Garinor decided to venture off on his own. If he returned home and the hunters were following him, they would undoubtedly hurt his family and friends, and maybe even use them to trap Garinor.
He pulled against the water with all his might and brought himself to the riverbank, hoisting himself into the morning air. His clothes were sopping wet, but he didn’t have time to wring them out. He had to keep moving, damp, barefoot, frightened, and all.
Glancing over his shoulder at the other bank, he saw no one tracing his steps. He didn’t waste his fortune. Tired feet plodded along the soft earth and he raced eastward toward the shelter of another copse of trees. How often had he and his friends found adventure there? It was hard thinking all the made-up stories were now, in part, coming true. There really was a band of rogues and he really did need to escape.
One happy thought came to him then. He knew these trees, at least. There were many places he could hide for hours, places where even his friends hadn’t been able to track him during long stretches of play. There was the mossy boulder to the left, the hollow tree to the right in which he could climb up out of sight. Fallen logs up ahead marked a shallow trench loaded with twigs and leaves under which he could hide.
Yes, this was a place he could use to escape the hunters if he needed to. As he considered this, though, Garinor wondered how safe any of those places would be when followed by experienced trackers. Probably not all too safe. Not only that, but it would probably make sense that a scared boy would return to places he knew well. So it wouldn’t be long before they came here.
Garinor spun around to make sure no one was following him yet. He could still make an escape and throw off the trail. He pulled his thoughts into all the hide-away games he had loved playing, sometimes as the hunter and other times as the hunted. He remembered sometimes setting up decoys for his friends to find. So Garinor swept around from one place to another, stomping his bare feet into the softer parts of the dirt, marking easy-to-find footprints. He propped up a fallen branch between two small trees, so if a breeze blew, the branch would fall and make it seem like someone was there.
He continued this game for a short while, pausing often to look around and to listen. As he finished lumping together a pile of earthen debris into a heap he could have been hiding under, he heard sounds of battle that drew chills down his spine.
The noise of wood crashing against wood echoed through the air. Garinor strained to listen for the source and thought he could tell where it was coming from. Further east from his position, he thought. Surely, the hunters couldn’t have circled around the entire area already.
Creeping slowly, Garinor made his way toward the sounds of battle. Gasps and grunts soon added to the smacking of wood. Footfalls sounded as the combatants wound around each other and attacked or parried.
Three steps, then four, and finally Garinor saw something that made him forget all about the hunters trailing him.
His friends were there playing at swords.
Without thinking, Garinor rushed forward and greeted them eagerly. “Tomli! Marrin! Besfa!”
The branches they had been using as swords fell from their hands as Garinor rushed toward them. Their cheers of greeting were swiftly halted, however, as they saw his bare feet, sopping clothes, and the numerous scrapes and scratches on his skin.
“What happened?” gasped Tomli, the tallest of the four, his vibrant blue eyes boring into Garinor with concern.
The moment of joy of seeing his friends went quickly out of him as he remembered his current plight. “Oh no! I’ll lead them right to you!” he sputtered. “Archers. They’re coming after me.”
Besfa laughed, raking his hands through red-brown hair. “Ha ha, that’s a good one. Well, gents? Shall we slay these villains?”
But Tomli saw the real fear in Garinor’s eyes. “How many? Why are they after you?”
Garinor knew from the look on Tomli’s face that he took the matter gravely. “I think there are three archers. It was three arrows that killed the guard who was taking me to the king.”
“The—the king?” stammered Marrin. He turned at the others, his hands fidgeting. “You guys don’t think—I mean, it couldn’t be—”
But Tomli cut him off and struggled to keep his tone firm. “Garinor, you need to keep going. They must not catch you.” The others nodded.
Disbelief crept onto Garinor’s face. They all seemed to share some secret among them. He tried to protest but Besfa spoke first. “Tomli’s right, you have to keep going. We’ll make a diversion.”
“But—”
Tomli interrupted him again. “If they’re right behind you, Gar, then there isn’t time to go into it. You have to keep going.” But he looked at Garinor’s waterlogged clothes and bit his lip. “Here,” he said, pulling off his tunic and handing it over. He turned to the others. “Come on guys, he needs help.”
Tomli stripped off the rest of his clothes to swap with Garinor, including his shoes. Marrin took the wet clothes and wrung them out before Tomli donned them. Besfa kept a lookout for the hunters. Garinor felt awkward donning his friend’s things, although he did manage a little chuckle when he saw Tomli standing there in his own soggy nightclothes, as if he’d had a bad case of sleepwalking.
A crack sounded not far off. Perhaps it was the precarious branch that had fallen, or maybe it was something else. They didn’t take any chances.
Tomli insisted Garinor continue east and then turn north to head toward the castle. He directed Marrin and Besfa southwest, toward home and the hunters.
“But you can’t!” Garinor protested. “They’ll get you!”
“They won’t,” Tomli insisted. “But as long as we delay them, that’s what counts. Come on, Gar, you have to go!”
Tomli, Marrin, and Besfa put on their bravest faces and nodded to Garinor, then turned to prepare their defenses against the intruders who were likely to come barreling in any moment.
Garinor watched them leave, his heart aching. He needed to keep running, but to watch his best friends walk away to protect him, to possibly throw their lives into enemy hands for him… He didn’t know what to do.