Chapter Twelve
Finred awoke comfortably warm the next morning despite something tickling his jaw; loath to start another day of travelling he tried to roll over when he was brought up short by something next to him. Opening his eyes slowly his bleary mind made out the curve of a cheek upon which lay a fan of sooty lashes, a small nose and a pile of black material from which poked out a small hand, one which lay possessively on his chest. Suddenly Finred’s mind jumped into wakefulness as he realised that the woman who had draped herself all over him was in fact Safita; trying to extricate himself from his companion without waking her he also discovered that she had managed to tangle her legs up with his during the night, making it almost impossible for him to escape. Panicking he searched around on the floor for the strip of cloth which was the only thing stopping her from knowing his true identity; feeling the corner brush his fingertips he sighed in relief and attempted to tie it with one hand; finding this impossible he resolved to do it up once she had woken up and decided to lie down again. Just as he had resigned himself to his position and was beginning to enjoy having her curled around him he felt her shift slightly and moan sleepily. Raising her head slightly she blinked as she examined the white fabric in front of her; unable to resist the opportunity Finred smiled, “Good morning Safita,” he said.
The change was instantaneous; she woke up immediately and leapt off him, skittering into the corner as if she had been burned by his touch. “What- Finred!” she squeaked, her face heating up as she realised what had happened. “What were you doing?” she accused.
“Nothing, I believe our situation arose entirely out of your actions,” he teased, fastening the cloth behind his head as she scowled.
“You scoundrel,” she muttered as she ripped his cloak from around her neck, “here’s your cloak back.”
“Thank you,” he grinned as she tossed it at him. “I’m not ill,” he joked as he fastened it around his neck, “though that’s probably due to your kind efforts in the night.”
“You are despicable,” she hissed. “I thought that I had met the worst men possible but I was wrong.”
“It’s your fault!”
Safita huffed angrily as she watched him adjust his hood and makeshift mask while she nibbled on a piece of salted meat. “Get your pack and let’s go,” she said before ducking out from under the ledge and standing up in the rain.
“Surely you won’t punish me for that? It was your doing and it wasn’t exactly unhelpful,” Finred cried as he followed her.
“I can punish you for however long I want in whatever way I want,” she sniffed as she clambered over a large rock, her feet slipping slightly on the wet moss.
As she marched through the forest, her feet sucked into patches of mud and her balance threatened by the slippery ground, Safita scolded herself over and over again. Even though it had been an unconscious action she was furious at herself for doing it nonetheless and even angrier at herself for the way the short memory of his limbs intertwined with hers made her feel a little lightheaded.
“How long do you think that it will rain for?” Finred asked as they left the little shelter the forest could provide and headed out onto the road where the falling rain blurred everything around them into one indistinguishable mass, washing out every colour and replacing them with a shimmering grey. Finred almost laughed when Safita didn’t reply; he was beginning to realise that remaining silent was her favourite way of reacting when he had displeased her and yet it was also incredibly frustrating because he had no idea what she was thinking as she marched onwards, wading through the water which had gathered overnight thanks to the ceaseless rain. They trudged on wordlessly, each trying to keep their spirits up in their own way, until mid-morning when the road dipped into a small valley through which raged a vicious river, hissing and spitting like a feral animal as it passed them. Safita swore violently and, unable to find anything to throw, stamped her foot in anger.
“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...
She fought her tiredness for as long as possible but eventually she gave in; when she fell over and landed in the mud she made no attempt to get back up, curling up instead as the rain fell down on her, chilling her already soaked body and settling on her skin like the tears she began to shed unconsciously. She had no idea how long she lay there for, encased in utter darkness, a darkness which had long ago ceased to be daunting and now cradled her like a mother’s womb when suddenly her silence, which had formerly been accompanied by only the drumming of the rain and the symphony of the forest, was broken by the calls of a masculine voice which banished the darkness. “Safita!” Finred shouted, his voice filled with fear. “Safita where are you?”
“Finred,” she sobbed, her voice breaking as she shivered. “I’m here Finred!” she managed to croak through the cold but he was too busy shouting for her to hear her reply. Mustering all of her energy she pushed herself out of the mud and stood up on shaking legs. She headed towards the racket he was making with renewed vigour, threading through the plants-
Suddenly a hard root thrust itself up in front of Safita, whipping her legs out from underneath her and toppling her; she screamed as she fell, hitting the ground and tumbling down a steep slope; every bone in her body was jolted and scraped as she fell, roots and gorse bushes scratching her as she went; she was completely out of control, falling faster than she imagined was possible. With a sickening crunch her head struck a stone which jutted out of the earth and the darkness of the night was replaced by the blackness of unconsciousness and her body splashed into the water which had gathered at the bottom.
“Safita?” Finred shouted, crashing through the undergrowth as he sprinted in the direction her scream had come from, stumbling and struggling as the malevolent plants entwined themselves around his legs. “Safita!” he cried desperately. Finally he reached the slope and his foot hovered in mid air for a moment which stretched on for infinity, stealing Finred’s breath and making his heart skip a beat before he plummeted towards the ground; tucking his head into his chest and curling his body up he hit the ground on his shoulder, rolling over and over as he tumbled down the slope; Finred’s body crashed into the water and he spat out a mouthful of dirty rainwater as he thrashed frantically, desperately trying to reach the other side and find Safita. Suddenly his foot struck something soft and he groped around in the dark water, hoping desperately that Safita had fallen down the same slope as he and that he had found her and not a dead animal. Diving beneath the surface he grabbed it and pulled it to the surface, struggling against the dead weight and hindered by his sodden clothes which dragged him down; kicking crazily he pulled his limp burden to the side of the small pool and gladly ascertained that he had found his companion; she was small but even in the darkness he could tell that she was larger than any forest animal.
Desperately he put his ear near her mouth, hoping to hear her breath over the mad pounding of his heart; nearly panicking when he couldn’t hear it he pushed on her chest, trying to eject the water from her lungs; when that didn’t work he pinched her nose, tilted her chin and closed his mouth on hers, breathing deeply into her throat. Just when he was about to give up hope Safita spluttered, coughing up the water she had swallowed and moaning quietly. “Thank fortune,” Finred muttered, uttering a silent prayer of thanks as Safita inhaled deeply.
“Thank you Finred,” she croaked weakly when she had recovered and the hammering of his heart had slowed down. “You saved my life.”
“And nearly died in the process,” he replied as they both began to laugh, made hysterical by their brush with death. When their chortling had subsided Finred looked around, his vision blinkered by the night which hung on steadfastly. “How will we get back to our camp?”
“I don’t think we will,” Safita whispered, “not until morning at least and even then… well I’m a bit lost.”
“I think I know the way back,” Finred said.
“Good. In that case we’re all relying on you,” she murmured as she curled up next to him, pulling her cloak over herself in a half hearted attempt to shield her frozen body from the rain.
The next morning was misty, clouds clinging to the earth and obscuring many things but still providing enough light for Safita to examine her leg, swearing when she saw that during her fall she had gashed her shin, tearing the fabric of the trouser leg and leaving a deep cut nearly the width of two of her fingers. It had been washed out slightly by the pool but there were a large number of small stones and pieces of mud still in it, hiding the red of her muscle and what she suspected was the white of her bone while muddied skin with torn edges clung on at the sides.
The morning also revealed a gentler slope to them and Finred climbed up it, ordering Safita not to move apart from to wash it out as he searched for herbs with which to pack her wound and stop it getting infected. After a while he returned with a fistful and slid back down the slope.
“This will probably hurt,” he said as he began to squash the plants in, making Safita hiss.
“I’m not some pathetic woman from the Palace,” she bit out past her clenched teeth.
“Of course you aren’t. I never said you were,” Finred replied as he fiddled with his shirt.
“What are you doing?” she asked as a loud ripping noise tore through the silence of the morning and he took her lower leg in his cool fingers. Wrapping the material gently around her leg he tied it tight and rolled the trouser leg which she had rolled up to clean it down. “There,” he said, “hopefully that will do for a while.”
“Thank you,” she said before they struggled up the slope, clinging onto roots and tufts of grass as they clambered out of the hollow. Eventually they reached the top and collapsed onto the flat ground at the top, catching their breath before Finred began to lead Safita back to the camp. “I’m fairly certain that it’s in this direction,” he said as they tramped through the mud, their progress slower than normal but much faster than it had been the night before. Safita was about to say that she thought it was in the other direction when they came across their packs lying where they had left them the night before; heaving them onto their backs they set off again, Safita’s vision clouded by a throbbing headache.