Chapter Eleven

Chapter eleven;

      Lissie woke before Aubren, and washed her face and saddled up her horse. She fingered through her rats nest of hair, and sat by the still warm embers from the fire last night. Aubren eventually emerged from the tent, with his hair sticking straight up. Lissie stared for a moment, until she burst into spontaneous laughter.

      “What? What is it?” Aubren asked, patting down his face to make sure nothing was wrong with it.

      “Nothing, nothing.” Lissie cleared her throat. “Just pretend I didn’t say anything.”

      “But you didn’t say anything. You just laughed.” Aubren accused. “Tell me what it is!”

      “Your hair.” Lissie said, releasing a few more held-in giggled. “It’s kind of messed up.” She smiled. Aubren puffed his lips out.

      He went over to the small stream they had intentionally camped near, and dunked his whole head in it.

      “Better?”

      “No. I liked it before better.” Lissie smiled. Aubren ignored her and saddled his horse up. They left for their second day, and soon enough, their third. They were a week into their journey before the even knew it. They ran into traders and road side inns and bought food, occasionally staying at the inns. Lissie was overjoyed with this, of course.

      As they were leaving one of the inns on they’re ninth day of travel, they were stopped by a group of rough looking men.

      “That’s a nice lady you’ve got there,” the man said, obviously drunk. Lissie squinted her eyes. “Mind if we barrow her for a couple hours?” He burped halfway through his sentence.

      “I do mind, actually.” Aubren smiled. Both Him and Lissie knew they could take the three men, even if they were bigger then them.

      “Now that I look at it, you ain’t half bad lookin’ yourself. What business does two folk like you have this deep in the forest?” He asked, slowly.

      “That’s none of your business.” Aubren tried to shove passed him out the door, but he blocked the way. “Now, now… let’s not make this harder then it is.” Aubren smiled cockily. Lissie knew the men must be pissed at him; she was when he pulled that same cocky smile after their fight.

      “Y’all speak to formal to be forest folk. We ain’t movin’ without that girl.”

      “Oh, I’ll go with them. I’m sure it will be fun.” Lissie winked at Aubren, she had an idea. “Just let me say goodbye to my friend, here…” Lissie wrapped her arms around Aubren in what looked like a hug. “When I go with them, follow. When I say ‘oranges,’ it’s time to kick a*s.” Lissie whispered in his ear, and released her grip around him. Aubren nodded. Lissie left with the men, and Aubren followed stealthily behind. They took her into a small clearing in the forest awhile away from the path.

      “Where would you like to--.” He was interrupted by a hiccup, “start?”

      “Hmmm.” Lissie tapped her cheek with her finger. “Oranges?” Lissie smiled.

      “We ain’t got any ora--.” Before he could finish, Aubren had sliced his sword all the way through the man’s body, and blood spilled onto the forest floor. Lissie quickly grabbed her dagger from her boot, and threw it behind her, where she had remembered the last man had been standing. She hit his stomach, the most painful place to be stabbed. There was one man left, but he started to run. Aubren was quicker then Lissie and he sprinted after the man. Since the man was heftier then Aubren, he caught and slaughtered him without any trouble.

      “It’s a shame eating people is wrong. Because hell, we’d have a feast.” Aubren laughed as they walked away from their dirty work.

      “That’s just wrong.” Lissie accused.

      “Oh, come on, like you didn’t enjoy that. I saw that smile of pure happiness when you hit that man right in his stomach.” Lissie held back a smile. She had enjoyed that, actually. Aubren smiled at Lissie’s smile, and shook his head. “I knew it.”

      When they reached the stables of the inn where there horses were, they were both mortified. There, on the ground, in their horse’s blood, was the words ‘burn in hell.’

      “What on earth".” Aubren began. “They can’t really know who we are, can they?” Lissie shrugged.

      “Does this mean we have to walk?” Lissie took no caution in the note.

      “That’s the last thing I’m worried about!” Aubren nearly yelled. “This means"I think--someone from Daland knows who we are. Or maybe not…” Aubren pushed his eyebrows together. “Who could have possibly written this?”

      “Maybe it wasn’t for our eyes.” Lissie shrugged. “There are other people who use this stable.”

      “But they used our horse’s blood.” Aubren pointed out.

      “Maybe they were just being generous and decided not to use their victim’s horses.”

      “Oh, yes, how generous.”

      “Let’s just get going, we’ll be terribly delayed now that we have to walk.” Lissie sighed.

      “I guess.” Aubren said unsurely. He was uneasy about this whole thing.

      So they took off on foot, slowly but surely. Aubren tried to keep Lissie motivated with cheesy jokes, but Lissie was still displeased by the whole walking aspect.

      “You know! It’s almost funny how many hardships I’ve been through!” Lissie threw her arms up, after nearly four hours of walking. Aubren left his shoulders fall, and sighed.

      “Oh, stop complaining.”

      “Easy for you to say. You’ve been a prince your whole life. It must have been a breeze. I bet you never had to kill a single person.” Lissie huffed.

      “You’ve been a princess your whole life. Although you might not have been treated like one.”

      “Oh, shut up. I’m through talking to you.” Lissie sighed and looked away from Aubren. Aubren was getting more and more annoyed with Lissie’s ever-changing moods. Or maybe it’s just because he was extremely tired, and anything annoyed him.

      “Maybe once we get to the next inn they’ll have horses we can buy.” Lissie brought up.

      “Then we wouldn’t have money for food.” Aubren said bluntly.

      “Uh, hello. I’m a thief.” Lissie said obviously.

      “No, we won’t do that.”

      “Oh, why not? I’m really good at it.” Lissie looked away from him again, when he didn’t answer. “We’ll save money that way, too. Hell, we’ll probably gain money.”

      “Only if we have to.” Aubren said now, not too thrilled with Lissie’s idea.

      They were nearly halfway to the next inn when the sun started to set. Lissie was tired and annoyed with the way things had turned out.

      “Did you hear that?” Lissie stopped and perked her ears.

      “Hear what?”

      “Shh!” Lissie threatened. “That!” Lissie half whispered. “It sounds like someone is in the trees.” Lissie didn’t move a muscle.

      “I don’t hear anything.” Aubren whispered back.

      “Just stay quiet--.” Before Lissie finished talking, a band of assassins was in front of them, they had come from the tree tops, like Lissie had expected.

      “Stand down!” Lissie yelled at Aubren. “Don’t fight unless you have to.” Aubren nodded at her.

      “How the hell did you hear them?” Aubren gapped. The assassins approached slowly. He had a dagger, Lissie didn’t know if they could win this or not. She took deep breaths, and looked over at Aubren. She nodded shortly, so Aubren took his sword out of its case. Lissie slipped her one small dagger from her boot, and ran towards the men. She dodged their swings overall, but still got a few cuts and bruises.  The men were offended by Aubren’s quickness, even when one handing a two handed sword, so the mostly went for him. Lissie became alert of Aubren’s dangerous situation, so she began to backstab the men running for Aubren. There were now only three men going for Aubren, and one coming up behind Lissie. She didn’t have time to throw her dagger and retrieve it to help Aubren, so she threw her fist back and punched him in the face. She sprinted and killed the second to last man right as Aubren had killed the other.

      Lissie breath was heavy as she looked up at Aubren, her face and body blood stained from the assassins.

      “None of that is your blood, I hope?” Aubren changed from his hostile stance to a more relaxed one. His breathing, too, was louder.

      “Most of it isn’t.” Lissie assured. “What about you? You seemed to have it worse, are you alright?” Lissie wasn’t asking because she felt she needed to, she was really hoping Aubren was okay.

      “Yea, I’m fine.” Aubren nodded. Lissie nodded back.

      “Alright then… We should probably get moving, then…” Aubren agreed, as they stepped over all the bloody bodies. Lissie remembered the man that she had simply punched, then. “Oh, wait.” She kicked him to get him roll over. He grunted, and opened his eyes. Lissie was astonished by their brightness.

      “Have mercy.” He wrinkled his nose. “Please.”

      “Why should I? You tried to kill us!” Lissie spat at him.

      “I was ordered to.”

      “You don’t have a very masculine voice,” said Lissie, as she bent to her knees to pull off his mask.

      “Oh, would you look at that. He is a she.” Aubren peeked over Lissie to see the young girl laying there. Lissie examined her for a second. Her hair was light, but still brown. Her eyes were the lightest color of brown Lissie had seen. All topped off with a light drizzle of freckles.

      “What’s your name, girl?” Lissie asked, as the girl balanced herself on her elbow.

      “Mercedes.” She climbed to her knees, now.

      “Who sent you, Mercedes?” Lissie narrowed her eyes.

      “A man in Denrim,” said Mercedes.

      “What man?” Aubren asked now.

      “Demetrius,” Mercedes said shortly.

      “Don’t lie to me!” Aubren said, nearly yelling. “Who really sent you?”

      “I don’t lie, Your Highness! Demetrius did really send me! I was shocked at the command, too. I had no idea why he would want to kill his own son…”

      “The king?” Lissie said, wide eyed. “Why would he want us dead, he’s the one who sent us?”

      “There’s not really a mage in Sterling City, you see.” Mercedes said, a little nervous at what Lissie’s response might be.

      “Are you kidding me?” Lissie said, angrier then she had ever been at Aubren. She felt so angry, she almost wanted to cry.

      “M-m-my father?” Aubren looked at his feet, eyebrows tight to his eyes. “I don’t believe it.”

      “It seems both of our fathers aren’t who they turn out to be.” Lissie said, a little sorry for him. She knew finding out something like this was hard. 

      “He didn’t say why, he just said what. I’d guess he doesn’t want you to become king. It’s pure selfishness. He knows you’ll marry any day, so he wants you dead.” Mercedes said, now standing. “He told me to come back to the city with your body, claiming you had been mauled by bears.”

      “What of me? I suppose no one cares of me?” Lissie eyed her.

      “He told me to burry you.”

      “Great, this just makes things so much better.” Lissie said sarcastically, throwing up her arms.

      “Lissie, I’m sorry.” Aubren pushed his eyebrows together, trying hard to keep manly tears in. “It’s hard, being deceived by your own father.”

      “"Aubren.” Lissie stared at him, unsure of what to do. “Don’t be sorry. As for you, Mercedes. What to do with you?”

      “Spare me, please!” Mercedes begged. Lissie considered this.

      “Alright. But you have to swear your loyalty to me.”

      “Yes, yes, anything!”

      “We’re going to get revenge, Aubren. Just you wait and see.”