Underestimate Me

Six men carried bows and throwing daggers. Their large party required more food than they planned on using. They sent their best trackers and hunters to find meat for their fires. All six men left their iron clad armor behind in exchange for the camouflage of leather and noiseless green cloth.

“Aye! Look here!” the eldest tracker called to the rest of his group. The men lagging behind him hurried to his position a little ways downstream of the lake. The water trickled into small brooks while he waited for deer or rabbits to sneak into the peace of an oasis, into their deaths. “This limb has been broken.”

Never did the tracker expect to find such a perfectly bent twig on a low hanging branch, but he did. The evidence almost punctured his eye as he strode quickly through the trees. Balor graced his party with luck after all.

“Those women dare to be careless with Elrik’s favorite son in their mitts?” a young hunter declared as he came upon the scene. The rebels seemed smarter. They hadn’t left a mark of their existence until now. Something was off about the protruding wood.

The tracker smiled to the others as they arrived before he pointed to the next piece of broken plant. “Mayhap Sir Rowen is leading us…”

The young hunter shook his head. Sir Rowen would have given them more hints than this if he was leading. Rowen would have been found days ago if he was leaving clues. This was no clue. His father, and the eldest hunter peered at the broken twig, the mangled plant and knew what the others only overlooked.

“And perhaps ‘tis nothing more than another deadly trap?” the eldest hunter moved past the young man and the elder tracker. “This could be a case of the prey hunting the preditor.”

~~~

Rowen mocked himself as he turned his flushed face away from her gaze. Just because he caught a glimpse of someone he used to know did not mean that he should turn into the foolish boy he used to be. The memory of Kolby’s words filled his ears.

“Elrik would have her head and your hide if he ever found out.” He smiled as he sharpened his second knife. “I can hear his roars of disapproval now.”

“Shut up!” Rowen slapped his friend’s shoulder, nearly causing the green eyed man to nick his finger. “You know not of what you speak.”

Kolby put the whetstone down, wiped his palm on his breeches, and shook his head. “I may not, but I dare say I know a boy in lust when I see one.”

“Lust in not the word I would use,” Rowen whispered as he took up an apple.

“Lust is all it can ever be,” Kolby echoed his friend’s emotion before he turned back to his blade. “You will have your fair share of beauty when Elrik decides he wants to unite his realm with another. If you let yourself fall for any other woman it will only cause you both tremendous amounts of pain.”

That is exactly what he brought onto himself. Unthinkable pain for a woman who he was stupid enough to covet. He waited for Evelyn to jerk his chain again. She had grown angrier in Josselyn’s presence, or maybe it was his silence toward her that made her anxious? Either way, something was wrong.

“It’s time to get back on the road. We need to utilize each second of daylight we are given to make this journey quickly.” Meredith’s eyes fel on Rowen for a moment before she watched Josselyn carefully. Her pale features suggested something might have happened, but the blonde could not be sure.

Rowen pushed himself off the ground and waited for Evelyn to give him permission to march forward. The world seemed to spin around him, but he would not give into sickness. ‘I am fine,’ he repeated to his own mind. Evelyn pushed him onto the animal they allowed him to use before the others joined them. Josselyn instructed her sister to keep Rowen back from her and Meredith. Evelyn didn’t question her leader, which made Rowen question this tribe of women. Emma kept her head down as she walked next to her usually talkative sister.

After an hour of travel he began to slump over more. The world spun faster and faster until he couldn’t tell which way was up or down. “Maybe we should stop again?” Emma said loudly enough for her sisters to hear. Meredith growled her frustration before she turned just enough for Rowen to meet her gaze as Evelyn pulled him into an upright position.

“We have much more ground to cover. Maybe stopping for an hour or two wouldn’t hurt,” Evelyn stated. She met Josselyn’s gaze with a nod. “Possibly for the night…”

“I shall take first watch,” Meredith hissed before shoving Rowen from his animal. He landed with a thud on his knees. The fall bringing him out of his stupor for a moment. “This game you play with the rest of my sisters will not work on me!”

His features felt as if they melted into the crooks of his bones before he shook his head. “Whatever game this is, I am certainly losing…”

“And I will best you for the rest of your life.” Her smile sent shivers down his spine; his words failed him. Rowen was out of luck, and Balor left him to the vultures that waited to feast upon his flesh. Balor left him to Maa…to Josselyn.

“What did Balor ever do to make you so cruel?” Rowen wondered aloud. Meredith growled and shook her head, not bothering to give him an answer. Her eyes followed the vacant gaze in his to the one thing they had in common.

Meredith leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “A woman’s love is so much more pure.” She turned away from him when his breath hitched in his throat. He was too tired to hide from it any longer, too tired to fight. Josselyn, the cruel Goddess before him, still held his heart in the palm of her hand, but she hated the toy he’d given her so long ago.

“I should have listened when I had the chance,” Rowen whispered cryptically. His words gained a curious glance from Meredith and a heaviness which the empty hole in his chest could not deal with without the guidance of the God who left him to the wrath of a woman. A woman who thought herself scorned beyond the harshest standards.