Chapter 4. The night forest

The wind ruffled Richard's hair. He ran without stopping. His head cleared up a little, before the words of his father and Aunt Aurora echoed in it, but it's still impossible to stop thinking about what he heard.

"I don't believe Uncle Eric did this!" he kept saying. "It's just that my dad never liked him. No, I don't believe in it... After all, he promised me! Promised! What's going on?"

The young man stopped and looked around. It turns out that he ran a very long distance. A forest path wound in front of him.

The trees spread their crooked branches like clawed paws. When the wind touched them, they moaned and creaked, swaying from side to side as if alive.

The buds on the trees were just beginning to swell, but the herbs woke up much earlier. In the darkness, a small green growth seemed blue-purple, becoming the usual color only when the light of the lantern snatched it out of this illusion.

Richard stepped on last year's leaves, which were soaked from rain and fog, slurping under his boots. He knew all the glades and paths here well, he had been here more often than not. The forest began somewhere in the Dridvinn Mountains and descended the slopes into the valley. However, it becomes noticeably smaller here.

The evening turned out to be cloudless, one might say quite bright, and the young herb collector immediately found the grass he needed, which bore the name of Crow's Eye. It grew not far from a fallen tree. But his search did not end there; he still needed to collect other plants. After cutting off the young stems with a knife, the healer's disciple moved on, listening to all the sounds.

He walked slowly through the forest, looking at his feet all the time.

When it got dark, Richard decided to take a break in a small clearing near the river. The guy lit a fire and settled down for the night, deciding not to go to the hut that he and his sister had built in the forest.

Today he was lucky, he easily found everything he needed. He could have gone home, that's what he would have done, but he wanted to be alone.

The guy was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a warm wool blanket. Drowsiness seized him, he yawned and closed his eyes.

But then there was a crunch, which sounded like a thunderclap in the stillness. Richard jumped up and put an arrow into the bow.

And then he saw a girl in a white cape, her golden curls cascading down her shoulders. She appeared out of the darkness like a ghost. Richard lowered his weapon. When their gazes met, the girl whispered something before collapsing to the ground.

The young man rushed to her and shuddered when he knelt next to her—there was no living place on the girl's body. She's all wounded!

Richard saw numerous bruises, cuts, and wounds, some of them quite fresh.

The emaciated body was enveloped in clothes made of light, almost weightless fabric; it was all torn and covered with spots of dried blood. On her belt hung a sword in a beautiful scabbard.

He picked up the stranger and carried her to his small camp, feeling a faint pulse of life in her.

"What happened to her?" the young man asked himself. "It looks like she's come a long and dangerous way. Where else could she have hurt herself like that?"

He put the girl on the blanket and covered her with its other half. He took out a wineskin, moistened the cloth with water, and treated the fresh wounds. The young healer touched the girl's hot forehead with his palm, a little embarrassed. Richard had never seen anyone more beautiful. She had a slender, flexible body and a beautiful face framed by a light stream of hair.

"Is death ready to take her too?" a terrible thought flashed through his mind. The guy was overcome with despair. Bertleben was too far away, he would not have been able to carry the girl to the town, and his house is even further away.

"No! Not today!" Richard shouted out loud, feeling the awakening of a certain force. He is ready to engage in a battle with death to free the girl from her icy embrace. "She must live. I won't let her die! It's not for nothing that I studied with Ilda?"

The young man threw firewood on the fire, took out a small pot from his bag, splashed water into it, and began to prepare a healing brew from herbs collected for Ilda, knowing that he had no right to make a mistake.

Soon the broth boiled. Richard diluted it with cold water, light steam with the aroma of herbs swirled over the pot. Ilda forbade doing this, but now there is simply no time to let the brew cool down naturally.

He lifted the girl and poured a few sips of the drug potion into her mouth, and then began to treat her wounds.

He gave the girl a prepared decoction every half-hour. She felt a little better, and the fever was subsiding. He hugged her, hugging her to keep himself warm and not let her freeze.

Tired, excited, but satisfied, Richard slipped into a restless sleep.