Of Magic And Men
Chapter Nine

After the night the pair had had, neither was very interested in sleeping, so all night they walked south through the forest. It was about dawn when they reached a clearing in the trees, the clearing was quite large. Not wanting to become a target for attack they decided to keep to the tree line, this meant taking a fair detour out of their planned path. About half way through the day they just couldn’t keep going, they had been walking all night and all day, they were emotionally and physically drained and needed to sleep. “I’ll take the first watch, then I’ll wake you and I can sleep.” Peter said drowsily. Alaya unrolled her bedroll and got in. This was good peter thought, she needed her rest, Peter sat down and covered himself with his blanket. He was trying to keep his eyes open but they felt so heavy, he figured he could close his eyes for just a minute and still stay awake and just listen for any kind of threat. Unfortunately for peter the warm embrace of his blanket was making it harder and harder to stay awake, and slowly drifted off to sleep. Peter awoke from his slumber gently at first, until he realized he heard a frightening sound. A deep threatening growl, Peter open his eye to see what was making that noise. In front of peters eyes there was a massive black dog staring at him, the dog rippled with muscle tone, and drool dripped from its snarling mouth. He dare not move or speak, he didn’t want to startle the dog causing it to attack. He needed to access his dagger on his hip, under his blanket, he thought of how to do it without alerting the animal to his intentions. He tried moving his hands under the blanket but the dog just stepped closer in response. Obviously stealth would not be the way to handle this situation, he quickly came up with another plan. In the blink of an eye peter threw his blanket over the dog as a distraction, to his misfortune the animal leaped out of the way and lunged for him. Peter kicked trying to keep the animal away but it grabbed onto his ankle and started to shake him. It hurt, the dogs fangs digging into his flesh, he cried out in pain and closed his eyes. Then just when he thought he was done for the dog went limp on top of his lower half. When he opened his eyes again there was Alaya standing over the dog with her blade plunged down into the animals neck, effectively killing it. “You fell asleep didn’t you, farm boy?” she looked at him in a condescending tone. Pulling her sword from the beast, she glanced down at it. Attempting to stand and kick the dog off of him, he almost felt sorry for it. “What kind of animal is that, is it some kind of dog?” Peter had seen dogs before on the farms but nothing like this. “Yes, actually, it’s called a pseudodog.” “Wait you’ve mentioned pseudodogs before,” Peter remembered. “back in the cave. Do you think it was following us?” no longer feeling sorry for it. “Most definitely, these creatures tend to work along side the darkness and corruption. We’re going to have to be more careful from now on, they often work in groups, I don’t know why this one was alone but we can’t be too careful. From now on no more skipping sleep, sleep only during the day and travel at night.” Alaya announced her plan, and peter had no objections. She was obviously well experienced at avoiding detection, seemingly a master of stealth like his initial impression. Being almost afternoon, they figured they had slept long enough. Alaya suggested that they harvest what they could from the pseudodog, as it was probably edible. They took their time collecting the meat until the sun went down, then it was time to move on. Peter asked how well the meat would keep wrapped in their bags. “At least until we reach the next town tomorrow.” it looked like she didn’t want to talk too much so Peter kept quite on the trip. He was in excruciating pain from the bite would but didn’t want to bother Alaya so just grinned and pushed through it. Eventually it got to the point where he couldn’t bare to walk on it anymore, feeling slightly light headed. He suggested they stop for something to eat, they could even cook up the meat so it lasted longer. Peter was sweating and cold, he didn’t think he had lost that much blood but when he looked down to his leg he realized just how wrong he was, he had lost enough blood to leave a trail behind them. Alaya came over ripped her pant leg and made a make-shift bandage, she had such a gentle touch, he thought about leaning over and kissing her on her forehead but would that be inappropriate given the circumstances. Oh what could it hurt, he leaned forward but just as he did she stood up, and he planted face first into the dirt. He didn’t have the strength to get back up, so he gave in to being on the ground, comfy ground, soft ground. He tried moving but couldn’t, I’ll just pass out here then, he thought to himself, and so he did. Dreaming what it would be like to kiss her he rested peacefully. He admired her qualities, how she was brave, resourceful, confident and most importantly how she cared for her ailing father. In a way she reminded him of everything he wanted to be, he respected her, and wished he could have some of those qualities himself. He wished he could be a leader, someone people could look up to, like his father, after hearing Merlins story he wished very much to be like his father. But he wasn’t a hero, he didn’t like himself very much, so why would she like him?