The Dying Rose (Completed)

Chapter 30: Stormy Weather

The next few days were much more bearable. We had slowed our pace some, which benefited not only Mirabelle's mood, but Petronille's as well. She had nearly fallen out of the saddle from sheer exhaustion, and that prompted us to take a whole day off.

However, the slower pace was driving me crazy. I was ready to be back, to finish this whole ordeal, and find out what fate waited for me in Galien's paws.

We had made camp a few hundred yards from the river. The weather was warm again, and very pleasant, so we had wandered, as a collective group, down to the water's edge. Lucas was teaching Petronille how to fish. Meanwhile, Rixenda and Mirabelle were on opposite stretches of bank, glaring at each other while they sunbathed.

At least they had managed to form a ceasefire, for our sakes.

I had snuck on down, away from everyone. I could see them all, but I wasn't in the spirit of Lucas and Petronille's fun, or to deal with the tug of war, either. I climbed up a low hanging tree, and perched there, over the water, my feet dangling just above its lapping surface. I propped myself against the tree and stared off into the cloud filled sky, thinking about what lay, waiting for me, at the other end of the river.

I lost myself in the swirling clouds, and the rushing gurgle of the river. I quickly fell asleep on the wide branches of the tree, the exhaustion of my infection catching up with me. After falling in the filth of the moat, and all the stress, it had become so badly infected that the whole wound was red and oozing pus. I feared telling the others. I knew they would make me stop, and seek medical care, a delay I could not afford until this was over. So, instead I snuck in rest when I could, and tried to hide my pain. When I woke, into was too Rixenda calling my name.

"Arabella! Wake up, and come down! The clouds are getting dark, and the wind is picking up. We're in for a storm tonight, Lucas says."

I slid down the tree gingerly, and made my way back to camp, hoping that we could manage to stay dry.

3We never saw the sunset, because the clouds rolled in heavily, and darkened until the world seemed to have had its candle taken away.

Our tent was tied tightly between two trees, and the wind was whipping through the branches that hung down around us. Lucas had nailed pegs into the ground, and tied the horses to them, to make sure they were secure, but to keep them from getting tangled in the tree branches and hurting themselves.

We had cooked an early supper, for we knew once the rain started, we would lose our fire. We had barely scrambled back inside the tent to escape the wind when the rain began to fall, hard and fast. Rixenda, Petronille, Mirabelle and I were huddled tightly together, for the tent was not meant to hold so many. We had been fortunate thus far in our journey, and had been sleeping out under the open sky.

We were in for a rough night.

Lucas, meanwhile, had rigged up a small waterproof tarp between two trees, and was sitting underneath it, keeping an eye on the horses. In truth, he didn't want us to feel bad for his suffering. The little tarp kept the rain from falling down on him, but it was blowing in from the sides, and he was obviously getting drenched.

We couldn't see him for long though, because we had to close the tent's flap to keep the wind and water out of the supposed dry space. We sat, hunched up in little balls, overlapping onto one another.

Thunder began to ring out in obnoxiously loud peals, and with each one Petronille gave a little jump. She had always been bothered by loud noises, and thunder was no exception. It wasn't a fear of it; it bothered her ears, which were very sensitive.

The flashing lightening would occasionally strike, and fill the world with so much light that the tent walls would show the outside world through, and all the tree branches around us would be swaying in the wind, like fingers grasping through the night, coming to drag me away.