Random Story About Jake and Elinore
I heard a snort of laughter. And then a halt to the sound of pounding hooves I hadn't realized I had been hearing until it ceased. My head turned to the right and I saw the stranger on horseback staring back at me (so that explained the new pain in my back and tongue) and Elinore who watched me with an amused smirk.
"So quick to blame me," she murmured, eyebrows raised eloquently.
I ignored her. "Who are you?" I asked the man.
"Where did you come from?" he retorted, his eyes narrowing.
"Long story. Sorry I got in your horse's way," I muttered dryly. "Though I wouldn't have argued much if she--" I indicated my red-haired companion "--had taken the hit for me. Then she wouldn't look quite so amused."
Elinore's smirk just widened.
"Look, I don't have time for this," the man snapped. "Just be careful where you're going." He grimaced then wheeled his horse around.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" I called after him.
"If some men come this way, tell them you've seen nothing," he answered, answering nothing at all.
"How will we explain the horse's tracks?" Elinore demanded.
"You being chased by someone?" I asked. "Just send your horse ahead and you start walking on foot. We could follow you and, if the horse's tracks don't throw them off, you could split off from us. Then we'd tell them the footprints were ours."
He slowed his horse and turned to stare at us, considering. "How do I know I can trust you? And, besides, I can't afford to lose my mount."
I shrugged. "Up to you, my friend, but I wouldn't be so quick to turn my nose up at assistance offered from an Eleventh Level Swordsman and a Lightning A'khin Warrior."
His wide-eyed stare was now accompanied by a dumbly hanging jaw. "You must be Jakob Fall and Elinore Harking, then; there were rumors that you were traveling together."
Elinore grumbled something -- probably profane -- under her breath.
I shrugged. "We have been for a long time." Elinore's growl increased in volume. I continued to ignore her.
The man, in light of this new revelation, shifted tactics entirely. "Bodyguards," he snapped. "I have enough gold, just follow me." And, with that, he took off at a checked gallop.
"Kahrin," I muttered, "I wasn't really planning on running ten miles today." Course I hadn't been planning on popping to some unknown location and getting mowed down by a horseman, either. I took off after him and Elinore, still scowling, followed.
* * *
"Okay, look," I panted. "We're not going to be much use as bodyguards if we're bent double, gasping for breath."
My highly accommodating new boss, whose name I still didn't know, glanced back at our red faces and stumbling legs and slowed his horse to a walk. I gave a sigh of relief. Elinore tried to hide hers, but I knew she was grateful for the break. Or at least her legs were.
"Who's chasing you?" Elinore asked, wiping the sweat from her brow. After a moment of silence from him, she tried again. "How long have you been chased?"
"A week or so," he answered. I studied him. He was as tall as I (taller, I might grudgingly admit, but he was on horseback so it was impossible to tell) with short cut blond hair and light brown eyes. Probably in his mid-twenties. Muscular, strong-jawed, tanned, deep-voiced -- the kind of man many women find excuses to hang all over. Luckily for me, Elinore did not play much attention to good lucks -- or at least not to mine. Though I don't know why she wouldn't since I have them in abundance. Not that I'm immodest, I'm just parroting what other women have told me.
I digress. So in any case, Elinore was just now recovering her breath (as was I) so she had not yet found time for such scrutiny of our emplyer. For which I was quite glad.