The Bounty Hunter

Chapter Twelve

“I assume that this is not normally here,” Finred said with forced lightness.

“You assume correct,” she muttered as her eyes roved the river, searching desperately for some way across, her anger at him momentarily forgotten in light of this next issue. “It’s far too fast, we’d be swept off our feet before we made it halfway across and there’s no way to cross it. We’ll have to turn around and try to go through the forest.”

Turning back to the forest Safita pressed on through the ferns which grasped at their ankles like begging urchins, her feet slipping and sliding as she struggled to find purchase with each step; after the full day and night of rain the ground had all but vanished and metamorphosed into a muddy river, laughing at the support it had used to provide. Another storm began as they walked through the woods, the rumbling echo of the thunder overhead audible even over the incessant and maddening pattering of a thousand raindrops on the leaves of a thousand trees as it rippled through the dripping trees, rebounding from trunk to trunk like a malevolent animal. Every so often the gloom of the wood was illuminated by the stark light of a bolt of lightning, racing down from the sky above. A couple of times they heard the alarming crash of a tree slamming to the floor, silencing the forest for a moment before the disconcerting orchestra of the storm began again.

Finred stumbled through the undergrowth, the mud clinging desperately to his boots as he waded through it; perilously close to overbalancing more than once he found himself clutching at thin air as he tried to stay upright. Before too long Finred’s thighs began to burn with the effort of striding through the mire and as he followed her he watched the normally nimble Safita struggle too.

They stopped early that night, their fatigued bodies glad of the chance to rest and to stop moving. As Finred stretched his aching legs out and relished the chance to rest Safita stood up and disappeared into the evening.

As she headed into the forest she realised that it had been rendered darker than any other night by the tall trees and the still falling rain, both of which conspired to destroy any last ray of light which penetrated the leafy canopy overhead; the light disappeared much more rapidly than she had been expecting as the inky shadows that clung to every tree trunk and strangled the undergrowth stretched and joined hands, snaking through the plants and hiding everything from Safita’s eyes; she was rendered completely blind and was forced to feel her way through the mud and plants, treading cautiously and holding her arms out wide to balance. More than once her fingers brushed past twigs that scratched her like knives or tangled themselves in vines and bushes and, as she inched through the forest she was tripped by winding roots that caught her ankles and pulled her to the ground where the mud made it nigh impossible for her to escape, sucking her down and preventing her feet from gaining secure purchase; every time she thought that she had found a way to stand the mud slipped out from under her feet and she was left to flounder once more.

Slowly she crawled forward, her progress much slower than she had hoped and her way concealed; she was weary and she wished she had stayed with Finred instead of heading out to check on their path; the light had disappeared and so she decided to turn back and head towards Finred. Turning around and facing the way that she had come Safita suddenly realised that she had no idea where she was. “Bloody hell,” she cursed into the darkness. Pressing forwards she headed through the brush, hoping fervently that she was heading in the right direction. “Well done Safita,” she muttered to herself in attempt to stave off her fear as she shuffled through the trees, “you’ve only gone and done it now.” She crept through the forest silently, wincing every time the mud sucked her feet in and refused to relinquish them, forcing her tug her boots out as hard as possible and quite often overbalancing; she was certain that she would be an absolute wreck by the time she reached Finred and she hated to think what he would say...