Darin paced back and forth in front of her captive as she furiously gnawed at the hangnail on her thumb. Ridahne hadn’t come to find her yet. That wasn’t a good sign. IT had been a while, and her captive was slowly bleeding out. Could the battle have not gone the way she had hoped. Darin wasn’t sure she wanted to know. If Ridahne hadn’t been the victor Darin needed to get back on Talbot and leave now. However, if the battle hadn’t been decided she needed to be patient. Darin wasn’t sure she could stand this waiting any longer. That was when sound finally returned to the forest.

Well that was not a good sign. The battle was over and had been for some time. Darin could hear it. The animals felt safe enough to resume their life. The night would continue unhindered. Now the question was simple: who would come after her. If Ridahne had won that was a good thing. If she hadn’t Darin needed to run. She cast another glance towards her captive. He was smirking at her. It was clear that he thought his allies were the one who had won. Darin wasn’t sure that she could fathom that possibility. She didn’t know what she would do without Ridahne. It had been less than a week and The Seed-Bearer knew that this journey would be impossible without the Azurein.

She asked Talbot, “Who do you think won?” Taja let out a shriek as Talbot let out a whinny of concern. Darin nodded, “You both have good points, very good points.”

The archer scoffed, “You talk to your animals? Why? They no nothing useful. Maybe you are just a very lucky idiot.”

Darin let out a small laugh, “Now you’ve got it. The question is simple. Is it good luck or bad luck?”

Darin whipped her head around at another screech from Taja. What she saw made her blood run cold. It was Mitaja. The hunting cat seemed distressed, and it didn’t take long for the human to figure out what was wrong. Ridahne had to have been hurt and sent her cat to Darin. Darin figured she should probably run. Darin didn’t care. Without even thinking about it she ran in the direction Mitaja was leading her. Talbot didn’t follow. Darin looked over her shoulder for only a minute. It appeared the plow horse was going to stand guard. The human was fine with that though there might not be much point. The Elrui was still bleeding out. It wouldn’t be long before he was dead. If Ridahne wasn’t capable of questioning him there wasn’t much point in keeping him alive. She supposed that meant she killed him. She would deal with that fact after she determined if Ridahne was okay.

That was not the case at all. Mitaja stopped at a point. Darin took a moment to glance at Tsura before falling to her knees next to Ridahne. The Azurei looked terrible. Purple bruises covered her neck. There was an arrow in her thigh. The Elf was practically covered in blood. Darin’s hands fluttered uselessly. The human wasn’t even sure how to start. Should she take out the arrow or would that make the bleeding worse. Darin didn’t know much about treating people. She had only done birds before. The only real chance she had was finding another person to help her. She just didn’t want to leave Ridahne. She wondered if she could get Ridahne on to Tsura. Then where would she go? Darin was sure to get lost. If they followed the road, they might make it somewhere. Were they close enough to The Farm to get there before Ridahne died, or should they try to make it to the town Ridahne had mentioned earlier? Would the people there help them, or were they connected to this Red Hand? Darin had no idea what she should do, and for a moment was paralyzed by fear.

Then she gave her head a shake. She couldn’t do nothing. With that decided Darin figured the best she could do was at least try to find help. She knew she couldn’t leave Ridahne alone so the Elf would have to come with her. The only way to make that happen was to get her on a horse. There was no way that Darin was carrying Ridhane anywhere by herself for long. Still the first step was to get Ridahne up off the ground. That raised another question; would Darin be reconziged or would Ridahne think she was another enemy. There was only one way to find out. Darin was just going to have to try. At this point anything was better than nothing.

With that in mind Darin knelt down next to the Elf, “Come on Ridahne.” The human took one of Ridahne’s arms to place around her shoulders, “Let’s get you up.”