ArHi FF:13: The BEASTS and the BLEEDING ROSES - Page 74

Chapter 321: A Skirmish and A Pact

The General had leapt off his horse and crashed onto the hooded figure in the forest, toppling her and restricting her escape under his crushing chest.

Something snapped in their struggle, but the General didn't quite care if he had managed to break a bone of the incessant witch.

But when the hood, that concealed her face in shadow, slipped to reveal a face so familiar to him, he could only stare in shock.

In disbelief, he blinked, "Anjali?"

Tears rose in Lady Anjali's eyes as she gazed at her husband's face. How much she'd longed to see this face that was looking down at her, these uncertain eyes, these familiar lips...

In an instant the General had recovered himself and, generating a frown, he slid aside hastily.

Getting to his feet, he scowled down at his wife where she was sitting up on the ground, "What are you doing here, Anjali? Don't you know it's dangerous to be strolling through the forest alone at night?"

Choosing to ignore his address of her by her name, Lady Anjali struggled to her feet.

The General stood his ground, refusing to assist.

Standing tall, she glared at him, "You are not my brother to insist upon imprisonment in my own house!"

"No, I am not your brother," said the General bitterly, "And I thank the stars for that! For not being as blind and bamboozled as him!"

Lady Anjali scowled, "You are severely damaged!" She wrapped the robe tighter about her to ward of the cold of the dawn, "After all the things you let happen, you think yourself justified?"

Declining an answer, the General picked up his hat and placed it on his head, "Do you not remember: I left you and went my way. Are you bent on following me now?"

"I am not following YOU!" Lady Anjali asserted hotly, "I am going to get my daughter."

The General paused and looked at her. All of a sudden, he let out a laugh that sounded more like a chortle.

"Good luck with that, then," he turned away and headed towards Lightning, all the while sensing his wife's gaze following his every departing step.

Immediately, she called out, "You can't leave me until you make amends."

"Amends for what?" he turned on his heel to scowl at her, annoyed at her persistent intrusion.

He noticed her pick up something from the ground.

It was a broken crossbow.

"You broke my bow!" Lady Anjali deftly held out the evidence.

The General recalled the distinct snap he had heard when he'd fallen onto her.

His gaze slid to the ground and caught a glimpse of an unharmed quiver of arrows resting there, presumably tossed aside in the couple's topple.

"You owe me a bow," clarified Lady Anjali.

The General offered her a passive stare in return, "I am going on urgent business at the moment, but perhaps I could spare time to buy a bow for your ladyship when I return."

"No, you will mend my bow before we part our ways," stated Lady Anjali.

The General mumbled curses under his breath and strolled back in her direction.

She held out the bow calmly and, when he'd reached her, he snatched it from her, sparing her no reciprocating glance.

Sullenly, he inspected the stern of the bow.

It was broken in half, right through the middle. There was no way he could rectify the split. Not even sticky sap from the trees would hold fast the cleaved wood.

"This one's broken for good," diagnosed the General, handing it back to her, "If you are in desperate need for one, I'll buy you a bow when I return back to town."

Lady Anjali had her arms crossed before her and she refused to take back the broken bow from him.

Irritated, the General threw the bow to the ground, "If you don't want it, so don't I."

He turned to leave when she asked, "So if I wanted it, would you too?"

He paused and stared at the ground, feeling confronted. He could feel her intense observation of his stance.

Betraying no visible sign of being affected by her query, he turned to look stonily at her, "What do you know about what I want?"

He had meant it rhetorically, of course, and she knew it too.

But she had sensed that unmistakable tremble in his tone that spoke of a fissure in his emotional wall.

As he turned about and prepared to leave her again, she called out decisively, "Don't you dare walk away from me."

The General didn't pause and continued widening the distance between them as he approached his white mare who stood in the distance suspiciously watching the whole duel.

Lady Anjali was relentless, "If you walk away from me, you are walking away from the only one you have in this world."

The General scowled, but providing no rejoinder, took the last few steps that took him closer to Lightning.

Lady Anjali spoke the next words in barely a whisper, but he heard it distinctly, "You will be alone..."

The General paused, his back to her. Emotion chocked at his throat but he swallowed it down and slowly turned to look over his shoulder at her, where she stood deserted in the middle of the forest.

I am not the only one who's alone, he wanted to say but he didn't.

He only stared at her, standing in the distance, lost and helpless, watching her husband abandon her again.

Inhaling sharply, the General fisted his hand and commanded resolutely, "Go away, Anjali."

"I won't," said his wife, refusing to move.

"Go AWAY!" He roared furiously, "Go HOME!"

"My home is where my child is!" stated Lady Anjali.

"You're being foolish," claimed the General hotly, "This is not the place for you. Do the sane thing, woman, and return to your Castle!"

"I won't!"

"You will!" threatened the General.

"Make me!" dared Lady Anjali.

The General breathed in, irritated, "This is senseless. I've had enough."

He turned to inspect the saddle on Lightning, choosing to ignore his wife.

All the while, he could feel her taciturn gaze fixed on him, wordlessly punishing him for leaving her untended.

The General gritted his teeth and growled, "What do you want from me?"

Lady Anjali smiled shrewdly "Now or for the future?"

"NOW, for goodness sake!" he shot her a look.

Lady Anjali exhibited an officious poise, one hand on her hip, "I want my crossbow mended and someone to accompany me where I am heading for."

The General grimaced offhandedly, "I have better things to do than play escort for you."

Lady Anjali ignored his rejection and commented casually, "It did seem for a moment that we were heading the same way. Were you not heading South?"

The General was indignant, "Perhaps I am, perhaps I am not. Either way, I prefer to travel in solitude."

"You may travel so," Lady Anjali offered, bending down to pick up her quiver of arrows, "As long as I can tag along at a distance, till we get to the point where we must part our ways."

The General shrugged but added impatiently, "You are bound to slow me down."

Lady Anjali's features contorted in displeasure. "I walked this far on my own, unescorted and without a horse to ride on," she pointed out, "I am stronger than you see me to be."

The General looked at her, one of his eyebrows lifted questioningly, "If you came thus this far, why don't you continue on in that manner without insisting on my company?"

Draping her quiver across her shoulder, Lady Anjali stood with her arms crossed before her chest, "Because, though I walked alone, I was not unarmed. I had my bow intact." She dangled the skewered crossbow by a single forefinger, "Until you came along and broke it."

The General snorted, "So in repayment I must accompany you?"

"Yes," Lady Anjali gave a single nod of finality, "Until you find me another bow."

"This is ridiculous!" the General fumed. He shuffled where he stood, dust rising from the rough grating of his boots on the wilderness floor.

Then he looked up at her, "If I get you a bow, does that release you from me."

Lady Anjali smiled gently, "Get me a bow and I will leave you and be on my way."

The General thought for a moment and then nodded his promise from under his hat, "I'll get you a bow as soon as I can. But I'll lose daylight if I pause to make one now."

"Then let's resume our obstructed journey," said Lady Anjali casually, flinging aside the broken bow and making towards where her husband stood by his horse.

"We'll take turns riding Lightning," the General clarified the polite agenda, "Her hoof's not healed well enough to carry two at a time."

"I prefer travelling by foot," said Lady Anjali, walking around the white mare and stepping out into the open wilderness.

She paused to look over her shoulder, where they hadn't moved an inch but stood staring at her. She smiled cleverly, "Looks like it's you who will be slowing me down."

She walked on after that remark while the General eyed her bitterly.

Deciding to follow on foot after his wife, he led his mare by the reins as he mumbled under his breath, "This is a mighty mess we've made for ourselves here, Lightning. Who would have thought!"