Chapter 64 The Girls Wake Up

Rose awoke, her eyes flicking open to find that it was still completely dark outside, and outside of the occasional chirp of a bird or an insect, or the shifting sounds of the surrounding trees and ferns due to the faint breeze brushing past them, there was no noise.

She yawned and sat up, surveying her surroundings. It was strange for her to wake up in the middle of the night. She did so occasionally when she wasn't feeling well, or had made the mistake of drinking too much before heading to bed, but she didn't need to relieve herself, and best she could tell, nothing in her immediate surroundings had brought her to consciousness.

Something stirred to her left, and she saw Madeleine shifting gently in her sleep. Out of habit, she turned to check Jack's bedroll, but stopped short when she saw that it was empty. Not believing her eyes, she reached out a hand in the dim light and patted to be sure. Nope, he was definitely gone. This sent a sudden pang of unease through her. Where had he gone to?

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She noticed that his boots were missing, but his axe and other items were still right where they should be, which told her he probably needed to answer nature's call. She laid back down, listening to the sounds around her, waiting for him to return.

A moment later, her ears perked up at the sound of something shifting through the brush somewhere in the near distance. She was about to call quietly out to Jack when she heard something else moving, and then another thing.

She froze, her heart pounding in her ears. The moving things all seemed to be creeping quickly and quietly past and away from their little hidden camp spot, and all heading in the same direction. They could just be harmless animals, but the size of the noises led her to the conclusion that it was probably best she not attempt to find out.

But Jack was out there. And he was unarmed. And while he was clearly powerful with magic, her experience with magic users told her that the best way to keep them from using their spells was to catch them off-guard and not give them a chance to prepare.

It was at this point she heard a man's voice speak something gently in the distance. It was not Jack's voice. After a moment, Jack's voice replied. She could not make out what either said, but the tone that she could make out told her enough.

Fearing for her friend's safety, Rose gingerly picked up her sword and slid it quietly from its sheath. Once this was done, she softly crept the few paces to Madeleine's bedroll and placed her hand over Madeleine's mouth before gently but firmly shaking her awake.

Madeleine's breath caught, and her eyes shot open, looking at Rose widely with a look of confusion and concern. Rose lifted her sword hand and put a finger to her mouth, and then motioned in the direction that the speech was coming from. Without a word, she then picked up the new dagger Madeleine had recently acquired, and pressed it into her small sister's chest.

"Jack's in trouble." Rose whispered, sliding her hand from Maddy's mouth. Madeleine nodded silently and quietly drew the dagger from its sheath, but the look in her eyes told plainly how fearful she was.

Rose crept quietly to the edge of their tiny hollow, followed closely by her sister, and peered just above the edge of the ferns.

About a hundred feet away, she could see that Jack was standing with his hands up facing towards her, with a dark humanoid shape standing directly behind him.

And between them and him, nearly a dozen more people.