The Game (A Dark Romance)

“Stop! Thief!”

Somewhere in the mid-distant rear, a guard called out.

Without hesitating, they both ran out the gate as fast as their legs would take them.

“Did you take something?” Hail shouted the question to Elise.

“No! Did you?”

“No.”

“Was he actually yelling at us?”

“Probably not,” Hail concluded, slowing to a jog, and then a walk. They were now winding down the side of the mountain which was almost always in shadow. The eternal path was walked only by the bravest and boldest, inhabited by monsters and bandits alike, though to be fair, it was worse above the town than below it. The road to the top of Mount Eternal was boarded off, abandoned, and rocks had been deliberately brought down upon it in multiple places. Some people said that the top of Mount Eternal was occupied by demons. Others said it emitted poisonous fumes. Some said that the whole thing was a vohlkaynew, though Hail had no idea what that meant.

The path down was not terribly inviting either. It was sort of dark and overhung by tree roots, and the spectacular view was often obscured by overgrowth of plants and large rocks which the path went behind. Elise preferred the large rocky bits, so she said, because there was less risk of simply going tumbling off the edge of a cliff.

“You should go back, Elise. It’s not safe here. You could be hurt.”

“You could be hurt,” Elise pointed out pragmatically.

“Yes, but I have the power. I have magic.”

“Is that the same magic which had you carried back to the den on a stretcher with your head half banged open?”

The reminder of her unceremonious loss to the bearoark did not do anything to put Hail in a better mood. So she changed the subject and accused Elise of treachery again.

“Did Bryn send you to talk me back. Is that it?”

Hail was now completely certain that Elise’s presence was not out of a desire for adventure and more of a desire to make sure nobody ever left the den. Elise was one of Bryn’s star whelps, never earning any words of censure. He would not be well pleased that she had gone. He would blame Hail for her disappearance, but what would that really matter, given she would never see him again.

That thought made a yawning void open up inside her. She was exposed now in a way she had never been before. Without Bryn looking after her, she was very vulnerable to a whole host of evils. But that was what being an adult was about.

“Of course not. He’ll be furious when…” Elise trailed off as she realized that Bryn would indeed be furious when he discovered her absence and came to the obvious conclusion, or worse, didn’t and assumed she was just missing and… Her face grew quite pale as she realized she might not only have annoyed Bryn, but worried him as well.

“Go back if you like,” Hail said generously.

“No. I am coming with you. For better or worse, that is the vow of friendship, is it not?”

“I thought that was the vow of marriage.”

Elise laughed. “Marriage. What nonsense in a world where most of the men are dead from war and the rest of them are ravagers and bandits.”

“Indeed.”

They walked, and then they walked a little more, and then they walked a lot more. There was a lot of general walking down the very steep path which wound around Mount Eternal. New Rahvin very quickly disappeared from view, and soon the few posted guards dwindled to warning signs, and then to nothing at all besides light posts which had not been lit in a very long time. Those who dwelled in New Rahvin liked to think that the rest of the world had ceased to exist. The lack of maintenance on the path of Mount Eternal was an effort to keep the world out, though it could not be allowed to deteriorate to the point that supplies could not come in.

“Careful!” Hail caught Elise by the arm as the other girl stumbled on a rock and started to flail, if not quite fall.

“I thought adventuring would be more fun and less slippery,” Elise complained. “My legs hurt and my shoes let the stones bruise my feet. I don’t like it at all.”

“Would you like to go back to Bryn? I can take you back up,” Hail said with a willingness and cheer she did not feel. It wasn’t Elise’s fault that she had no impulse control and an overabundance of misguided loyalty.

“I want to stay with you,” Elise said. “If you can handle all of this, then so can I. I can be special too.”

“What do you mean special too? I’m not special.”

“Of course you are. You always have been. Bryn treats you like you’re the most special person in the den.”