Back to Chapter 4
It was about an hour until sunset when Laun started to hear hoofbeats in the distance. They grew louder and louder until Laun realized that it was the bandits that were riding toward her. She dove off the road-trail that she had been on and into a mire of blue-grey mud. She saw glimpses of what seemed to be one hundred men on horseback galloping by as she sank up to her knees in the mud. She had barely missed a large log when she had leapt in and tried to stay behind it as the men rode past. The shouts and hoofbeats had been quieted by distance and the curve in the road for more than twenty breaths when Laun focused on the cold mud she was sinking into.
It took longer for her to get out of the mud than it had taken for the bandits to ride by. She had to take off her backpack and throw it onto the road, hearing the pottery baking container breaking as it hit. At least she had eaten the pie, but it was a shame. She was hoping that the ale that was left had not also broken. Her cape was next off her shoulders and onto the road, though the grey mud was already caked onto the bottom third of the cape inside and out. The next ten minutes or so was taken up by holding onto the top of one boot and moving her whole leg and then holding the top of the other boot and moving her whole leg until she could pull herself out of the mud filled ditch. By the time Laun stood on the road, all of her and what she was wearing was covered with the mud. Laun felt thoroughly disgusting.
“Why me?” Laun wondered to herself. She knew that she was on the right road to find where the bandits had their hideout. She figured that it would take a horse no more than half as long to go to and from anywhere than a person on foot, even heavily laden with loot. It had been 5 days of travel, some slower than others, and the bandits had consistently been out every night she had been traveling. She knew that the hideout had to be close. Had to be.
Laun followed the mass of hoof prints to where they entered a grassy field, a well worn track that was hardly concealed with dead brush pulled over part of it. On the other side of the field was a stand of tall trees and what looked like a rise in the earth. Laun knew that was where they had come from. She could see piles of rocks that could have been a building at some point on one side of the field, but that was the only thing that might hide her from them seeing her approach. At least in the open field.
Laun skirted the field by going into the sparse, young trees that outlined the field and went across closer to the guarded hole. She was abreast to where the hideout was, at where there was a dozing guard by the entrance. There were sounds of horses coming from the mouth of the cave and the guard would toss pebbles into the cave whenever one of the horses seemed to get too close to the opening. Laun had heard from some of the adventure stories told in the slave quarters that all great scouts waited until dark to gather information if they were alone. It was close to dark then. Laun decided to wait a while.
She moved a little farther away from the entrance of the bandit’s hideout to put her things in a safe place - in case she was able to get out of the hideout alive. Up the mound from the entrance there were several larger stands of trees. A copse of trees with wild grape vines wound in amongst the trunks made it look impenetrable, but as Laun looked, she could see a space she could push through the low lying brush. There was enough room in there for her and her stuff. She pushed things through the green curtain. A dry leaf crunch told her that it was as safe a place as her first bower under the stars had been.
The sun was getting lower and an evening shift in the wind rustled the leaves above her. A horrendous smell she had never smelled before overwhelmed her for a moment. Laun followed the smell cautiously and found the disemboweled bodies of several of the dancing girls and servants she had grown up with.
Laun had never really seen the insides of people before.
She had done her stint in the kitchens when she was very young as well as when they needed another set of hands after her dancers training started, but it was different seeing the insides of her friends rather than the insides of chickens. And when she was running through the castle looking for supplies to take with her, and hoping to find survivors, there was very little light that night to see the gore that was there. Tears should have come out as Laun counted the bodies around her, recognized some of the people, but it was just a cold feeling that held her in the offal of the discarded bodies. For a while, she held the partial form of her closest friend, a dancer of a few years older who she had always admired, covering the mud that was still drying on her skin with streaks of sluggish brown blood.
The sunlight was fading as Laun’s mind raced. Her heart pounded as she brushed the hair out of her friend’s puffy, lax face. All the days they practiced together were gone. The jokes they shared were gone. Everything she knew was gone. She had the Gods luck on her side to not be in this pile. It was not just her Master that was to be revenged.
The mud itched. The mud dried in patches on Laun’s skin and clothes, the blood rewetting some of it and made the mud re-dry in gruesome patterns. As she carefully went back to the hiding place, some of the mud pulled on her skin and flaked off. She really wanted to find a stream or lake to wash in, but she stayed close to the bandit’s guard. She started to strip to just the warrior’s harness when the sun went below the treeline. Her thought of sneaking in and out changed, reformed. Information would be secondary that night. Her hands were not healed, but they had become accustomed to holding the sword in her morning workouts, the blood-wetted mud sealing the wounds right then. The unsheathed sword in Laun’s hands was heavy, but it gave the scared girl confidence.
The bandit’s guard was in front of a low hill, more of a large, wooded mound, with a large hole in it. Laun remembered one of the bandits saying that they were from caves and it looked like that was what it really was. She watched the guard being lazy in his chair, leaning back and stretching to keep awake in the fading days’ heat and humidity. Laun snuck up behind the bandit guard and swung the sword wildly at the general direction of his neck, both hands on the pommel of the short sword, all her strength being put into the desperate swing. The bandit heard and smelt Laun, but a bit too late. He turned into the oncoming sword.
Laun was amazed that a human head could travel that far without the rest of the body. The chair toppled with the lightly jerking body, the blood from the neck mixing with the seemingly greasy mud at the entrance to the bandit’s cave. The last of the daylight was failing outside, the tips of the trees turning red in the light. Laun regretted that she might have that as the last glimpse of life before her death. She went into the cave.
The cave used to have gates or doors hung off the carved stone along the entrance. Shards of planking hung from the remains of the ironwork hinges. It looked like it had recently been battered down. Some of the stone had clean scrapes through the dirt and moss that had built up over years of disuse. Laun poked her head around the broken oak door and was greeted by a wet horse nose. The tired horse barely snuffled at her before cautiously walking out towards the grasses outside the cave.
It took some time to get used to the dim torchlight in the damp caves, but Laun followed the sound of drunken revelry to a side cave without much trouble. The first chamber of the cave was fairly large and smelled of horse manure, several tired looking horses barely looking up at the intruder. Some straw had been brought in at some point but had not been cleaned for a while, the piles of manure making a crappy path to the interior. The field outside was large enough to pasture the horses, but it made sense to keep their secret, the bandits would have to hide the horses in the cave. The smell was bad, but not as bad as the pile of corpses that Laun had just been in.
She listened around the corner before going in. There were a few gruff male voices that were talking of the next raid they would go on. A boastful man started in on what he would do with the next female slave he caught for himself.
“...and I will fuck her and as I am coming in her, I will pull her head back and slit her throat. Her blood and my jizz. Then she’ll get dumped on the pile, too.” There was hearty laughter at that. The slack and bloodied face of Jerri popped into Laun’s mind, shocking her system, pushing her into the next chamber and into the men.
A scream came out of Laun’s throat, startling the men in the oddly furnished cave room first to silence and then to action. The rough table was overturned, taking ornate chairs and simple stools with it. The bandits pushed each other both away from and towards the frightening figure that had appeared in the cave with them. Weapons were drawn, but for most, it was too late.
Laun’s adrenalin was going strong and the taste of blood was in her mouth. The sword dance she had been practicing let her feet move through the pebbles and dirt on the floor, the sword through the bandits she was facing. The sword sliced through skin and muscle, hitting bone to slam Laun’s own muscles with the shock. More blood splattered onto the enraged Lady, but even causing the innards of the bandits before her to scatter on the floor didn’t register as the red of her own emotions had filled her past anything she had ever known before. She didn’t remember wounding and killing seven men until she had gotten outside and was shaking and shivering in the dark. She grabbed her stuff from the copse and ran away from the horror she had created.
Laun paused at the road long enough to shakingly cover herself in the ragged tunic and mud-covered cape before running. The adrenalin rush made her unsteady, threatening to make her trip as she ran into the dark of night. She took the road away from the Festival, the Inn with Marie and Markle and her Home Lands. The bandits had gone that way again and she could not bring herself to go that direction after the awful things she had just seen and done. The night was dark, a bare sliver of moon above the treeline but the road was wide and flat making the run fast and easy.
Laun stopped running when she came to the first big town she had ever been in. It was dark on the streets, but the buildings were lit at most windows with candles and lamps, lighting the brick paved road in splashes that went between those buildings. Laun pulled her cloak as close as the dried mud would allow. She avoided the light as much as possible, turning away from Inns that were twice the size of Marie’s. But she had to stop. She had to find people that might help her. Geralk had shown her that people always had something they wanted to gain from you, and a private home may have those who might help, but not want too much in return.
Laun had wandered through the outer ring of commercial buildings and was then in an area of private homes. The worn girl stopped at the first large house she saw and knocked. A woman dressed in almost nothing answered. Before Laun could ask for anything, the woman had dragged her inside and up some narrow stairs. Laun was pushed through a door that closed behind her.
Once, there had been luxury in that room. The chairs, bed and chests were all of different styles, some having been painted with fancy designs like the one chest Laun had seen from Rosemond several years before. Fabrics that had been pasted to the walls were shredding where hands touched often, the rough under-wood showing clearly near the head of the bed. The most eye-catching thing in the room was an embroidered and embellished gauzy piece of red fabric draped over a small shelf next to the door. A large woman on the plush bed looked at Laun wearily. Laun was shivering but tried to stand as straight as she could, to be calm even with the recent horrors she had committed running behind her eyes.
“Who are you?”
“I am known as Laun,” she gasped out. With a bit of courage, Laun added, “Laun Salam-Dir.”
The knowing eyes narrowed slightly. The large woman’s eyes flitted from the blood on Laun’s face to the top of the sword showing in the backpack. “Well, nobility.” The large woman shifted on the bed. “Can you do anything?”
“I am a dancer.”
The woman nodded. “Call me Flora. Find the washtub and someone to scrub your back and you have refuge here.” With questions on Laun’s lips, Flora answered them with one statement. “I am the bandits’ confidant.” Flora waved Laun out.
It felt so much better to be clean. All of Laun’s clothes were caked with the grey mud and gore. A skirt was provided for her, both comforting and yet feeling not quite right any more. The girl who helped Laun with prying the warrior’s harness off commented that Laun was the first woman she had seen with one. Laun shrugged at the comment and didn’t tell of anything. The graciousness of the house made Laun feel calm.
Laun’s bathing companion used most of a jar of salve on the sunburnt places that Laun had been ignoring - face and hands and places that the harness had not been before the cape had covered her tender skin. The places Marie had put cloth over wounds were soaked as the grime was scrubbed off and Laun’s hair was thoroughly washed of anything that could show where she had been, a calming floral scent helping to wash away the offal and horror. A large, flowing robe was placed over Laun’s body as the weariness and adrenalin shock took over, dragging her down to a stupor.
A small palette in a common room with three other women was provided to Laun. She sat on the heather and hay filled mattress and felt the heaviness of seeing her friends dead again and again in her mind overwhelming her. She was asleep within minutes and into disturbing dreams for most of the night.
The next day, about two hours after noon meal and only about three hours since Laun had awoken from her troubled sleep, some of the bandits came to the brothel. The chief of the bandits was there with a few of his men, and Harcem was furious. He went straight to Flora’s room, barely deigning to look at the other women of the house.
Laun wanted to leave because she was afraid Flora would give her away to the bandits. One of the other girls must have known what Laun was thinking because she leaned over and whispered into Laun’s ear, “We are women. They are men. Flora protects us from them.”
The other men who had come into the house chose places next to the women of the house. Laun was alarmed as several of the men chose to sit between her and the other women, making her feel like the prey of a quail hunt.
Music was being played by one of the younger girls. A familiar nod from the musician prompted Laun to stand in the midst of the women of the house and their guests. Laun danced as well as she could in the small space allowed and with the aches that twinged to life as she moved.
She had wrapped a long piece of sheer fabric around her body to cover the bandages and bruises she had, a bare shield against those who would kill her if they knew who she was. In only a dance or two, Laun became very good at deflecting the grasping hands of her male onlookers. It seemed to be a game to them to try to rip the fabric off of Laun’s swirling body. Laun had a flash that she wished she had the sword or could take some of the daggers that were on the bandit’s belts to finish off the job, but she knew she could not do it in a house that had shown her hospitality. Once in a while, a bandit would go upstairs with one of the women, the red scarf on her hips being undone as they went. After about half an hour, only women from the house were left to watch Laun. She stopped and flopped into a pile of pillows.
Laun had fallen into the one thing she had been brought up to do - dance. Several of the other women complimented her and she just smiled and nodded in acceptance as she tried to slow her gasps. She was still tired from the fight and flight the night before and wanted to go back to the heather scented mattress she had been afforded by Flora. Some small talk between the lounging women was comforting but was short-lived as a yell, a slam and heavy footsteps on the stairs startled the women into huddling together as far away from the stairs as possible.
Harcem came storming down the stairs. He saw that none of his men were waiting for him and he yelled, “You scurvy dogs had better be down here in a heartbeat or you won’t have a heart to beat!” Harcem’s heated eyes looked with distain at the mob of women and locked eyes with Laun. The other bandits came rushing down the stairs in various forms of undress. The bandit leader slapped the heads of several of the men as they went past and kicked at the last one as he pushed them out the door.
When the men left, the girls in the parlor burst into laughter. A woman came down the stairs and told Laun that Flora wanted to see her.
As Laun went into Flora’s room, she saw that the large woman had a bruise starting on her cheek. “What happened?” Laun’s hand went to her own bruised jaw.
“Harcem.” Flora shifted her weight on the bed, turning slightly away from Laun. She waived dismissively at Laun as she said, “Do you know of anyone covered with grey who slaughtered six men last night?” Laun turned red, not of shame, but because she missed a man as Flora went on to tell Laun that the one survivor described the attacker as a ghost, a grey spectre covered in the blood of the people they had killed. Harcem hadn’t believed him and had dispatched the man himself in his anger.
“Lady, I know it was you. I give you good luck on any endeavors you might have. And... Harcem is going out on another raid tonight.” Flora dismissed Laun with a nod. The mistress of the house looked away from Laun as the Lady thanked her and left.
Laun was greeted by several of the house’s residents. They had Laun’s harness and sword, clean and usable. A loincloth made of part of the shredded skirt went under the harness this time, making it a bit more comfortable than before. They helped Laun into her Warriors Harness, her other skirt over it and, after a flurry of hugs and kisses, Laun was out and heading towards the hideout in her still damp cape.
It was not as far to the hideout as Laun thought it may be. She thought she had run for hours, but the landmarks in the dark that she had passed went by quickly in her return journey. She had her hair braided again, her clean cape drying over her rough clothes and arming harness in the summer sun. She was feeling like she looked of the lower classes, a peasant, but the few people she did come across nodded to her or were differential as she passed by. She did spend one of the few coins she had on a wax-boiled leather cup, since the merchant would not trade the empty ale bottle, that she used to carry some of the ditch mud that she found on her journey back to the bandit’s hide-out.
Laun came to the edge of the field again and went through the woods carefully and slowly to not gain the attention of the three figures that were now outside the cave hole. She was able to find the copse of trees again to put her stuff into, and also herself, for about an hour. It felt like it was too close to the entrance, but it was the best place at that moment. As the sun began to set, the golden rays turning to shadows in the open woods around Laun, she readied herself. Because it caused the one bandit to remember her as a ghost, Laun covered herself once again in the grey-blue mud. It was hard to not be clean so soon after that wonderful bath, but the theatrics appealed to her. She did not realize that the few leaves that stuck to her made it quite a good camouflage.
It started to itch again by the time she had carefully made her way from the copse to the edge of the field in front of the bandit’s hideout. There were horses and men in the field readying themselves to go raiding another poor Lords’ domain. She crabbed her way back away from the field and Laun hid herself in summer-dry grasses near the copse of trees until they left.
The voice of Harcem jolted through her as the bandits sped away on the horses, “Another keep to be ours!”
At the entrance were two guards. Laun was not able to sneak up on them as easily as the first bandit guard, but they fell as swiftly, their blood adding to the stain at the entrance. Inside, the drunken noises had been replaced by a hushed murmur of talk. Some horses were in the main cavern room, wading still in their own waste. As she followed the small path in between the piles of dung, she tried to listen to the murmurs that echoed slightly off the stone. Laun figured that there would be about as many bandits left behind as last time. She was wrong.
Laun rounded the corner from the main cavern and saw fifteen men waiting for her. Instead of the surge of bloodlust she had before, cold fear stopped her.
“Look, Bavil was right!” The first surge of men came towards her. She raised her sword in time to deflect most of the blows aimed at her. One connected with her shoulder, the slice not as clean as it could have been and tore as much as it cut. The pain started her to defend herself with more agility. When Laun realized she was handling the sword with one hand, she started her own press into the bandits. She picked up a broken stool leg and used that to ward off blows. Bloodlust finally hit and Laun fought like a madwoman.
Laun killed every one of those men with happiness in her heart. The pain she felt as blows hit her barely registered as she watched her sword take down the bandits one by one. They were so crowded that some of the swings towards Laun connected with their fellow bandits. Crunches and cracks of bones and wood rumbled through the cavern until Laun stood, dripping with blood and sweat, alone in the cavern room.
She sat on a pile of carpets and things after she was done with the bandits. She wanted to survey what she had done this time. Laun saw the blood and guts staining the dirt and fabric in the torch lit cave, an almost beautiful shade of dark red staining some stolen linens draped over what was left of a rough table. Items with four different noble crests were visible to her including the Green circle with the bird’s talons ripping through it of her home. The deaths behind letting the bandit’s mementos be taken and then carelessly tossed into the cave deepened Laun’s need for revenge. Pain was starting to make it’s self known of the new wounds through the general fatigue she still had. There were several other cave holes leading out of the death-filled room she was in and she was trying to decide what to do next.
A noise in the cave startled her into action. Shouts at the cave entrance brought her up off the carpets and a surge of adrenalin went through her. Several more of the bandits had come in. With more behind them. The bandits had not really gone to raid and had come back to see if anything had happened. She should have seen that trap in Flora’s face and actions, but the world outside the Salam-Dir castle and keep was still new to her, even the deception. She took a second to stretch and prepared for the men coming into the horse’s room. Laun was going to fight her way out of the ambush.
Or was she? The dimly lit cave had many corridors and rooms that Laun had not gone into. She picked up her sword and ran through the low light towards the back of the cave. She wanted to get out of the caves before her fighting and dancing earlier caught up with her, but if she could go to the deepest parts of the cave and not be seen, she thought she may be able to sneak out later.
Laun saw where the few captives were held behind a large plank of wood in a side room. She slowed, but did not stop even though it tore her heart apart. She went past the hands grasping, pleading with her for release and past a pile of weapons and shields piled against old wine barrels. She had not practiced with a shield, but now really wanted to have one when against all those men. She left them in the pile when her shoulder wound became firey as she tried to lift one of the wooden rounds.
The last lit lantern was now behind her and she slowed as much as she would let herself. Her foot crushed some old pottery and the air smelled like a latrine until yet another small curve hid her path from the light. The ground was rocky and started to get moist, the rocks slipping and sounding way too loud to Laun, but she kept going into the dark until she hit her head on the sloping roof. She stopped going forward and felt around with her free hand on the close roof and to either side of her. Laun’s breathing was ragged and she held it to try to keep her pain and anxiety at bay.
She could feel a slight air movement from one side and carefully started towards it. Her hand was in front of her as she moved a step and then she would feel above her to keep her head from hitting anything. The cold, moist air in the back of the cave worked through her battle heat to chill her almost naked body. The harness’ straps and the boots were the only true clothing she had on. The bloody mud was not a good insulative layer. Drips from the ceiling and walls started to come down on Laun as she crept through the dark as little sharp, cold spots as she worked her way farther from the bandits.
A few loud voices echoed to Laun. She did not stop moving, but it did make her want to stop and cower. The way she was going grew smaller and she could feel the walls to either side of her closer, and sharper, with every slow step. A sharp rock at about hip height hit Laun as she moved forward, making her call out before she could stop herself. She stopped to listen and to lean against the slick wall for support. A fire started in her hip that cooled as a runnel of blood went down her leg. The moist cold surrounding her was turning into a tired ache that was stiffening her muscles. The small rest against the wall let Laun feel the movement of air in the cave run over the cooling and drying blood on her.
And smell the night. She hadn’t realized that the scent of blood was so strong on her until the gust of air brought the smell of the dry night outside. If there was a gust of air from outside, there may be a way out.
Laun took several minutes to come to that realization. She pushed herself away from the rock and felt towards the night air. The walls came further in and the ceiling blocked Laun. Her hand searched down the ceiling until she was on her knees on the sharp rubble. There was a hole in the wall that the night air was coming in. It was partially blocked by clay and dirt, so Laun dropped the sword and started to dig and push at the block with her bare hands.
Laun started to shiver as she dug through the dirt and clay. She could not see anything around her so she closed her eyes as she pushed further into the hole she was clearing. Plant roots and grass started to come in clumps with the dirt in her hands. She spat out dirt between shallow breaths that were barely enough to keep her head from spinning with all the effort. Little rocks and roots dug into her fingertips, her nails breaking and several being bent backwards as she scooped and pulled at the earth blocking her from escape. Her hands pushed through and she felt the outside air. Laun shook her head to get the dirt off her face and carefully opened her eyes. It was still dark, but through the shoulder width hole in front of her, there was a glimmer of stars and the sound of wind through trees.
She could not rest. Laun wanted to just collapse there at the entrance to the outside world, but it was not safe. She backed up and had to dig out the sword from under the dirt she had moved. She threw as much dirt into the cave towards the bandits as possible, both for spite and to cover the rocks that had made it difficult to move through the dark. Laun knew that if she could get out, she could get back in and she was planning to use this at least once more. She had to come back and find out more.
Outside was cool, dry and dark. But it was not as dark as the cave had been. The shrubs around her were as much of a shelter as she could want at that moment. She rolled under the bush closest to her and let the exhaustion take her. Forced sleep turned to troubled dreams. Those were to be cut short as a roll of thunder came through the valley. Laun had been fitfully sleeping on top of her small sword and when she sat up, she cut her arm on it. It was not deep, not as deep as the open wound on her shoulder, but the pain woke her completely.
It was still night and the clouds that had come in covered the stars so she could not tell how long she had been asleep. She was sore and had a tingling in her legs she recognized from dancing too much in the past. She had to move and find the cape and backpack she had hidden before it started to rain. Being cold and dry was something Laun could deal with. Being cold and wet could be deadly.
Laun forced herself up to her knees and looked over the tops of the bushes around her. She could see shadows of taller trees and the rise of the mound over the caves. She struggled to her feet and moved towards where she thought the main cave entrance was. She leaned against the rough barked trees every few steps, the sword dangling from her right hand when it wasn’t pushing brush or grasses to the side.
The sky became bright and she could see clearly for a second. The path she needed to follow was before her and she could see the large, dense copse of trees she had put her meagre things in. The rumble of thunder came about five seconds after the flash and was a long, rolling sound that Laun used to walk as fast as she could, using the sound to cover her halting progress in the dark woods.
Another lightning strike lit the sky and Launs path as she approached the hiding place. She stopped moving, ducking down as she saw what looked like someone on the other side of the trees that she was heading for. A few seconds later, the thunder came through, louder than before and a longer, echoing tail that Laun used to sprint as fast as she could towards the trees. She stopped when the thunder rolled to an end and crouched painfully by an old tree with a gnarled base. Looking around, Laun could not see any movement in the pre-storm calm, but could hear the footfalls of several people in the leaf and rock strewn woods.
The directed light of a lantern went across the ground in front of one of the people searching the woods. It was just a line of light that Laun had not seen as she was running and was glad she was behind the tree. She remembered seeing that type of lantern at the keep before when there were late-night visitors. They had full lantern wicks, but were enclosed to the point that only a little light came through. They were good for not disturbing people as they slept, or in this case, not destroy night sight for the searchers.
Laun felt like a trapped rabbit. The two people she could see were now between her and the hidden cape. The small shelter that she had put her things in perhaps was not the best hiding space. It had been the best she could do without having searched the entire area. She could go back and see if she could find the hole she had come out of, but that would be just making it easier for them to trap her if they found it.
The tree tops started to whisper and hiss as the storm winds played with them. One of the two figures she could see stopped and the lantern’s light went to light the underside of the trees. The lightning and the thunder happened almost at the same time, announcing the storm was upon them. In that flash, Laun had been able to see five figures in her area, not just the two she had originally seen. A shout from one of the men in warning made Laun crouch lower, but it was to warn that the rain was about to hit.
And hit it did. Under the trees, it took longer for the rain to come down as in the open field, but the rain was heavy and was so loud that the woods seemed to be under a waterfall. A yelp from one of the other men came to Laun through the downpour. Laun took a look around at the next lightning bolt piercing the night and started towards the copse of trees again. The rain made the ground slick within moments and Laun slid into a tree on the way down the mound. She tried not to yell out, but any noise she did make was covered by the thunderstorm. She arrived at her hiding place just as another wave of heavy rain came through the tree canopy. Laun curled into a ball and forced herself through the bushes into the center of the trees.
It was dryer in the tight circle of trees. The cape was wrapped around the backpack in the root and leaf filled bowl between the trunks. Laun felt around in the backpack and found her tunic to put over her mud and blood covered skin before putting the cape on. The sword kept falling over when Laun propped it up against a tree trunk making small metallic tinging sounds as it hit the hard roots. Laun moved the backpack to one side of the small shelter and pushed the sword into the ground between the roots. With the cape wrapped around her, Laun relaxed and let sleep take over.
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