Page 103 of I Ran Away to Evil 2
We weren’t walking for longer than thirty minutes when we came upon an ornate carriage and five elves calling out for Earl Oakley on the road.
“I’m here, you fools!” the earl shouted, then seemed surprised that his voice had returned at all. “Now, come beg me for forgiveness so I don’t cast you out! Do you know that I was ogre-napped while you were dillydallying and twiddling your thumbs over a water break? Useless!”
“Should I [Silence] him again?” Slake stretched, his back arching while his claws dug into Bronwynn’s shoulders. The bard didn’t seem to mind.
I almost told himyesbefore I remembered that I was an official diplomat of Nilheim and the commander general of the Dark Horde, and maybe I shouldn’tbe endorsing magic upon a fellow diplomat. At the same time, Madame Potts herself had warned the Sumbrian royals about their behavior while traveling internationally, and this one had let her words fall on deaf ears.
“Now, as thank you for rescuing me,” Earl Oakley was done being a menace to his servants and turned back to us. “I won’t summon the Dark Horde and have them take you away for disrespecting a royal. Now, begone.”
“Are you going to tell him?” Slake asked curiously.
I shook my head, smiling. “He’ll find out the hard way. I’m looking forward to bringing it up in Peldeep. In polite company.”
Slake smiled a vicious grin. “Excellent.”
Bronwynn was distracted again; I’d guess she was trying to relay messages to Donna. She got a specific look when she was trying to communicate with her horse, as dazed as when someone was reading over a character sheet but without the slight back and forth eye movement that came with reading.
Sure enough, shortly after Earl Oakley’s group set off, Donna came trotting up the Great Road.
We all climbed aboard the wagon but didn’t take off right away, letting the earl get a good head start. Donna took the time to eat the heads off a bunch of flowers on the roadside, and Bronwynn rummaged in the back of the wagon to refill her waterskin from a barrel. I sat there contemplating life while Slake curled up, closing his eyes for a nice nap.
Bronwynn eventually lifted the reins in a mock flick and declared, “Alright, everyone. Next stop, Peldeep!”
CHAPTER 62
Who Would Even Do That?
Brownie
The edge of the Dark Enchanted Forest was an obvious thing. The trees thinned out, and brambles scattered in trailing thickets over fallen boughs and old leaves of seasons past. The forest floor was more brown, the sprigs and twigs and vines weaker … and all over, the lack of dense magic left everything slightly less colored.
Rufus let out a breath of pure relief, like a load had fallen off his shoulders and he could finally relax. His smile got brighter, and his entire demeanor relaxed.
“Oh, look.” Brownie pointed into the forest off to the south where a giant bunny golem stood with its nose pointed to the sky and its ears taller than the tree line. “The border guard.”
Rufus waved at the golem, who didn’t pay them any mind. “That’s Fiddles. He was one of the Dark Lord’s first large automata. Keith quickly realized it cost much less mana if he made his creations closer to their natural form’s size. They also didn’t blow up as often.”
Brownie admired the rabbit, who had one ear flopped forward and the other pointed up. “Bye, Fiddles!”
That got the golem’s attention, and its nose twitched. One beady glass eye swept over them, but never stopped searching for intruders.
They weren’t its target.
“Fiddles probably wouldn’t want pets,” she murmured absentmindedly.
Slake’s tail flicked onto her lap from where he lay on the bench between her and the beastman she was traveling with. “Pet me instead.”
She obliged, and Donna successfully pulled their wagon out of Nilheim and onto a winding road that led through craggy cut paths and steep hills with groves of errant plum trees. The plum blossoms had fallen recently, and the cliffs were covered in the flowers while the trees showed the first signs of setting fruit.
It was now or never, really. And she wasn’t going tonottell him in some weird, vain hope that he just wouldn’t find out her secret while meeting her family.
Who would even do that?
That sounded like a full-blown panic attack that ate away at her soul. Brownie wasn’t the quiet type, and she wasn’t going to start now.
“Rufus, there is something I need to tell you,” she started. Straight and to the point. There were butterflies in her stomach as she considered her words.
He turned on the bench to face her, careful his knee didn’t bump the grimalcat she was still petting.
