The Unwanted Princess

You can't always get what you want

The horse twisted and turned through the dense jungle, navigating over fallen logs and curtains of vine. The movements were so brusque Avery would have surely fallen off had the man not wrapped one arm around her firmly, the other on the reins. She forced the bile back down her throat and breathed through her mouth.

Human. Human. Human. Human, she repeated in her mind.

When she wasn't ducking branches or cringing as they jumped over obstacles she would glance behind them and scan the forest for pursuit.

"Is anyone there?" the man asked again, not bothering to look himself.

There never was, but Avery kept looking and the man kept asking. She was so terrified of being caught it took her a long time to realise he was mocking her. She was not in the mood.

"What about the others, the ones on foot? There were children," she asked with concern.

"How noble of you," the man teased.

She didn't bite.

"We can't just leave them! The sapiens are so much faster; they'll be caught!"

The man finally backed off seeing Avery was too tense to joke around.

"We placed rafts on the small river that runs through the property and carried them downstream. Then they'll come to shore and send the rafts down to throw off the trail."

"Will we meet up with them then?"

"No, they'll go on foot over the Walsh Gap. There's a path up the mountains and a series of tunnels that will take them south by a faster route. Too small for horses to follow. We'll meet our team tonight then split up to spread out the trail and take the long way to the Cloud Fortress."

"The what?"

"Home."

Avery was forced to lean back into him as the horse picked its way down a steep bank on the edge of a narrow but swiftly moving river. Her head was pounding and she felt sticky dried blood down the back of her neck from where Ishka had knocked her out. Now that the rush of the escape had worn off she began to acknowledge the pain of her torn back from the whipping and the soreness in her neck from the hanging. Her eyes were having trouble focusing and the forest swirled around her.

The man directed the horse to the water's edge.

"...river..." Avery mumbled in exhaustion.

"Your name is River? What a coincidence, we're about to cross one."

"What? No! My name is Avery and we cannot cross that!" She became alert immediately.

"Oh yes we can, River-Avery," he said as he nudged the horse forward.

Avery twisted in the saddle and tried to jump off but he had both arms around her now.

"No, no, no, no, no! I can't swim! And crossing a river is what got me into this mess in the first place."

She cringed and leaned back in the saddle as though it would distance herself from the water. The cool mountain stream made her gasp as it reached their bellies and the horse began pumping its way across the channel.

"It's alright, I've got you," the man called out above the roar of water as Avery began to drift, unable to squeeze her legs to stay on the horse.

They made it across without incident and the horse trotted up the far bank, shaking the water out of its mane. Avery turned and looked back at the river, catching her breath as her fear gradually subsided.

"Aren't you going to ask me my name? I asked yours and you said 'River' then said 'Avery' so I'm confused. But don't you want to know the name of your rescuer?"