked like he was trying desperately to answer a particularly difficult math question. I looked around more, desperately hoping to find a window or a back door in this shit hole of an establishment we were stuck in. All two of the visible windows were next to the front door, which was not a viable option give the slightly irritated group of people that were awaiting us outside. I turned around and noticed the bar. It wasn’t out of the ordinary, just a simple wooden bar with shelves behind it, lined with various alcohols, but I felt the need to check.

“Is it possible that there’s some secret way out of here?”

“Uh, I doubt it,” he said, still standing where I’d left him, eyes roaming the empty room.

I ran behind the bar, searching around just in case. I turned over every bottle on the shelf, to no avail. I found the cabinet filled with mugs, and took out every single one, frantically searching for some sort of secret button that would open a compartment we could escape come through.

“Come on,” I whispered as I dug through a drawer filled with dirty rags. “Come on!”

I sighed. I had found nothing. I peeked up from behind the bar with a frown. “There’s nothing here!” This was nothing like all of the stories I read. In those books, when the protagonists were cornered, there was always some clever way for them to sneak out.

“This is a stupid action adventure story,” I mumbled under my breath.

Unfortunately, Tom must have heard that. “That’s cause this is real life, and it sucks,” he said, finally becoming angry instead of terrified. “There’s a fucking mob out there to kill us!”

“Wait a second,” I said, tapping my finger on my lips in thought. “Do they want to kill us?”

“Yes! They said, and I quote, ‘Zaavi will have your heads’, end quote!” He even denoted the quotation marks with two fingers on each hand.

“Well, I doubt this Zaavi person is out there, and it sounds like they’re going to have him do the honors,” I speculated. “I have an idea. It’s a bad one. But It’s the only one I have.”

Tom just stared at me with a sick expression on his face, his temporary anger reverted to queasy fear.

“We run out that door and keep running. Uh, hopefully, we can lose them once we’re out that door.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “What can I say, I’m a tactical genius.”

His face grew queasier.

“All jokes aside, I really do not see another way out of this. We run, and if we get caught, we might be able to buy some time and escape before this Zaavi character kills us. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather take that risk now than be burnt alive.” I could see through the window that flames licked at the building surrounding us, the fire crackling as the mob tried to smoke us out. It wouldn’t be long for the whole thing was burning with us inside. “Are you ready?”

Tom shook his head no.

“Well, get fucking ready. Let’s go.”

I took his hand, locked my gaze on the door, and began running for it.

My feet frantically pounded the ground below at a much faster pace than Tom’s, though he kept up with me easily. I extended an arm, ready to slam the door open in front of me, but Tom’s longer reach hit it first. With a deafening boom, the wooden door burst open to reveal a startled mob. It would’ve been funny if they weren’t willing to murder us.

We didn’t stop to admire their doubtless amusing reaction to our sudden appearance, instead rushing past them, shoving a few out of the way, and hoofed it towards the woods. My breath burned, the adrenaline coursing through my veins like pure fire. My eyes were locked on the trees ahead. The forest lined the base of the mountain range that loomed above.

“We can lose them in there!”

Tom just panted in response, the frenzied pace we were at taking all of his energy, and mine as well. The mob, momentarily shocked, now recovered. We had gotten some distance in between us, but not enough for us to be lost from their sight. We were still in the open ground of the village.

Roars from the crowd urged us to run faster. The dull light from the flickering torches they held inched closer with every step – they were catching up. I gulped in more oxygen, hoping I could squeeze some extra speed from my short legs. The trees, so close and yet, so, so far, beckoned to me with dark shadows. But the torches, the light bouncing and flickering as the mob gained on us, diminished those shadows promising concealment.

We were close to the trees. A few more steps, and we were in. The darkness wrapped around us like a welcoming shroud, the immediate coolness of the night, the dampness of the forest air forcing my lungs to contract with a sharp squeeze.

But the mob still gained on us, despite the refuge of the trees, too close for us to lose them. While the thick forest slowed down the mob, it also slowed us down. We needed to find a place to hide, and quick. I wanted to scream, but I neither had the air, nor could I give up our position.

“I wish a fucking bear would just eat these bastards,” I whispered fervently. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I saw Tom give a ghost of a smile. The mental image was rather satisfying, picturing the roar of a monstrous bear terrifying the mob. Only as long as the bear was keen on leaving us alone, though.

We kept running, leaping over fallen logs, pushing through foliage and crunching through bushes, the stickers pulling at our clothes and ripping our skin. I grit my teeth and ignored the sharp stings of pain when the thorns stuck.

“This is so stupid,” Tom whined quietly to himself, but I heard it. “I’m not even a damn demon hunter!”

I blinked rapidly, almost stopping to glare at him, then remembering the mob chasing us through this damned forest. I continued, the halt in our escape quickly forgotten. “Then don’t fucking tell people you are!”

He glanced at me, the regret and apology in his eyes new, partnered with the fear inspired by the crowd of death that was nearly upon us.

I growled, the mob getting closer and closer, panic rising in my throat. “God-DAMN where’s a bear when you need them,” I spat through clenched teeth and huffed breath. I could practically picture it now – we would be running away, and a bear would just leap out, roar, and attack those motherfucking villager bastards. I would’ve closed my eyes to savor the daydream, but that would have to wait for another day.

We rustled through the brush, beelining it straight ahead, unable to see more than ten feet in front of our faces in the dark and thick trees. The mob, their torches now spread out and haphazardly bouncing around in the forest behind us, the closest of which only about fifteen feet away. We were as good as dead. I found my pace slowing, my burning lungs reaching their limit, my calves aching and twisting up from overuse.

I heard cheers from the mob, they echoed through my ears like an executioner about to swing a sword. I tuned them out, trying to urge my muscles to comply, but they wouldn’t. My calf locked up, and my foot caught on a vine.

I fell, hard, landing on my hands, mud squishing in between my fingers as I caught myself on the ground, on hands and knees. Tom immediately tried to help me up, to extricate me from the tangle of vine and mud, his frantic hands pulling at me to stand. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t, I felt like dead weight.

In the back of my mind, I noticed that the mob was still cheering, or yelling, a load, deep roar that sounded different than a second ago. First and foremost, however, my brain was preoccupied with getting up so I could flee. I twisted around, Tom helping me free the last vine from around my foot. We stood, and he pulled me to run again, at a slightly slower speed, my limp hampering my tempo.

Then I realized the roar that I thought had been from the mob was not human. I chanced a look back at them to see how far away they were, how close to death we were.

I was met with a realization of my daydream. But, instead of a single bear, there were three. Three massive, murderous, giant-clawed bears, one of them standing and roaring in between us and the crowd. I didn’t know where they came from, but mentally, I thanked every force of nature I could think of that they had arrived, even the bears themselves. My hope renewed, we ran faster and deeper into the woods, putting distance between us and the bears’ attack.

The screams of the villagers got quieter, and quieter, as we made our escape. I wondered if any of them escaped, themselves. It was likely – there were quite a few in the mob, and they were sure to have scattered once the bears arrived. I would have, in any case. I just hoped that the ones that may have escaped didn’t meet up with us on our way out.

We kept running – more of a jogging pace, now – until we lit upon a small path within the forest. With the sounds of the mob and the bears well behind us, the lights from their torches having scattered and become so dim that we could no longer see them, I finally began to feel somewhat safe. Somehow, we had made it out of that village, barely escaped with our lives, thanks to the lucky appearance of a wild daydream. I wondered what the odds were that bears just happened to show up. We must have wandered past their den, angered them with our loud ruckus and presence. The bears simply responded to the mob’s presence, I reasoned, to defend their territory.

We walked for what felt like another hour or so but could have been minutes. Time seemed to be different in the woods at night. Beyond our crunching of leaves and sticks on the ground, our feet creating a natural rhythm, I heard crickets chirping, the occasional call of what might have been an owl, and perhaps even other wildlife. I wished I knew what I was hearing, what animals were out there. I didn’t have much outdoors knowledge, making the unknown territory of the forest much more terrifying. But we walked on, unbothered by anything, probably loud enough to scare off anything remotely near. I hoped, anyway. I purposefully stepped on a few branches to crack them, just in case.

Finally, we paused to catch our breaths. We had recovered enough to walk casually, though my muscles still screamed in protest.

“Let’s look and see if we can figure out what to do next,” Tom suggested as he rummaged around for the map that Sage had given us. “We can’t just wander around here in circles forever.”

I groaned, the idea of becoming lost in the forest forever taunting me like a personal hell. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, it seemed. Unceremoniously, I plopped down onto the soft ground, lit upon a thick log, swore, and shuffled around until I founded a suitable seated position. Tom continued to stand, ignoring me, instead only staring at the piece of paper he had been put in charge of. I looked around, noting for the first time that the moonlight had begun to change; it seemed that we had been walking so long that the first light of dawn had started to filter through the trees. It cast the bark of the trunks in a faint glow, as if the wood held the light from within.

“If we could just figure out which direction we’re facing,” Tom said to himself, scrunching up his features as he stared at the map, “then I could figure out which way we need to go.”

I glanced around. If I could figure out the direction the sun was rising from, then we knew which way was east. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It was hard to tell from the ground, as the light coming in through the leaves and the branches distorted the source. It was too thick to see from here.

Tom continued to stare at the map, his confusion and frustration growing visibly. He was holding the paper so tightly in his fingers that I feared it would tear. I sighed; clearly, he wasn’t going to come to the same conclusion I had anytime soon.

“Tom, I’m going to climb a tree and see which direction the sun is facing,” I said, exhaustion filtering through my voice. “I would appreciate a leg up.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea!” he said, the excitement and relief flooding through.

I stood, each joint aching. I sighed again; this whole journey was an exercise in determination. But at least climbing this tree shouldn’t be as perilous as scaling out my window when I’d escaped the palace. I scanned the trees around me, looking for one tall enough, thick enough, and easy enough to climb. My eyes lit upon one, just about fifteen feet away from where we were standing. With Tom’s help, I should be able to reach those first branches and make it high enough from there. I walked over to it, attempted to shake the thick trunk, and it didn’t budge. Excellent.

I beckoned Tom over. “Help me up.”

He bounded over to stand next to me. He stared up at the closest branch. “I could probably lift you on my shoulders and you could reach from there.” Without my answer, he squatted down to let me climb onto his back like we were about to play leapfrog.

I stepped over to him gingerly, the awkwardness of being this physically close to someone almost overwhelming me. I climbed on, despite my hesitation, determined to get out of this forest. I knew this was something we had to do. I situated myself so that I was sitting on top of his shoulders, much like a child would perch on their parent’s. His hands steadied me, gripping my thighs, causing me to flinch back instinctively. It was such an intimate position to be in, especially with someone I barely knew.

“Don’t get any ideas, Rogue,” I mumbled.

“Uh, you have nothing to worry about,” he said, slowly straightening himself, keeping his balance surprisingly well.

I ignored his comment, instead deciding to move on with my task. I extended my arm out, fingertips easily able to curl around the branch I needed to climb further. With both hands secure, I began to disentangle myself from the odd position I had found myself in, hooking a foot onto another branch, and carefully climbing off of Tom. Now that I was free of him, I climbed faster, the pleasure of being high in a tree momentarily overriding my muscle fatigue. My hands scraped against dirty bark, coming back dirty and breaking off bits of moss. But onwards I climbed, until I could go no further.

It wasn’t exactly the top of the forest, but I could see enough that the sunrise was clearly visible. The sun was in the direction we had come from, meaning we had been traveling mostly west this entire time. I hoped that we hadn’t gotten too far off course. I twisted around, as the eastern sunrise was flat on the horizon. Where were the mountains we were supposed to be crossing? As I’d turned around in the tree, careful not to twist my ankle, I saw the obvious mountain line. Fortunately, we’d been going in roughly the correct direction. At the very least, we were headed towards the massive mountain range. As to where exactly the entrance to where we supposed to cross, only the map could say. At the very least, we now knew which direction we were going.

I turned my head back to face the sunrise once more, breathing in the fresh air and savoring the last few seconds of my tree climb before coming back down. I descended the tree, much slower than I had climbed up it, and then jumped down from the lowest tree branch. My landing jarred my shins but was otherwise an easy jump. I just never would have been able to reach it on my own, like many things I was too short for. Not for the first time, I cursed my height.

“Well?”

I brushed off the dirt from my clothes and my hands. “East is that way,” I pointed in the direction towards the sunrise, “and the mountain range is there.” I turned my body and pointed the other way. “So north… is this way.” I turned and faced north.

“Awesome. Nice climbing,” he said absentmindedly, turning to the map once again.

I stifled the instant response of pride in his compliment, dousing it with a question. “Can you see which way we have to go now?”

“Yeah, if we keep going west, we should hit the main road. That’ll dump us right into the caverns.”

“Great,” I said, taking a step with renewed fervor. “Let’s go.”

He followed meekly behind me, eyeing the map, his steps crunching leaves as we went.