Or would they be the empty chairs at the adventurers’ table?
Leo did not sleep easily. He could not unlatch the empty look from the adventurers’ eyes from the back of his mind, nor the missing fingers of the one that proclaimed he was protected, or dissolve the groans of that haunted man. Just what had his men signed up for? Most of them had families to support, families that would struggle without them… or who would share in their suffering if they survived.
And numbers hadn’t mattered to that one group.
Would George’s child ever know his father?
He pondered on it for hours, and as the watery light rose into the room, he made up his mind. He crawled out of his bed, picked up his pack, left half of the money his father had given him for the journey, and headed downstairs.
He would brave the forests alone, along with this guide. No one else had to die or be hurt because of this. Just him.
He crept downstairs. It was too early for even the barkeeper to be awake. Several of the patrons, including the recent adventurers, were passed out in their places. The room was filled only with the sound of shuffling bodies, snoring, and the soft puff-puff of a pipe.
“Good morning, Your Highness.” The old man from last night was wide awake, puffing away silently in the corner.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep, old man?” Leo snapped. He was in no mood to converse, and he didn’t want to risk rousing the others.
“Oh-ho-ho!” the old man cackled. “And yet you were so polite when everyone else was around!”
Leopold fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve. “Sorry, I get rude when I’m nervous.”
“Going off to the woods alone, are we?”
He nodded. “I… I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. Or snap at you.”
The old man waved his hand. “Ah, at this age, sleeping seems like a waste of my very precious time. Come, I’ll walk you to the forest.”
“That’s not–”
“It could be my dying wish!”
“You’re looking fairly spritely to me.”
“Good, then you won’t have any problem with me walking you to the edge of the forest.” He seized his walking stick. “Come on, it’s almost dawn.”
They set off at a brisk pace, considering how ancient the man was. The bluish light lifted. Dawn crackled along the horizon, like ribbons of liquid fire. Morning dew coated the ground. Leo tried to enjoy it, but he couldn’t shake the growing feeling of dread as the blackness of the forest grew larger. He doubted he would see much sunlight in there. What if this was the last true sunrise he ever knew?
“Nervous?” asked the old man.
“I’m about to enter a deadly forest by myself that has an impressively high mortality rate. Wouldn’t you be?”
The old man hooted. “Honest and amusing. You’ll do well.”
“I fail to see how either of those things will help me in there.”
“I don’t know, humour wards off insanity, or so I hear.”
“You’re really selling this experience for me.”
The old man laughed long and hard. Leo really couldn’t see how he could find amusement in such a thing.
“I… I left a letter, for my family, back at the inn,” he told him. “Could you… could you make sure my knights find it, just in case?” He’d written it before setting off from the castle, knowing his strength could well fail him before that point, but he hadn’t had the courage to leave it then. It was almost like admitting defeat.
The old man nodded, the light in his gold eyes dimming. “Stick close to Talia,” he said. “Heed her instructions. Listen to her.”
“It is a fool that does not listen to those wiser than himself,” Leo said, repeating an old proverb. “And a fool who believes himself wise.”
The man agreed, and pointed ahead. They had reached the edge of the forest. A silver bell hung from one of the trees, and someone, a long time ago, had etched ‘ring for the forest guide’ into the bark. There were signs of it having been re-etched over the years.
“Thank you,” said Leo.
“You are welcome, young man. Good luck. You appear to have a good enough head on your shoulders, but at times, you may need to listen to your heart. Farewell.”
The old man turned, leaving Leo to stare at the bell and summon the faint remnants of his courage. He could not falter here. This was only the beginning.
He rang the bell.
A breeze whispered through the trees, stirring the branches, twisting the darkness within like a spot of blue in black paint. He tried not to shiver, stamping his feet to gain a fragment of warmth, and stared up at the sky.
“Are you looking for passage?” said a voice from behind.
Leo turned back to the forest. A woman stood there, perhaps a girl. She was far younger than he envisioned. He was expecting a much older woman, someone gnarled and weather-beaten, but he was surprised if she was much older than he was. There was a grimness to her features, aided by the layers of mud baked onto her clothes and skin, but beneath that… no, she wasn’t old, despite the weariness in her eyes. Was this perhaps Talia’s assistant, or her daughter?
She was otherwise unremarkable, of average height and build, with mouse-coloured hair and stormy eyes. A locket of some kind, about the size and shape of a walnut, hung around her neck. It was the only thing that distinguished her from the woods behind, a flash of gold amongst the brown, green and grey.
“Are you… Talia?” he asked, his voice catching.
The guide bristled, as if unused to the sound of her own name. “Expecting something else?”
“Which answer would you prefer?”
Talia ignored his question. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
She admired his clothes for a moment. Her gaze was unnerving, like she was stripping him naked. Her eyes lingered where his armour should have been, and over the crest he bore on his clasps.
“You are no knight,” she deduced. “Though you carry yourself well, and your hands are no strangers to some combat, at least. You’re a lot younger than most who come here, barely more than a man. A noble?”
Leo gave an awkward bow. “Prince Leopold,” he said. “Second prince of Germaine.”
“Second prince?” she raised an eyebrow. “Out of how many?”
“Three,” he said.
“Are you the fastest and the strongest and the smartest? Is that why they sent you? Or are you just the most… expendable?”
It was a word that frequently trummed, unspoken, in the back of his own mind. It hurt no less coming from a stranger. “Um, well, actually… my older brother, Wilheim, was initially chosen, but…”
“But?”
“He… he’s fallen in love with someone. He was prepared to do his duty, of course, but… I didn’t want to see him so unhappy. And Jakob may be much smarter than me, but he’s only fifteen. Too young. So I volunteered.”
“Volunteered? You make it sound so noble. There’s a terrific prize at the end if you succeed, or so I hear.”
“I… that’s not quite…”
“Go on.”
“I mean, I’ve no grand desire to marry someone I don’t know, and I daresay she hasn’t either. That’s not why I’m doing this.”