Perilous Jaunt Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Peter
The bitch stayed with us.
Esme came back with a wild turkey, which Dante and her nearly choked on as they laughed. A part of me did wish that she did choke on her breakfast. That way, she wouldn't have been able to say "hell yeah" when Dante asked if she wanted to join us.
After the turkey was gone and the fire was put out, we walked deeper into the forest. Dante and Esme strolled ahead of me while I followed closely behind, not wanting to give Dante the satisfaction of tugging on the rope around my hands. While we walked, I recalled Dante's words from earlier. Esme can be immature sometimes, but you can be a drunken slut who needs to shut up! The memory made my whiskers twitch in anger. Dante wasn't in any position to judge me. He dealt with cold-blooded killers like Pan and big-mouthed bitches like Esme. Did he not have a conscience or something? Pan was a complete psychopath and murdered several men without so much as a blink of an eye. Esme, on the other hand, was one of those people who think that they're hot shit and go through life without caring about anybody else but themselves. And yet, Dante laughed when he talked to Pan as Pan's men cleaned up the blood and burned the bodies of Capres' knights. Dante also didn't seem as though he could tell that Esme was a bitch, merely brushing her attitude off as immaturity. What a joke.
Dante was clearly just as bad as Pan and Esme, simply because he tolerated their behavior. Then again, all Dante cared about was his damn reward money, regardless of me not wanting to go back to my father. And he called me a slut? Please. He may have been selling himself out for a hundred thousand gold, but he was still selling himself nonetheless. A slut is one thing, but a whore is another. At least sluts have some dignity and don't try to get money for being who they are. Dante was in it for the money, which made him a whore. To make things worse, he was a whore with terrible friends like Esme.
Esme. How many people had she murdered? As many as Pan? More than Pan? Who knew? She certainly had killed before. Her eye patch and the scar underneath it were both signs that she had spilled her fair share of blood. Who had she murdered? Somebody's father? A child? Did she rob some poor merchant?
What about Dante? He had shown me that he was use to violence, too. He acted as though the three Talth that he killed were nothing more than weeds. I never once saw a look of pity in his eyes when he butchered them, or any other sign of regret. He was just like his friends. Pan and Esme where murderous lunatics, so why should Dante be any better?
Escaping was already difficult before when I was just with Dante. But, now that Esme was with us, running away would be impossible. Both of them could hunt me down like a pair of tamed dogs. Maybe we would stop at a tavern where Dante and Esme could get drunk. That would be the best chance I had to get away. With them passed out, I was sure that I could hide in another town before they caught up to me. But, that didn't seem likely to happen. Dante was too cautious to risk stopping at a tavern. My next option would have to be trying to get away when Esme and Dante were asleep. That wasn't a good plan either, considering that Dante tied up my hands and muzzle every night. Unless Dante made some kind of mistake while he tied me up before going to sleep, it didn't seem like I was going to escape anytime soon.
My heart sank as another thought had crossed my mind. Even if I did escape Dante soon, I would still be in Capres' Kingdom. Since Pan had burned the bodies of those knights, Capres probably had men trying to find them. I'm sure he even suspected that they were dead. After all, how do five knights just disappear? That meant that Capres might have patrols searching the forests around Tynas. Even if I did manage to escape Dante, those patrols definitely would be a problem for me.
So, I could either allow myself to be dragged back to my father, or escape -if I could- and risk running into Capres' men, who would torture me. Great.
_ _ After feeling like I walked a hundred fucking miles, we finally stopped for the night. Dante decided to go hunting for dinner, since Esme had gotten us breakfast earlier that morning. He tied my hands to a tree and set out to look for food, leaving me under Esme's watchful eye.
The kangaroo worked on the fire, using her knife and a flint to light sparks over the tiny lump of dead grass that she had put in the middle of circle of rocks. Quickly, the grass caught fire and Esme tossed in a few twigs. Then, once the twigs were burning too, the kangaroo put in two small logs.
Esme sat on the opposite side of the fire me, watching the sparks grow into a full blaze. Her legs were crossed as she sat just an inch away from the rock circle. She gazed down at the flames, hunching her body forward, just out of reach from the fire's scorching tongues. Then, she stared directly at me and remained silent. Her blue eye, which stared at me with no emotion, sparkled with the reflection of the fire inside it, making Esme seem more like a wild animal, rather than an civilized one.
I squirmed in my seat amongst the twigs and leaves around me, trying to get comfortable. Why was she looking at me like that? More importantly, what was she thinking about? It's true what they say. Nothing is more terrifying than the unknown.
"I know you hate me," Esme said, breaking the long drawn out silence.
Her words startled me, especially since she was able to read my emotions so easily. "What makes you say that?"
Esme resumed being silent again, only to speak a brief moment later. "When you've been on the road for as long as I have, you pick up on a few things,"
"Oh?" I asked, hardly interested. "Is that so?" Of course I don't like you. It's not a secret or anything, you bitch.
"Not that it was hard to figure out," Esme said. "You're easier to read than a book,"
I bared my teeth at her comment. "Have you even read a fucking book?"
The kangaroo smiled, probably because she was happy to see how easily she could get under my fur. "Yes, I have. I'm not much of a reader, not like Dante with that Comedy of his,"
"It's an epic poem, for you're information," I pointed out.
"Oh?" Esme said, smiling with a twitch of her ears. "That true?"
"Yeah," I said. "He told me so himself,"
Esme shrugged, uncaringly. "And? It still has pages and a cover, doesn't it? So, it's still a book,"
I glanced off into the dark forest behind her and leaned back against my tree. "Whatever,"
"What else did he tell you?" Esme wondered, her smile still lurking across her face. "He tell you how he and I met?"
"No," I mumbled. "He didn't mention it,"
"It's a funny story, really," Esme said, stretching out her legs with a groan and began her story. "He was just as helpless as a cub taken from its mother's tits. Christ, that was, what? Four years ago? Yeah, that's right. We met in a tavern that smelled like piss in Belar. He was this scrawny little boy.
"After he stuttered his order to the barmaid, I walked over to him and said we would both have some ale. Barmaid left and I offered to buy his drink for him. He seemed kinda surprised by that, like he hadn't been treated nicely in a long time.
"We got to talking and talked even more after a few rounds of drinks. I asked him where he was heading and where his family was. Then, he got all serious and said he didn't have a family and that he was just going to cross Owl's Overwatch the next day. I asked him if he knew how to fight and he showed me his sword. I told it was useless unless he knew how to use it. Once he told me he didn't know how to hunt either, I offered to teach him. Of course, he said yes.
"During the next couple of weeks, I taught him how to fight and hunt. I even bought him his bow and quiver. He paid me back, after we sold the pelts of what he killed.
"God, that feels like centuries ago,"
"What about his name?" I asked, looking back at Esme again. Maybe she could tell me if Dante was a prince or not, like I had suspected he was. If anybody knew his real name, it would be her.
Esme's ears twitched. "His name?"
"Yeah,"
Esme's grin seemed to double in size. "He never told me it. Almost did, but I stopped him. Told him that you have to use a fake name when you're traveling. Makes it harder to be found,"
"Harder to be found by who?"
The one-eyed kangaroo sighed. "Dante said that he was trying to get away from some people. Said he wanted to just leave all his problems behind, or some shit like that. Didn't surprise me, really. It's a common story for people like us who wander around Alpis,"
"Did he ever say more about his family or where he came from?" I flat out asked her, guessing that she wouldn't tell me otherwise.
Esme slowly shook her head. "No. But when he told me that he didn't have any family, back in the tavern, I saw that it was hard for him to talk about, like he had a deep cut that hurt to touch. I never asked him more about it. Wasn't any of my damn business. Not like it matters, though. Pasts can be forgiven and forgotten. Why do you ask?"
I shrugged. "I don't know a lot about him and he knows practically everything about me. It just feels kind of unfair,"
"You still dead-sure he's a prince?" Esme asked, a gleam of delight flickering in her eye.
My eyes widened and my tongue was paralyzed.
Esme laughed at my shock. "He told me you thought he was royal,"
"What?" I asked, my shock quickly turning into anger. "And you don't think he is?"
"No!" Esme said with a wide smile.
"Why not? He can read the Divine Comedy, his fucking vocabulary is huge and he has that gun!"
"The gun?" Esme asked. "He probably stole it from some high-and-mighty king that was taking a piss,"
"I doubt it," I scoffed at her dumbass explanation. "Did he have it when you first met him?"
"Yeah," Esme answered. "Doesn't mean he's in line for some throne. Maybe he did steal it from some royal and that's who he was trying to get away from,"
"Really?" I asked in disbelief. "A king's going to waste his time, trying to get his gun back? Why can't he just buy another one?"
Esme shrugged. "Guns are expensive,"
"So? Kings are rich!"
"And greedy,"
I glared at the kangaroo across the fire. "Are you trying to say something?"
"No. We were talking about kings, not princes," Esme pointed out.
"Oh," I said.
"You sure do run your mouth like a king, though," Esme said.
"Hey! I was just being a good listener and asking questions about your story! Why did you even start talking to me in the first place?"
"Because," Esme explained as her voice grew serious, "I'm not as much of a bitch as you think,"
Both of us grew quiet and remained that way until Dante returned with two dead wild geese, which we all shared for dinner. While we ate, Dante and Esme started talking and laughing like they had been earlier that morning. A part of me thought that Esme would bring up what we had talked about, so she and Dante could laugh at me.
She didn't.