Tuesday, May 02, 2017

Trustful: Day 2

Word Count: 12,008

Summary of Events:
Wolfgang, riding through the forest, ended up inadvertently coming upon a logger who recognised who he was due to the colour of his cape lining, prompting him to flee out of fright. Rosemarie found the secret door, opened onto a lengthy stairway before finally getting down to a subterranean lake where she tried her hand at rowing the boat moored there and finally got to explore the outside world. Wolfgang was getting set to sleep when his horses heard another horse, who had a rider with it, and prompted him to flee again; some of his uncle's soldiers pursued him . . .

Excerpt of the Day:
"Wolfgang looked back under his arm again and saw the shadowy figures still giving chase to him, barely illuminated by the reflection of the ambient starlight down onto the snow and back off of it again.
He leaned back in his saddle as his mare and colt suddenly slowed to a stop. The land still stretched out ahead of them, but Wolfgang could tell it was a whole lot further down than the level they'd been riding on.
Untying his colt from his saddle, he tossed the rope across the colt's back so as to let him figure his way down the slope himself. His colt started forward, feeling his way around rather confidently.
Wolfgang looked over his shoulder as his mare started to follow. The soldiers were still gaining on them. He could only hope that this slope might detract the soldiers from following; much less that it wasn't narrow enough that they could easily find themselves another way down the slope.
Pressing one hand against the pommel of his saddle, Wolfgang leaned back against the cantle so that, if he would've been on flat ground, he would've been almost laying on his mare's back.
His colt stumbled ahead of them and Wolfgang's heart went into his throat as he waited for the rest of the fall, but his colt recovered his footing and continued on with no fracture to his confidence, it seemed.
Uncertainly, Wolfgang waited for his mare to stumble at the same spot, but she kept her footing quite well, actually, and made her way down the slope confidently, until the last bit, where she slipped and ended up sliding her way down to level ground the last distance — about their combined height standing on the level ground.
At the bottom, he secured his colt's rope around the horn on the pommel of his saddle again and started his horses forward slowly.
The sound of further shouts turned his gaze back up to the top of the slope, where the soldiers were all gathered, but appeared to be making no move to come down after him.
"We know where you are!" one called. "And we'll be back! We will not lose our lives in failure!"
With that, they all turned and disappeared from the edge. Wolfgang sighed with a measure of relief. For now he no longer had to run, but in the morning he was going to have to find a way out of this broad valley, which seemed to serve no purpose, being as the nearest river that could possibly fill it was further to the west.
Navigation in daylight, likely, though, would be a lot easier than navigation in the dark, or, at least, if nothing else, rather less harrowing than it currently seemed."

No comments:

Post a Comment