Within the darkness: chapter 43

Tina woke up to the early morning sun, she had slept better tonight thane she had expected and sat without trying to move, and slowly woke up. the first thing she noticed was that she had slept surprisingly well, next she remembered she couldn’t walk. it took quite a bit to realize that wallkery wasn’t holding her hand after that but when she did her eyes snapped open and she looked around for her sister.

looking around tina took a brief inventory of the room, for a communal healing hut it was surprisingly empty. ten beds lined the walls five on each side and from Tina’s seat in the center of the room she could see that only two of them had injured men resting. determining that wallkery was gone tina had half a mind to get up and try to find out where wallkery was only one problem with that. the morning was early and maradith would be coming to check on the wounded in a minute so tina sat and waited.

maradith woke up and eminently decided that today would be the day that would be heading back to the village. they had been planing it for a while and had everything ready. some of the men decided to set up an outpost for defense and for training the nearby villagers. some of the women had even decided to stay behind and keep the place as well as work the field that they were starting along the river. bill planed to help with the training and he hoped to ask wallkery when she was better. maradith had been very firm that Bill was not to disturb her.

walking into the healing hut maradith scanned the room and sighed. wallkery was missing again. deciding to deal with that later she went to check on the other injured. halfway through her examination of the first man bill walked it.

bill stopped almost instantly and stared at Wallkerys empty bed and started laughing, he had not expected wallkery to escape but when he thought about it he should have seen it coming. after a bit his laughter calmed down enough for maradith to talk with him. she had finished with both of her other patients and was wanting to finish plans to leave, she missed her hut.

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“what I want to know is how she got out of the room while tied up?” Maradith asked, staring at the empty mat.

“that happened last night” responded tina startling both maradith and bill, she had remained quiet and seemed to be asleep with her head looking down at the sword in her lap.

“How are you doing my dear,” bill asked, his gruff voice seemed to become smoother as it did when he spoke to children.

“Much better today, although there is still no change” she responded rolling her neck and looking up at the pair. “last night she untied herself with great pain, and tried to escape but the pain forced her to sleep.”

“again how did she untie herself,” maradith asked even more confused by that point as she examined the bedding to find the method.

“the rope was cut,” tina said simply

“How?” maradith exclaimed to which tina shrugged her shoulders

“sometime this morning she took off, it was before I woke up. so maybe 2 or 3 hours ago” tina offered, “beast took off shortly before yall arrived”

“well, then it looks like I have to need to go find her” bill determined walking out.

“is it wise to let him go after wallkery,” maradith asked no one in particular

“they will be fine, anyone else and it could be bad but they seem to respect each other and are less likely to get into a fight” tina replied.