The Journey Of Alanna Ch. 05

"I didn't-I didn't!" Alanna spoke rapidly, her heart pounding in her ears. Is Lady Liriel accusing me? Why? All of this was her idea! 

"She's lying daddy!" Liriel yelled back. "I would never do that to you!"

Giullis strode towards Alanna, backhanding her across the face. The strike was more painful than damaging, but the strike made her fall regardless. "Silence, you whore! You dare call my daughter a liar?! I should have known, you beastfolk are all the same. Trying to weasel your way into my house by corrupting my daughter! I will have your head for this!"

Alanna sat, frozen, in her revealing maid outfit, on the verge of tears. Everything was coming crashing down around her. Giullis drew a short blade, little more than a letter opener, from his coat pocket and grabbed her by her hair. She tried to form words, but couldn't, her lips quivering with sobs that couldn't quite escape out of sheer terror. He moved to blade towards her throat, his bloodshot eyes leaving no mistaking what his intent was.

"Sir," a familiar voice called out from the hallway. Alistar stepped into the room, his expression a stone mask as always. He looked from Lady Liriel to Alanna. Again, Alanna's keen ears picked up that almost imperceptible sigh.

"If you believe the girl is an infiltrator of some sort, you'd be well within your rights to kill her," he began, speaking as though he was reading off just another report. "However, we have laws for these situations. If she has harmed no one, and there is no evidence that she is some sort of spy, you will be sending a message to the people of Birchhaven: Anyone who is invited may be summarily executed on even the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing."

Giullis stood there, the knife raised to stab down, for a few moments. The anger ebbed slightly, now wrestling with logic. 

"She... She violated my little girl!" he said, pulling on Alanna's hair. She dared not move a muscle lest it bring the blade down on her.

"If that is what you believe, sir, then the most appropriate punishment would be banishment, as per the traditions of our fair city."

Giullis seemed to contemplate this for a few seconds, before letting Alanna drop to the ground. 

"Banishment," he said, as though tasting the word on his lips. "Fine. Listen to me, girl. I should have your blood for daring to lay a hand on my daughter. However, I am a civilized man. For your crimes, by the power invested in me as the Duke of Birchhaven, you are hereby banished from this city forevermore. You will be allowed to leave with whatever you own that you can carry, but not those clothes. That uniform belongs to my daughter."

He crouched down, getting to eye-level with the still terrified Alanna. 

"However, I promise you this. If I ever see you again, I will end you."

He took a deep breath, then stood back upright, adjusted his coat and walked back towards the door's entrance.

"S-S-Sir!" Alanna stuttered. Fear had gripped her voice earlier, but now panic was driving her to speak.

"I'm-I'm just a P-Peasant! Everyone k-knows that outside the walls there are m-monsters! Where could I g-go?! I have no way to d-defend myself!"

"That is not my concern," Giullis responded. "Though if you follow the road south-east, you may reach Wildbrook by tomorrow."

Alanna looked at Liriel, hoping to see some sign of empathy or mercy. Liriel ran up and hugged her father, and, outside of her father's view, gave Alanna an indifferent shrug.

Some time later Alanna was again in the clothes she had worn every day at the Orphanage. Tears were streaming down her face, and she had cried several times, but the horse riders who had her hands tied and were escorting her to the city gate did not tolerate her slowing down. Her knees were already scuffed from falling down once onto the unforgiving cobblestones.

Some people gawked at her, but she didn't care. She believed she had been saved, and instead she had been used as a toy and then discarded just as quickly.

It took quite some time to reach the gate. First they had to walk through the rich elven district of Birchhaven, then the more densely-packed mixed quarters, then finally, about an hour walk to the outer walls through an expanse of farmland. Here the farmer's worked the land of landlords who were fortunate enough to hold land inside the walls. Some farmers took their chances outside their safety, which often ended in tragedy. Though stronger monsters would avoid a city like Birchhaven due to its defenses, dumber, weaker monsters would come out of the wilds to prey on slow messengers or scavengers who dared venture out of the gates. 

The guards escorted her outside the gate where the cobblestone path turned to packed dirt and cut the rope tying her hands. In desperation attempted to run back through the gate, but was quickly stopped by the guards drawing their halberds to bar her path.

"No further, exile. Try to sneak back in and we'll cut you down." The guard that spoke pointed down one of the two forks in the road. "That way is south-east as his Lordship said. Now begone."

Alanna couldn't stop herself from trembling. The sun had already set, the moon giving just enough illumination to let her see. A cold mountain breeze was sapping the heat from her skin. There was some open terrain ahead of her, though the road the guard pointed down soon disappeared into a dark, foreboding forest.

"Please," she begged, falling to her knees. "I will die out there. Please don't make me go."

The guard shook his head, though behind his helmet she saw a mournful look on the elf's face. He felt bad, even if it would not change his course of action. "Sorry, but we can't help you. Do not stray from the road if you value your life, the monsters get a lot worse the deeper you go, and you probably won't find your way back. Good luck, for what it's worth."

The two went back behind the gate and it closed behind them with a heavy thud. To her, it sounded like the bell of a great cathedral, announcing her death for all the world to hear.

Defeated, bursting into tears once more, she wrapped her arms around herself and headed down the path. Her old life was now truly over, and it couldn't have ended in a worse way. 

The hours were long and miserable. The shoes she had gotten from the orphanage were not designed for long journeys such as these, and many a rock had pierced it from underneath to hurt her feet. A fur coat would have kept her warm easily, but the rags she wore failed to keep the night's cold out. 

She'd give anything to go back to her bed in the orphanage. To talk to Naji again. The thought that she could never go back stung at least as much as the knife that had threatened to end her. What was worse was that someone had given her hope that things could have been better. She knew despair. When she turned sixteen and still hadn't been adopted she had begun despairing, because most kids who were past that age would never find a home. She had gotten used to the idea that life would get worse after the orphanage. It hurt so much more now that someone had shown her the life she could have had, before ripping it all away from her.

She hated Liriel for toying with her like that. For having a wonderful, privileged life that she could never have. 

Suddenly, behind her, a sound, like a twig snapping. It was faint, quite far away, but in the stillness of the night her sensitive ears had picked it up. She turned and stood still for a few seconds. There was nothing except the wind rustling the leaves of the canopy far above her.

Then she saw something move, ever so slightly, and its eyes reflected the moonlight at just the right angle for her to see it. A warg. A monster often used to scare children, they were like larger, more intelligent wolves, known for their viciousness and appetite. It had come here for her.

Time slowed to a trickle. She felt her heart beating in her chest. She knew her heart was beating frantically, but adrenaline made her feel like she could count every beat. It was still half a day's travel to Wildbrook. The roads were patrolled by guards, sometimes even adventurers, but the odds of running into one of those out here were devastatingly slim. If she ran in a straight line, even if she could outpace it, it would almost certainly run her down.

Time sped back up as soon as she made her decision. She darted into the treeline, going as fast as her legs could carry her. A deep howl followed. The pursuit had begun.

She did her best to avoid obstacles in her way, but the further she went from the road the denser the bushes, trees and brambles became. The ground was uneven and with only the moonlight filtering through the canopy she couldn't see well enough to avoid every crevice or mound. 

She turned her head to find her pursuer, only to realize that it wasn't alone. She spotted no less than three sets of gleaming yellow eyes following her through the woods. She bit her lip to stifle her own cries of anguish. One warg or three, it did not matter. Their odds for catching her were unlikely to be any better than they already were.

She was bounding through the forest like a deer, allowing brambles to tear at her skin and clothes, allowing branches to strike her, anything to maintain her speed. She somehow found enough energy to thank her rabbitfolk half. Her Good Runner trait was likely the only reason they hadn't already caught her. A few moments later she heard the pounding of their clawed paws right behind her, followed by them snapping at her heels. She needed to lose them, but neither speed nor endurance would save her here.

Suddenly the trees opened up in front of her. Her heart skipped a beat as she feared that she had reached an open clearing, which would certainly be the end of her, but instead the sound of rushing water filled her ears. A river was coursing through this area, and a large tree had fallen nearly all the way across.

That was her chance, she decided. She turned towards the tree, her legs burning with exertion as she leaped onto it and ran across, holding her arms out to balance herself in spite of her speed. She heard a warg scrambling onto the wood behind her, the log bounding up and down in the water from the weight on top of it. She didn't dare stop, not even at the risk of falling into the water. She couldn't see the bottom in the moonlight, so there was a small chance it was shallow, but she could hear it flowing beneath her at speed.

Near the end of the log she used all of her strength to throw herself to the riverbank, just barely making it to the sand on the other side. She looked behind her to see the tree wobble and tilt, before the weight of the moving warg on top of it caused the log to finally become dislodged and began flowing downstream with the river. The warg, sensing its opportunity was escaping it, tried to build speed to reach the other side, but it was too big for such a maneuver. The log turned beneath the warg and dropped it into the water. It yelped, the stream dragging it away.

Alanna took a few breaths, trying to recover from the chase before realizing the warg wasn't actually drowning. While the river was helping her by dragging the warg downstream, seemed perfectly capable of swimming. This was but a short reprieve.

Alanna got up and continued to run. The forest was denser on this side of the river and she struggled to make any progress at all. She found a small tributary of the river, little more than a trickle of water, using the lack of foliage around it to build as much distance as she could. She could hear the howling getting closer. It wasn't going to be enough, she realized. All she could do was delay them, not stop them.

Soon the terrain started climbing, and all of a sudden the tributary ended. Water poured down from a steep, rocky cliff, and to her shock she saw it flowed two ways. One way the water came flowing down the hill towards the river. The other way was directly behind the tiny cold waterfall, a small cave entrance where the water disappeared into the darkness.

She looked around. To both her left and right were just more trees. More endless forest with no hope of escape. She looked at the cave in front of her. It was small enough for her, but maybe, just maybe, the wargs wouldn't be able to fit.

She heard the wet splashes of the wargs coming towards her up the tributary. She realized there was no real choice. No matter where this cave led, going anywhere else was certain death. Hearing growling closing in on her, she jumped, feet first, into the cave. The cold water knocked the wind out of her, and all she could do was slide down. She heard jaws snapping shut just behind her. A warg had pushed its head into the cave and tried to grab her, and had missed by but a finger. 

She slid down. She couldn't do much more to manage her descent, but had no way of stopping herself. A strong feeling of vertigo overtook her as her lack of ability to see mixed with the rapid drop made her lose all sense of direction.

Suddenly, there was a fall, and she hit the ground hard. She coughed up water that had splashed up her nose. She was dizzy, in a great deal of pain and very, very cold. She could barely drag herself out of the water onto a surface that felt dry. She stayed there, unable to keep track of the passage of time, trying to give her aching body rest.

Suddenly, a deep, alien voice called out from the darkness.

"What are you doing here?"