NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: Through the Pass
Mikhail's eyes opened to the gray surroundings around him. The morning air was brisk and the fire had burnt out long ago. He looked around, as he laid under the warm blanket, Bakule’s steady breathing underneath him pushing him up and then back down as the animal exhaled. Anora was nowhere to be seen. “I wonder where she went.” he wondered to himself. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and stretched. He got up and looked around before stepping over to a more secluded portion of the pass to relieve himself. Once done he returned to Bakule. It was time to get the elk on its feet and started towards the end of the pass and to Arendale where one of his Uncles awaited him.
After coaxing the Red elk up Mikhail, still curious as to where Anora had gotten off to, reached into his bags and pulled out a brush and began to brush the elk down. Bakule stood there swishing its short tail back and forth. Once done brushing, Mikhail turned around to put the brush away and to grab the saddle. There beside him was Anora, her striking orange eyes watching him. Mikhail yelped and dropped the brush. “By Aran you scared me.” he told her. Anora only returned his emotion with a small grin. She wore the cloak from the day before over her to help keep her warm although Mikhail wondered at how she could stay warm with her legs exposed as they were.
Anora bent down and grabbed the brush, studying it before handing it back to Mikhail. He took it and thanked her and placed it into his bag. Grabbing the saddle he swung it over the elk’s back, adjusting it until he was satisfied that it was in the right place. Anora watched him intently and silently but as he looked at her he could see the questions that if she had a voice would be asking. “This is called a saddle.” he told her and pointed to it.
Mikhail bent down and grabbed the strap from the other side, then he fed it through a buckle and began to pull it until it tightened around the elk's belly. “I have to tighten this part so the saddle doesn’t fall off.” He continued to explain to the goblin. She watched in a curious silence as he tightened the leather saddle. Her head tilting A bit as he buckled the straps.
After a few moments of tightening straps and adjusting Mikhail brushed his hands together and looked at Anora. Surprised that she had watched the whole time. Her striking orange eyes caused him to forget his train of thought. He smiled, regaining it, swinging up into the saddle. After he had gotten situated he reached his hand out for Anora to grab. She looked at His hand as he gestured to take It and to climb up. Anora glanced up to the red elk and then to its back, backing away from Mikhail and the beast. Mikhail shrugged. “Well, suit yourself.” He told her.
Mikhail clicked his tongue a few times and the elk began to walk forward. Anora followed. “I know she's a goblin.” He said to bakule, but more to himself. “But she is odd.”
The sun climbed higher into the day and the air warmed considerably. The three of them continued On through the pass although now at a much slower pace. Mikhail had gotten far ahead of the short Goblin but after looking back he had decided to slow down so she could keep up. To be honest he hadn't expected a traveling partner quite this early and even more he hadn't expected it to be a female goblin who was actually attractive. It had not been his experience to see any goblins that looked nothing more than grotesque and diminutive creatures. A few of his village's night guards had told him of the goblins that lived in the hills near his village. There had been times that the goblins had come out during the day but it was a rare occurrence. And the ones that had come out during the day had been some of the ugliest things Mikhail had witnessed. But the one that walked beside him now and kept Eyeing Bakule wearily was for lack of a better word, beautiful. Even if she looked a bit gaunt and dirty.
As the two walked Mikhail had done his best to get her to speak. He asked her many questions such as where She was from, or did she have any parents. He asked if she had any brothers or sisters but each question was met with only a look that was difficult for him to read. He was starting to wonder if she could even speak at all. Ever since he had saved her the night before she hadn't said a word. Only sitting across from him around the campfire, ravenously eating the bread and cheese that he had given her. All the while watching him as if he was going to steal the food from her or maybe perform some violent act upon her. She was definitely a curious creature.
As they continued along, Mikhail wondered what he was going to do with her. It wasn’t expressly forbidden for him to have a traveling partner while on his pilgrimage but it was looked down upon, especially if you had one as early into his journey as he did. It would look cowardly to his people and cowardly was something that Mikhail was not. He mulled it over in silence for a time as Bakule’s hooves clacked against the stone beneath their feet, the scuffing sounds of Anora’s feet only breaking up the monotony. Beside them the walls of the pass stretched high above them, only giving them a view of the clouds and blue sky above to break things up. He marveled at the pass. The story of how it came to be was a grand tale. It was said that long ago the King of the Northern kingdom had chased a group of bandits out to this point from his seat of power in Greland. The bandits had kidnapped his wife and child during a celebration, planning to ransom them back to him for a large amount of gold and wealth. The bandits having lived in this particular region of the mountains reached them and began to hide amongst the caves. Soon the King had reached them with his army of ten thousand men. They soon set about finding his wife and daughter but after many weeks of searching the nooks and crannies of the mountains they found no sight of them. That was when, in frustration, the king had ordered his men to cut a pass through the mountain range. It had taken years, decades even and the king had not given up even through mutiny’s and other such challenges.
The bandits had given up on trying to get a ransom out of the king. They figured that he wasn’t going to give one. They released the king's wife and daughter into the untamed wilderness of the mountains. One day as the king and his men were reaching the end of the pass, the part that would grant them passage into the valley of Aldernhor they broke through the last bits of the stone wall. His men set out to explore the surrounding area with a few men going left and right along the mountain side. Not long after the king got word that his men had found something. He rushed to the spot that he had been called to.
Grief and pain shook him as he got off of his horse. In Front of him sat two skeletons leaning against the wall. They still wore the dresses that they had been wearing on the day that they had been taken, their hair clung to their heads and fluttered in the breeze as they had huddled together. The king was distraught as he realized that he would have never reached them in time. The king's men helped him gather the bodies and they returned them to Greland to be placed in the royal tombs. The King's men had named the pass Anora’s pass after the king's young daughter.
“What a terrible way to get a name.” Mikhail thought to himself. Then realizing that he had named the goblin woman after the pass may have doomed her. After a bit of panic he dismissed the thought as nonsense. He looked up as the sky had begun to grow dark. They should be reaching the end of the pass soon and with that the small town of Arendale where he would meet his uncle to receive instructions for his pilgrimage. It was not uncommon for the pilgrims to be directed by someone on the outside to somewhere where they could find employment in a trade that would benefit the village. Mikhail looked forward to it and hopefully he would be able to find a place for the goblin that walked beside him.