The world vanished from Garinor’s awareness, drifting to an inky blackness into which he could not see. For a time, he felt the rhythmic pulsing of the horse underneath him, but even that faded to nothingness. All that remained to him was a strange floating sensation in the dark void with a faint breeze tickling senses that were no longer functioning.
He drifted there a while, not sure what he was supposed to do. Not sure if he should even do anything. The void tightened around him and that frightened him for some reason, as if his one last chance to remember his purpose was being squeezed out of him like juice from an orange.
Into the darkness, Garinor called forth his memories. He reached for them with tendrils of thought, seeking out his destiny. There was something important he was needed to do. He couldn’t part just yet.
He touched upon momentary flashes of ideas and thoughts and emotions. They swirled around him in the ethereal breeze, teasing his consciousness awake and challenging him to pursue them outright. Mustering his strength, Garinor reached further.
His mental limbs stretched forward, but he felt restrained, as if he were tied to a tree around his neck. The thought reminded him of his struggle with Midnight and the dagger that had slid in and cut him fatally. He denied the truth of his death, however, for if he was dead, how could he even be thinking these thoughts?
His mind tried to follow that pattern of thought, of the existential afterlife, but he knew somehow that it was a ruse and he shouldn’t follow that path. He turned again to the memory of the dagger and the pressure on his throat and as he did so a new sensation came to him. It was a hot, burning pain that centered on his thigh and all he wanted to do was to remove that which caused the pain.
He cast his thoughts downward and sought out the source of the strange agony. It was both painful and numbing, but he reached for it and drew it out of his pocket. He gazed at it in the blackened void, not mindful how he could even see it in the utter darkness. It was a stone, and as he stared at it, he remembered being sent to a rocky enclave to find it. He remembered cutting his finger and his blood seeping over the stone, sealing shut a tiny crevice it had contained. And now the bloodstone was crying out in protest of the attack that had taken Garinor’s life.
He looked again and realized that the stone was shedding. Bits of dust flaked off its surface, and as it did so, Garinor’s thoughts became more coherent. He could see detailed flashes of his life coming into being and he delighted as he remembered them, all those moments of his existence returning to where they belonged, housed inside of him.
As the stone decreased in size to that of a pebble, the void also took shape. He could see the ground passing by underneath him as if he were flying sideways. A clippity-clop entered his hearing and, in small doses, he comprehended what was happening. For a moment there was still a pressure at his throat but, like the void itself, it too faded away and was gone. The last remnants of the stone fell from his fingertips and he understood clearly that the bloodstone had resurrected him. He didn’t know why, but he knew what had happened.
He stirred and the man driving the horse called a halt, afraid his cargo was about to fall. He turned, intending to secure Garinor more tightly, but he gasped aloud when he saw the boy staring up at him.
“B—But how?”
Garinor managed a smile. “I don’t know how, but I’m fine. Help me down.”
Dodger sprang off the horse and pulled Garinor down as well, then stepped back and stared at him as if he were a ghost. “I don’t understand this. I saw the wound. I—” But he stopped, shaking his head in disbelief.
He shrugged. “I don’t know either. Some magic artifact I found saved me I guess, but it’s gone now.”
Dodger dropped to the grass. “I’m completely flabbergasted.”
Garinor looked around. “Where are we?”
“Further north from where you… fell. They won’t be able to reach us any time soon without a horse, so we’re safe enough.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
“I— I—” But he shrugged, then silently set up a campsite for them. He hunted down two hares, then cooked them with various herbs. Eventually they broke into conversation again, for which Garinor was greatly relieved.
“You’ve had quite an amazing journey,” Dodger said at last. “I don’t know how you keep pushing on, but you’re something special, that’s for certain.”
Garinor smiled. “Thank you. But I still say that I wouldn’t be here without your help. If that stone had healed me but I was on the ground with the prince’s army nearby, it would be all over for me.”
Dodger grinned. “I’ll give you that much. But tonight we need to sleep and in the morning we’ll make our way to the General’s camp. He needs to know that the prince is close and that you’ve been found.” Dodger spent some time scrounging up tree branches, under which he and Garinor slept for the night in order to remain hidden from view.
The next day came swiftly for Garinor. He felt fully rested, so he knew he had slept soundly, but he was surprised to be rising so soon. The sun was low in the sky and Dodger was already preparing breakfast. Their plan was to make a quick ride to the northwest and there join the General’s camp, but their plans had some interference.
When they took to the journey for the day, Dodger noticed that there were others about, traveling in sets of two and three. He broke away from Garinor long enough to check on them and his suspicions were confirmed. They were sentries for the prince. They deduced that some of the prisoners from the previous day’s battle had escaped, that Midnight had reported Garinor’s presence in the area, or both. The thoughts were not comforting.
To complicate matters further, the horse had thrown a horseshoe on the mad dash to the area when Garinor was reviving under the spell of the bloodstone and so they didn’t trust climbing onto its back to carry them with haste. The horse whinnied at times as it was walking with them and it was clear enough that the beast was uncomfortable. Dodger struggled to remove the other rear shoe so at least the rear legs would be at the same height. He would have taken off all four, but a set of sentries closed in and nearly found them.
Concealing the horse was tricky, for it left an obvious path. There weren’t any streams nearby where they could throw off a tracker and so Garinor trailed the horse with a branch and leaves, sweeping away the trail and then hopping all around the area so it wouldn’t look freshly cleansed.
Things became worse, however, when two sentries stumbled across them in the late morning. Immediately, they knew that Midnight had reported Garinor’s presence, for they sought to kill Dodger but only kidnap Garinor. Unfortunately, during the scuffle the sentries scared off the horse and it ran to the east and they never found it again.
Dodger’s fighting skills were impressive and he managed to disarm both fighters without even taking out his own sword. He bobbed and weaved, ducking under one attacker’s arm and twisting about in the other direction, catching the man’s wrist and squeezing hard until he lost his weapon.
Garinor’s fight was less fluid, but he kicked and punched wildly and only the apparent orders not to kill him offered proper protection from harm. It was clear to him that he was far outmatched otherwise.
Once Dodger knocked out the one soldier, he turned to the other and did the same. It was a short interlude to their day but it cost them their horse, some time, and their secrecy. The sounds of shouts echoed in the air and Dodger was certain he heard others already approaching. He realized they couldn’t continue on a direct line to the General’s camp and so he veered east, starting as if he was going to follow the horse’s retreat, but then he pulled Garinor to the north, determined to at least make some progress.
The rest of the day was spent making short sprints from one hiding place to another. The experience was harrowing for Garinor, but he was glad at least to have Dodger’s expertise in the matter. They found refuge in places Garinor couldn’t imagine, mostly using shadows and earthly debris as cover. Dodger also pointed out that most people would first opt to hide in thick underbrush or something of the sort, but that made it a poorer choice for hiding because it would be the first place that was searched.
The day passed by in frantic bursts of speed and eventually they had to agree that they wouldn’t reach the encampment before dark. Dodger put his skills to the test setting up another makeshift campsite for them that was concealed from view. And because there were still sentries in the area, they had to do without a fire.