Young Writers Society

Note: This is the continuation of chapter 3.

Just as Altha had said, they did not keep to the road after sundown. That was well, though, as Ruelle was beginning to feel weary.

As the pair had traveled inland, they had passed several towns and villages of varying sizes, but the evening saw them in a pleasant farming land where dwellings were spaced miles apart.

It was at one such quaint, countryside homestead where Altha stopped for the night. It was not a very large or fancy house, and its fields of crops were comparatively quite small, but its plainness nonetheless had a homelike feel.

The middle-aged Gnome couple who lived there greeted Altha and Ruelle warmly. Apparently, they had been expecting the pair of travelers. They even brought out the special, Human-sized chairs which they kept on hand especially for their larger friends and guests.

“You seem to know people everywhere you go,” Ruelle remarked to Altha before bed that night.

“My work has taken me many places,” she conceded, finishing off her bedtime braid.

Rue furrowed her brow.

“Don’t most physicians usually just stay in one town?”

“Many do, yes. In fact, that is how I started – just a simple midwife in a small town.”

“What changed that?” Ruelle wanted to know.

Altha sighed. “Well, let’s just say someone whose opinion mattered thought I could be of use in a wider realm of duties, and to make a long story short, that’s how I ended up where I am today, delivering babies and tending to the sick and injured all over Paxaria.”

“Wait,” Ruelle said, suddenly sitting up straight on the edge of the bed. There was a detail she had almost missed. “You deliver babies?”

“Why, yes. I started out as a midwife. Did I not mention that?”

“You did,” Ruelle remembered. She paused for a moment, thinking.

“Does that mean I’ll have to help deliver babies, too?” She was almost afraid to ask, but now she had to know.

“Certainly,” Altha said matter-of-factly. “It’s all part of this. I will be teaching you as much of what I know as possible.”

Ruelle slumped and groaned aloud in dismay.

“What’s the matter with that?” Altha said, setting the lamp on a bedside table and quirking an eyebrow in Rue’s direction.

“What’s the matter with it?” Ruelle exclaimed. “It’s dull and unpleasant, that’s what’s the matter with it! Why can’t I be slaying the monsters that Gnome fellow told us about earlier today? Why can’t that be my assigned task instead?”

“There can be no slaying of creatures that no one can prove really exist,” Altha pointed out.

“But –“

“Forget about the monsters, Ruelle,” Altha said firmly, extinguishing the lamp as if the argument would die with its light.

Ruelle rolled herself up tightly in her blanket, dissatisfied. She most certainly was not going to forget about the monsters.

Ruelle woke in the dark several hours later. It was too hot, and her blanket felt all wrong. She tossed and turned for a few minutes, but the early summer night had settled into the room with a warmth that was almost stifling in its stillness. After trying in vain to go back to sleep, Rue crawled out from her blanket and crept to the window. Maybe there would be a bit of a breeze there.

It was a moonless night with hardly a breath of wind to sweep the cloud cover along and reveal the stars. The window was situated looking out the back of the house, and Ruelle, whose eyes were now adjusting to the darkness, could make out a small field of some type of crop which she did not recognize. Just beyond that, the dark ribbon of a stream cleaved the ground and separated the homestead from a wood on its other side.

Rue laid her arms on the windowsill and sighed softly. What was she doing here? Why had she ever gotten on that ship that brought her to Paxaria? This certainly did not feel like the faerieland she had envisioned. She should’ve just turned around and gotten right back on the ship when she’d had the chance. She should have just gone back home and put forever out of her mind the apprenticeship and Altha and Whitehaven and even Gaius Aldhelm with his ridiculous smiles and dreams.

“I will find a way to be a fighter and defend the kingdom even if that’s not what I’m given to do,” Gaius’ words came back to her with the thought of him. “You need to find a way to be able to fight for yourself, too, Rue.”

She sighed again. Maybe he had a point.

“I suppose I can’t be a fighter for Paxaria if I can’t even fight for myself.” That’s what she’d said to him.

And what was she doing for herself now but feeling miserable? What kind of fighting was that?

She exhaled some of the tension away.

Somehow you’ve gotten into my head again, Gaius Aldhelm, she thought. You’d better be glad you–

What was that?

Rue tensed. Something had caught her eye.

All other thoughts fled her mind, and her whole body became alert. She thought she had noticed a movement on the edge of the woods.

Straining her eyes in the darkness, she leaned further out the open window, searching for the source of the motion.

Had she imagined it?

She held her breath, waiting, watching.

Just when she was ready to place the blame on her imagination, she saw it again, unmistakable this time.

Along the treeline, a shadowy figure crouched in the tall grass. It advanced forward slowly, cautiously. It paused, then stood up straight.

Ruelle’s heart hammered in her chest. The creature was nearly as tall as a grown man, but much bulkier, with a muscled frame and a huge hand gripping some kind of weapon at its side. As it stood there, it appeared to sniff the air, looking around as if to ensure there were no observers.

Rue ducked down below the windowsill. The creature seemed almost to be hunting, and Ruelle suddenly wanted very much to conceal herself.

But she was too curious not to at least try to get another glimpse.

Slowly, she shifted until she could just peek out the window without being seen.

A breeze rustled through the foliage outside, and Rue jumped at the sound. But the slight wind was to her advantage just then, for in that moment it parted the clouds, admitting a dim, silver moonlight.

Now with clearer sight, Ruelle could see the creature better. Its broad-shouldered form was visible against the dark silhouette of trees, its stance fierce and powerful. Though clad in some pieces of protective leather gear, its rough gray skin looked nearly as resistant as the armor. An unsettling intensity glinted in eyes set in a coarse and unpleasant face, its ferocity augmented by jagged scars to match the ones on its body.

Is that a monster?

Whatever it was, it bore the marks of many battles, and Ruelle felt a sense of dread at the recognition that here was a creature possessed of an intelligence unexpected for a being so brutish and repulsive looking. The wicked blade at its side had doubtless shed much blood, a ruthless bane wielded in the hand of one who knew what they were doing yet carried no remorse. It was a fearsome combination.

What should I do? Should I wake the others? Ruelle thought. She felt tense all over, barely breathing as she kept her eyes trained on the ominous figure.

But the creature did not seem immediately interested in her or the house. Instead, it turned and headed into the woods. The clouds slipped back over the moon, and the retreating shadow of the unidentifiable creature was slowly lost to the darkness once again.

Even after it disappeared altogether, Ruelle stayed at the window for some time, straining her eyes for any sign that it might reappear. Gradually, her heartbeat slowed, but she could neither reverse nor forget what she had just seen.

Ruelle decided at last that the creature was good and gone. The thought both comforted and troubled her at the same time. The disturbing part was knowing it still lurked out there, planning or doing who knew what?

A chill ran down Rue’s spine, and suddenly the warmth of her blanket did not sound so bad after all.

She moved noiselessly across the floor, away from the window, and rolled herself up tightly in her blanket once more. She closed her eyes, but she could not block out the image of that fierce, revolting face, nor the way the creature had prowled as if on the hunt. Ruelle did not want to think about what it might’ve been hunting, but one thing was sure: the creature had not wanted to be seen.

The last thought to cross Rue’s mind before she fell into a restless sleep was that this creature was clearly not supposed to be here.