A journey begins - part 4

Part 4.

Her mind was still full of the images that she had just seen, who was he ?, who
were those that attacked him. And had their eyes met as he fell over her ? Was
this all a coincidence or did it bring meaning. The sun stood high on the sky,
yet it was not so warm so that it could be the cause of this. Neither could she
find any reason that it could be a side effect of the berries. She had already
forgotten the name she had given them. It was all so strange to her that she had
forgotten about her journey, what her goal was. Now she just walked on the path
while staring into the ground and touching the amulet that now rested around her
neck.

She tried to rewind the happenings in her head as she walked and walked. Yet she
could not find a meaning from it. She could barley remember the face of the man,
yet she knew that she had seen his face so clearly when he fell.

“Ouch” she said and had to sit down. All the thoughts had been a bit too much,
her head hurt a bit. A zip from the water bottle cured that and she got ready to
continue. She was back, she reminded herself about why she was here in the first
place and she was now to continue that.

She decided that the forest was to be left for now, it seemed to be exciting and
interesting, but before she entered it she would like to know more about the
surroundings here. Who knows where she would end up once she entered the forest
? So then she started to follow the meadow a bit, perhaps she could find a nice
place to rest for the night. She gave the hill with the rock a quick look and
made it a landmark to return to if needed. Then she turned around and walked
towards the mountains that was far away. She made a quick train in her mind on
where she wanted to walk to be able to see the most before she came too close to
the mountains and had to turn back. After some time she noticed that there was a
small streak of smoke that emanated from behind a hill, she was still on the
meadow, or at it’s outskirts. She thought that she might be able to finally meet
someone now, that would be fun. Perhaps even find someone to share the journey
with.

As she got closer she heard some voices, still too far off for her to clearly
hear what they said. But they went silent right after she had heard them. She
did not mind, now she had two good signs telling her that there finally was
someone else then her around. As she reached the top of th hill she saw a small
camp, one made by those that travels, what luck that she had bumped into them at
this point. There were not many in this traveling gang, only four of them what
she could see as the moved closer to the camp. They had not seen her yet as it
seemed as they were busy with assembling the camp back into traveling state. But
after a minute one of them glanced in her direction and noticed her. She was
small and thus moved with ease and silently so he was quite surprised that
someone had gotten that close without they noticing.

“Grahm, fna dagenmno” He said and pointed at her. What was it he said she
thought to herself, she was close enough to hear him well but still she did not
understand him. What happened next clarified the situation for her. She waved to
them in a friendly manner to show that she wanted not harm.

They quickly responded to her gesture and a whining sound confirmed that a spear
was coming her way. She dodged it and it steadily stuck in the ground. She
reacted instinctual and fast as she turned around and then ran as fast as her
legs could ever carry her. Great, when she finally meets another living being
here they starts to hunt her. What had she done to them, and why. There was no
time to find out now, only time for survival and she ran and ran. A look
backwards told her that they still were following, three of them to be exact,
the last one was most likely still back at the camp. She had managed to lay some
distance between her and them and she started to look around to see if she could
find some place to hide and hopefully loose them off her track.

She noticed that there were a small gathering of trees a few hundred meters away
and she set towards them while trying to increase her speed further. The trees
grew larger and larger in her sight and the voices of her followers became
quieter and quieter, yet still they were there. As she got close she found that
the trees had extensive roots and perhaps she could find shelter there. She
looked around and found a place where she hopefully could crawl in and hide, but
as she set off for it the ground under her foot gave in and she was stuck
between two large roots under a tree.

“No, this cannot be happening, not now.” She thought as her mind started to
panic and the voiced became louder once more.

She fell backwards towards the tree and sat there, heavily breathing and tried
to calm both her mind and her breath so that they would hopefully not see her.
She pressed herself towards the tree, but still she was much in the open. Was
this the end ? Should it be that two roots where the cause of the loss of her
life, would her journey end here because of this. She closed her eyes and
pressed herself as much as she could against the tree as the voices were just
behind her, she held her breath and wished for nothing more then to disappear.

The voices were now right next to her, she could tell that they were just a few
meters away. Then she heard the footsteps of one of them as they came closer.
She could feel that he now stood just in front of her, he must see her now. If
this was the end she would at least see the one claiming her life and she opened
her eyes.
She was surprised to see that indeed he stood there in front of her, his back
turned towards here while he spied around looking for her. But why ?

“Dafn nimod kathra ?” Another one said as he came closer.

“Dimr fna, cletch” The one in front of her said as he walked to the others and
they started to move in the direction that led back to the camp.

She held her breath until she believed that they were far away not to hear her,
it felt like hours to her.
But why had they not seen her ? They had both been standing in front of her,
they must have noticed.

The sky became darker as day shifted to evening. It was then she noticed that
the amulet she had around her neck gave off a small shining light. She struggled
a bit and could finally get her foot loose from the roots and she dared to peek
after her hunters. They were well far off now. Then she noticed that also the
shining from the amulet faded. Did it tell her that she was safe ? And was it
the amulet that had kept her safe from them, had it made her invisible as she
had wished for?.

And where was she ?

She got up and moved away from the trees carefully not going in the direction
from where she had come from. That way was not one that she would walk for some
time now when she knew that they were around there.
And the night started to make itself noticed and now she had to find herself
someplace to rest for the night. Somewhere safe. So she picked a direction by
guess and walked that way. She had to find somewhere to lie down and rest so she
had to move somewhere.

After some walking across meadows and a small lake she could see a shape in the
far distance.
It was the shape of a hill, and on top of the hill there was a rock..