Amelia Merlin and the Game for Okamila

Part 18: Callie goes North

Callie didn't walk anywhere anymore, she ran. Her desperation to get as far away from High Valley fuelled her with an unstoppable energy. She was running south, somewhere people went when they needed to disappear.

Currently Callie was walking through a little village, she couldn't remember what it was called and she supposed it didn't really matter at the end of the day. The little houses had thatched roofs and stone walls and they  all looked practically identical. There were hundreds of sheep all over the place, everyone here seemed to do something with sheep. The constant baaing was actually comforting rather than annoying.

"A wool sweater for the lovely lady?" An old man with yellow teeth and no hair called out to her. She shook her head, smiled to be polite and kept walking.

Two men came up to her, blocking her path to carry on. They were like the houses surrounding them, stoney build with stringy hair and both of them identical with each other. Callie felt her body tense up, her eyes narrow slightly and became extraordinarily aware that her shoe laces had come untied.

"What do you want?" She said quietly.

"We are here to take you somewhere safe." One of the men said. "You must come with us."

"I don't know you. I don't trust you. And I'm perfectly capable of keeping myself safe. So tell me gents, why on earth would I go with you?" She said.

"We've been commanded to escort you to the safe place." The other one said. The first man pulled something out of his pocket and faster than Callie thought was humanely possible, he stuck it into her upper arm.

"What the bloody hell!" She yelled and pulled at the feathery dart that was now sticking out of her arm. "What is this? Why-why do I feel- strange. What did - what did you do? To me?"

Her vision went purple and everything felt very small, her hearing disappeared so all that was left was the sound of her own breathing. The second man pulled her over his shoulder and carried her like a sack of potatoes to a beautifully carven carriage drawn by four black hors-

Callie woke up three days later still in the carriage. It had stopped, maybe to give the horses a rest, and the two men sat across from her. She glared at them and sat up straight. With one glance out the window she could see they were somewhere in the region of High Valley.

"You can't take me back there." She said firmly. "I will never go back to the Gorodetsky-"

"We aren't taking you to High Valley." The first man said. His voice was grunting and stiff, like an auditory embodiment of his build as a person.

"Then where are we going?" Demanded Callie.

They didn't say anything. Just kept staring straight ahead at her.

"If you don't tell me I will fight you every second of every day. I will spend my waking moments trying to escape from you in every possible imaginable way. I will make your life a living-"

"North." The second one narrowed his eyes at her.

"How far north?"

"Far as north goes."

"Why would you be bringing me to Stone Garden? There's nothing for me there."

"Our orders were to bring you there."

"Oh." Callie nodded and jolted forward as the carriage started moving again. They went at an alarmingly fast rate. The four horses that drew the carriage were faster than anything she had seen before. Trees smudged together like a brush across canvas. Slowly everything started turning white, snow had fallen and brought a sort of tranquility with it.