17 Field of Stone

  Sara opened her eyes and found that the sun had risen. She got to her feet and looked around. She didn’t see any clear signs that anything had been nearby during the night. She took a drink from one of the two water skins she carried and moved deeper into the forest, heading towards the cliff, planning that once she found it, she could then turn towards the field of stone.

  It didn’t take her long before she found the cliff wall and began moving towards the field of stone. This time, she was looking more carefully for signs that animals had traveled this way. Now that she knew more about what to look for, she saw signs that animals had travelled this way.

  As she walked, she grabbed a couple of pieces of fruit and threw them into her bag. The fruit wasn’t ripe, but they were edible.

  She noted where some edible tubers might be, planning to come back later and dig them up.

  Getting in sight of the field of stone, Sara spotted an animal sign on the ground.

  “Deer track,” Sara said as she reached down to move the grass to confirm what she expected. It did, and she continued, and since it's headed in this direction, there has to be something it wants this way, she told herself. A smile crossed Sara's face as she assumed it was water. There wouldn’t be any food for deer among the stones. She wasn’t going to say there was water, but she knew there would be, and this realization caused her to stop and laugh.

  “When did I start having instincts about this stuff?” She said, waving her hands around at the world around her. She shook her head and continued walking.

  “If I find water, then I’ll admit I have instincts.”

  Sara walked just a hundred feet into the field of stone and found it. A small pond fed from a trickle just a couple of feet up from the cliff base, and running into the pond.

  Sara walked over to the pond and found more tracks. The deer came here to drink, so Sara could assume the water was probably safe to drink. She walked over to where the trickle of water came from the stone and got a bit in her hand and raised it to her mouth. After smelling it, she reached out with her tongue and tasted.

  Sara sighed. “Good, I have water.” Then she took a large drink and then filled her water skin. The waterskin wasn’t half empty, but she had learned from dealing with Draco that she could not assume that nothing would change. The water would be available later, but she might not get here.

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  Sara looked around and saw, further down the cliff wall, some signs that there might be a ledge that could serve as a shelter. Sara smiled, but once again didn’t want to trust that her new instincts were correct. However, after walking further down, she found that they were better than she had hoped. There wasn’t just a ledge but a small cave that went in about ten feet. There were no signs that any animals were or had ever lived there.

  “It’s not home, but it will do,” stopping to realize she was thinking of the farm in the valley when she said home and not the castle. She pushed the thought out of her mind and began to prepare the place to be her dwelling for the next week.

  The one benefit of being in the valley was other than Draco, there were no large and dangerous animals to worry about. Sara didn’t have to worry about a bear coming in and taking over, but there were other animals that she needed to be concerned about. Things as simple as mice could be more dangerous than a snake when trying to survive. Sara, therefore, considered carefully what she wanted to leave. The little bit of food she grabbed and her waterskins, she took, knowing that they might attract something that, though not dangerous to her personally, might destroy her supplies. Finally, she decided to leave her staff, the small pot she brought with the fire-start box, along with some utensils that wouldn’t be needed.

  Sara walked out of the cave and looked around. She wanted to go further down the cliff wall, but dismissed it. She had to survive first and explore second. She had a good feeling.

  I’m going to do just fine this week, she told herself, but as if to give a pretense of evil, a cloud passed over the sun, and the cave behind her filled with darkness.

  “Firewood and food,” Sara said, staring up with a frown at the cloud that had dared cast a shadow over her hopes.

  Sara dropped her eyes to the ground and began walking back towards the forest. As she passed the pond, she looked down and saw something she hadn’t noticed before: a footprint. The sight both excited and terrified her. If there were another person in the valley, they might know how to get out. However, though Sara might have grown up sheltered from some of the realities of life, she was taught that there were dangerous people in the world. A person willing to climb into a valley with a giant wasn’t likely to be friendly.

  Sara turned and returned to the cave and found that her pot and staff were there, but everything else she had left was gone. Grabbing her staff, she ran out of the cave, and she looked around. It was then that Sara saw a person limping off in the opposite direction she had come, a little more than two hundred feet away. Sara assumed it was a man and he was carrying off her stuff.

  Sara moved in that direction and shouted, “Hey, that’s my stuff.”

  The man turned around, and the smile on the man’s face told her all she needed to know.

  The man turned, dropped the stuff, and drew out a knife. “Oh, oh, oh,” the man laughed out, but not in a way that made Sara feel like she should be happy. The man was bearded, and his clothes looked like he had been living in them for some time.

  “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve seen since falling into the dragon’s accursed valley. We ought to get to know each other.”

  The gestures the man made caused Sara’s skin to crawl as he limped toward her. Sara didn’t know how the man got here but she knew there was only one choice; she had to fight.