Questing really does require quite a lot of equipment and preparation, Anya thought. Most of which she didn’t have or had missed doing. She was having to work a lot of it out along the way.
Possibly this was the difference between an adventure and a mere expedition, considered Anya. She would have preferred the latter, with several weeks to prepare, and lists made in the comfort of the library, and things checked off.
Shrub reemerged from the hut with Martha behind him. She was sniffling into a large tartan handkerchief. Anya was relieved to see she held the wrapped piece of ham in her other hand, some distance from her dripping nose. She handed the ham over and Anya tied it to the end of her staff. It was quite heavy, and she flexed her shoulder, anticipating that it would be sore before she walked much farther.
“Princess Worn Down by Heavy Load!”
Gerald the Herald had climbed as high as he could in the oak, pursued by the slowly creeping mistletoe. But he was still true to his profession.
“You be a good boy … a good newt for the princess,” said Martha, snuffling away. She bent down to kiss Shrub’s head, flinching back at the last moment when she remembered he was poisonous.
“I will, Ma!” said Shrub, not very convincingly.
“I’ll bring him back as a boy, not a newt,” Anya promised. “As soon as I can. Thank you for the soup and the ham.”
“Thank you,” repeated Ardent. He only just managed to look away from the tantalizing lump of meat dangling above his head to bow towards Martha.
“Good fortune!” called out Martha, now moving from snuffling to full-on sobbing. “Good fortune and come back human!”
Shrub muttered something and began to head off down the road. Anya waved at Martha, then followed, with Ardent close by her heels looking up at the ham every few seconds until Anya told him to range ahead.
“This way!” called out Shrub. “We go along the road for a bit and then take the path by the fallen silver birch.”
Anya followed the newt. Behind her, Gerald the Herald started up again, his voice growing fainter as they headed down the road.
“The Frogkisser Sets Forth! Herald Detained by Druid Accomplice! More News to Come! Thousands Eagerly Await Raven Dispatch from Field Correspondent!”
He paused for a breath and then added, “Deadly Duke’s Killers Swarm in Search of Princess!”
The fallen silver birch was not much more than a faded, ancient trunk that had come down long ago. It lay by the side of the forest road, angling off into the darker interior. Shrub led the way alongside it, and then onto a path that Anya didn’t think she would have noticed, or even called a path, since it was little more than relatively bare patches of undergrowth every few paces, like stepping-stones through a close green sea.
Several times as she followed along behind the lizard, Anya was tempted to ask Shrub if he was really sure he knew where he was going. But she didn’t, as he seemed confident, never hesitating when other paths crossed their way, including paths that were much more distinctly formed.
Both newt and dog found it easier going than the princess. She was hampered by her staff, bundle, frog cage, and ham, and also just by her size. Unlike the others, she couldn’t always slide under a fallen log or squeeze between the trunks of two trees that were practically embracing.
By the time the sun began to set, Anya was very tired, very scratched, very sweaty and dirty, and feeling ever more cross that she had been forced out of her pleasant home and her quiet library to go on not just one Quest but what was rapidly becoming a whole series of interconnected Quests. She had also drunk almost all her water and was hungry again. The soup felt like it had happened a very long time ago.
“Not far now,” said Shrub. “It’s starting to open up.”
Anya gave a little snort of annoyed disbelief. The forest seemed as thick as ever, perhaps even thicker now that the light was fading. It was just as well Shrub was bright orange, or she could have easily lost him, and thus her way. Though Ardent would undoubtedly come back for her and track the newt by smell—
She stopped, because Ardent had stopped and was smelling something. His head was up in the air and he was sniffing away, moving his head from side to side.
“What is it?” whispered Anya.
“Man,” said Ardent, the word half a growl. “And oiled steel. Also onions.”
“You can smell a frying pan?” asked Anya.
“No, oiled steel probably a weapon,” Ardent reported. “Sword or dagger. Onion on breath. He’s up a tree a bit ahead.”
“Shrub! Shrub!” Anya hissed at the newt, who had paused but was about to continue on his way again. She waved him back, and they hunkered down close together by the bole of a huge oak to have a hurried, whispered conference.
“There’s someone up a tree ahead,” said Anya. “Could be an assassin, one of Rikard’s hired murderers.”
Shrub shook his head.
“We’re in Bert’s part of the woods. There’s no way she’d let any old murderer attack us.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know he’s there,” said Anya. “Ardent says he’s hidden up a tree.”
“She’d know,” Shrub replied with some confidence.
“True,” said a deep voice. All three of the questers jumped, just as there was the thrum of a bowstring, followed a moment later by a scream and the thud of someone falling out of a nearby tree.
Anya slowly stood up and turned around. A dark-skinned woman dressed in forest-green leathers with a sword on her hip and a longbow and quiver on her back was standing on one of the lower branches of a lesser tree. Another slighter woman who wore similar clothes but in a russet shade stood close behind her. There were more armed women and men on both sides of the path.