Chapter 9

The sunrise reflecting off the river is almost as beautiful as Avril is when she wakes up and her hair is bedraggled. Roy has to stop himself from staring, and then he walks down to the river and refreshes his face.

"How long until we reach the mountains?" asks Avril, walking over to the river herself.

"Not long." Roy says, yawning and stretching. "We'll be there in a couple of hours."

"Good, then we have time. I believe it is my turn to make breakfast."

Both Roy and Briar turn towards Avril in mild surprise.

Seeing the looks she says, "What! I can make breakfast."

"Of course, Milady." Roy says with another smile in a long line of smiles.

It appears the spoiled princess is growing up and becoming a woman of the world. Though it is not a surprise to Roy, for Avril has done nothing but surprise and mesmerize him since she stopped annoying him. Of course, when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders it will make you grow up rather quickly.

After the breakfast of venison and travel bread, Roy starts washing the pan and then packing the supplies onto the packhorse. As Roy is doing that, Avril disappears into a nearby grove of trees and changes her clothes.

She comes out wearing a royal blue tartan near knee length skirt with royal blue leggings and a black short sleeve shirt. Roy is glad it is one of Avril's favorite style outfits, because not only does she look way adorable in them, but also it accentuates her form to goddess level. "How many of those outfits do you have, Avril?"

"I only brought the green and red tartans and the corresponding leggings and tops, but Princess Elizabeth gave me this outfit. What do you think?"

"I think, princess, anything will look amazing on you, especially that red silk gown from the party, but these outfits ... well..." Roy gives up on trying to find the correct adjective, and just whistles and shakes his head in appreciation. "I guess all I can say is thank you."

Avril giggles and shyly says, "Thank you, sir knight." She is really starting to like the attention from this man.

After several heart melting seconds of Avril looking up at Roy with her beautiful soft and warm blue eyes, Roy says, "I guess we should head out. It shouldn't take but three hours for us to get high enough to start finding dwarves, since we will need their assistance in finding the opening to the cave that will lead us deep into the bowels of the Brigand Mountains and to the Battle Axe of Destiny.

"Dwarves are such master craftsmen that you could sit near and look for an entrance into one of their caves for a lifetime and never see it. Have you ever met a dwarf?"

"The one time I visited the City of Wizards I was introduced to a dwarf wizard. He was nice, and looked very formidable."

"Aye, that they are. They may be only around four feet tall, but they are always stocky, and with their low center of gravity it is never a good idea to get drunk and wrestle one."

Avril giggles her divine giggle that is causing Roy to close his eyes and soak them into his very being, for he has fallen in love with them ... and her. What would the King of Montgomery think now?

"Please, sir knight, tell me the tale."

"Okay, Lady Avril, if it will please you then I shall embarrass myself for you. It was in Anvil, the capitol city of Montgomery, which of course you already know since we were just there. Anyway, about five years back, maybe a little more, Princess Elizabeth was throwing one of her famous balls and I was in-between one of my patrols so I attended it.

"All the leaders and scholars of Perennial were invited, and if you remember I told you I'm not really fond of large gatherings, so I soon got bored."

"I remember the invitation, but I had a coven ceremony to attend. Was the king there?"

"I believe he was."

"Darn it!" says Avril, not liking that every time she got it in her head to go visit her future husband something always came up. Such is the life of royalty and leaders.

"Well, as it turns out, the personal escort guards of the visiting dignitaries felt much the same as me, so as our polite conversations continued we amazingly kept getting further and further away from the party, until all of a sudden all fifteen of us found ourselves in a storage room with several kegs of mead, wine and whiskey."

"Several kegs!"

"Aye, Princess. Of course you remember mead?"

The princess goes a little green around the gills as she nods her head in confirmation of the memory.

"Anyway, to make a long story short, somehow all of us ended up out in the courtyard trying to prove a warrior's worth. At first it was the bow, but after several innocent bystanders had years scared off their lives, we went to throwing knives. It didn't take long for the royal guard to come along and disarm us so as to protect the gathering civilians who were watching on with growing interest and humor.

"Well, after they took all our lethal weapons away we started wrestling. Eventually it came my turn to wrestle. The only other person still standing was Brockow, a great and fierce dwarf warrior. It did not take Brockow long before he bested me and sent me flying numerous times. Eventually we couldn't fight anymore because we were all laughing so hard and were so drunk that we couldn't stand.

"Though I cannot see Brockow today without hearing about it, but I just remind him that before I wrestled with him one of the house maids had also bested me, so it was her fault that I was broken."

Avril laughs her musical laughter and they continue talking so intently that before they know it the trees are getting thicker and they are trekking up a pretty steep slope.

Avril continues, "I was thirteen when my father took me hunting. I wanted to make him proud of me so I went, but I kept using my magic to chase the animals away so I would not have to see any get killed."

"Princess, the deer has his destiny to fulfill, too."

"I do understand that now, and I wish I would have learned to hunt just in case a situation arises that it might be needed."

"Soon we will be down to only travel bread, and I already plan on hunting another deer. If it would please you, Avril, we will hunt this one together."

"I do not know if please me is the right phrase, but I understand what you are saying and I would be most appreciative. After all, self-reliance is the key to survival."

"Aye, that it is, Princess, and..." just as Roy is about to go on they hear metal on metal and yelling come from further up on the winding trail they are on.

Roy turns to Avril and nods his head. They both draw their swords and advance with caution. They come around a bend that is hidden by a rock outcropping, and just ahead of them on the trail they see seven brigands attacking two dwarves.

Roy kicks his horse into action and yells out, "By the laws of Montgomery and the continent of Zebrina, you are commanded to stop at once."

Of course the criminals look at him like he is a fool, and the fact that he has a pretty girl hot on his hip doesn't change their view. That is not until Roy and Avril plow their horses right into the group, and in the process they each run a man through.

In the moment of hesitation the dwarves renew their attack and kill two more of the brigands, before the brigands realize they no longer have the upper hand and ride off at top speed deep into the mountainous woods.

As Roy is introducing himself to the dwarves, Roy looks back and sees Avril looking at the blood on her sword that is now running down onto her hand. Roy rides over with compassion in his eyes and gently takes Avril's sword from her and washes it off from one of his many water flasks and then wipes it down with a cloth. Roy then reaches over and takes Avril's hand and rinses it off also, and with another cloth wipes her hand.

Avril is gazing up at him from atop her brown mare, not saying anything. "You handled yourself well, Avril. I am proud of you." But then Avril's eyes fill with tears. "Is this the first life you have taken?"

She nods her head slowly yes while staring down at the blood on her hand that can no longer be seen, at least not by the light's rays, and at the body lying on the ground in its own unique pose of death. "It is never an easy thing to take a life, and I am sorry to say it will change you, but fear not, princess, we did not ask for this, and you must remind yourself of that always."

Roy then starts stroking Avril's long straight brunette hair, which when he sees she comes to grips with it goes blonde for a second from his tender ministrations, and then she takes a big deep breath and then sighs profoundly and turns to him and says, "Yes, thank you, Roy. Thank you so much for everything."