It was indeed an uncomfortable night for Dawn. She had fled deep into the rock formations in the area surrounding the Kharlin village and had hidden in a crevice high up on the rock. Her own experience with the demons had taught her, that people rarely looked up when they were checking their surroundings.

At first, Dawn stayed in stealth as much as possible and sat huddled against the rock. When her stamina ran low, she deactivated it for a few minutes and then reactivated the skill as soon as she had recharged.

She heard horses riding through below her twice during the night. Let them search for her, she thought with fierce determination. With her stealth activated, in this terrain and during the night, they would never find her. What the day would bring remained to be seen. She could not afford to be too complacent. Who knew what kind of skills Aaron’s soldiers possessed. There could easily be somebody with tracking skills among their number.

In spite of her fatigue after a long day of riding and playing hide and seek with the soldiers halfway through the night, she still felt elated and giddy. The days under the influence of Aaron’s insidious charm had been a kind of torture.

The next day dawned bright and clear. Dawn wasn’t sure what to do now. Had Aaron given up the search for her? She doubted that was the case. He had put a lot of effort into her abduction and seemed to be fanatical in his belief that he would be rich and famous if he could get his greedy hands on the library of Raknavor. It was strange, compared to her he already was staggeringly rich and yet he wanted more. And it didn’t matter to him in the least whom he hurt in the process of acquiring more riches. She wondered what her fate would have been once he had discovered the library and didn’t need her anymore. Better not to think about it.

Dawn contemplated to leave her hide-out to go to the creek. She was thirsty and tired. A bit of cold water would have felt like a slice of heaven now. It was too bad that she couldn’t see what Aaron and his men were doing. She felt comparatively safe in her crevice high up in the rocks. But she couldn’t stay here for long. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been prepared for a sojourn in the wilderness. Her storage ring contained books, weapons and clothes among other things, but no water and practically no food.

‘It’s too bad my abductors didn’t let me in on the plan before they snatched me away. I could have prepared better.’ She thought wryly.

She kept her eyes and ears open, on the lookout for any sign of the soldiers. Finally, bored, and unsure about her next actions, she picked up a small piece of rock and began to scratch out the rune Gheira onto the rocky floor before her feet. According to her book on runic magic, it was the symbol for transformation and exchange. It took her a while to finish the rune. Then she sat and stared at the symbol. How could she activate the rune? Rubbing her nose, she set a piece of rock on top of it. The demon queen had used the blood of the Kharlins to activate her circle of runes. Not an option for her. But one time, Dawn remembered, she had used her own blood.

“Well, here goes nothing.” Dawn whispered, took out her knife and cut her palm. She let several drops of her blood fall onto the rune and willed it to activate. ‘Gheira. I want that rock to change to water.’ She chanted in her head.

Nothing happened. She waited for a minute, but there was no change. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.

Frustrated, she grabbed the rock to throw it away. But as soon as her palm touched the rock, a brilliant glow lit up the rune and the only thing left in her hand was a small trickle of water. Stunned and amazed, Dawn stared at her hand. ‘It worked! It really worked!’ was the only thought in her head.

A moment later, fatigue fell down on her like a leaden blanket. She had already been tired before she started to experiment with the magic, and now she found it almost impossible to keep awake. Her mana pool was almost empty, she saw and her stamina had gone down, too. In spite of the dangers of her situation, with soldiers probably searching for her to bring her back to Aaron and demons almost surely hunting in the vicinity, she closed her eyes. She would just rest her eyes for a moment, she thought.

When Dawn blinked awake again, she registered the shadows had already lengthened between the rock formations, signaling the time of day as late afternoon. She rubbed her eyes, still tired and listened for a moment. Everything seemed quiet, only a few birds were chirping.

‘Well, that was remarkably unintelligent.’ She thought, shaking her head at herself. Experimenting with unknown magic while trying to stay hidden from her abductors. What on earth had she been thinking? She was extremely lucky the only result had been fatigue.

Dawn decided that she would wait for nightfall and risk a trip to the creek in the darkness. She needed water, and she couldn’t stay in this crevice for all eternity. She would give the campsite she had fled from a wide berth. Surely the soldiers weren’t still spread out searching for her.

And if she should encounter a single one, she rather doubted he would be lightning-proof. She was certainly willing to test it, if it came to that.

When she finally climbed out of the crevice in the darkness, her limbs felt stiff from sitting still for such a long time and started to cramp. Cursing silently, Dawn cast Nurture on herself and climbed down very slowly and carefully, trying to avoid making any noise. Down on the ground, it took her a while to orient herself. She started in the direction of the creek, always listening for any sounds other than those from the crickets and the nocturnal birds.

Reaching the creek, she approached it cautiously, feeling like a wild animal making sure that no hunters were lying in wait. The water was a blessing for her parched throat and she drank greedily. When she started to straighten herself again, she looked directly into a pair of yellow eyes that watched her silently from the other side of the creek. For a moment she was alarmed, then she felt a familiar feeling linked with a sense of impatience and happiness inundated her. She wasn’t alone anymore. Ankou had found her.

The lynx bounded over the creek to her side and nudged her with his head, purring loudly. Dawn sank to her knees, embracing him fiercely and hiding her face in his soft fur. Finally, she disengaged herself from the cat, who had been patiently waiting for her to pull herself together. “I’m so glad you found me, Ankou. I missed you.” She whispered. “There are some soldiers around, they mustn’t find us.” She told him earnestly, still keeping her voice down.

The lynx flicked his ears contemptuously, easily expressing his disdain for the thought of someone finding him when he didn’t want to be found. Dawn had to grin. It was good to have her companion back. Ankou had certainly enough self-confidence for the two of them.

“Do you think you can scout the area and see where the soldiers are at the moment?” she asked him. “I’m a bit scared to do it myself, their boss has an awful skill that can take over my mind.” She shuddered a bit in remembrance.

Ankou sent her an encouraging thought. It came to her as a picture of a grown lynx defending his cub. Something in her relaxed. As a team, they could run rings around Aaron and his men at arms.

The grey cat disappeared in the shrubbery, clearly intent on finding their enemies. Dawn veered away from the creek, deeper into the forest, taking care to move as noiselessly as humanly possible. It was a pity, she hadn’t Ankou’s talent for moving silently, she thought regretfully. Her stealth skill certainly could be a life saver, but sadly, she couldn’t keep it up all the time without running out of stamina.

Maybe she should invest some stat points in endurance when she next leveled up. Well, that would still take a while. It took more and more experience now, and barring another successful bout with a whole batch of demons, she didn’t know how to get that much in a short time.

She finally found a place to wait for Ankou below a huge birch tree. The branches went down almost to the ground and she sat down with her back to the trunk and felt reasonably safe with Shadow Play activated. It didn’t take long for Ankou to return. He found her unerringly, despite her stealth skill. Once again a picture unfolded in her head. The campsite she had fled from, with most soldiers sleeping and two people still awake.

So, Aaron was still at the campsite.

She turned to Ankou. “We need a place to stay for the night, the farther away from these men the better. I’m very tired Ankou, I need to sleep.”

The lynx looked at her and turned away. She followed him for perhaps twenty minutes, until they arrived at a little hollow in the ground, bordered by several trees that had grown close together, their branches and leaves building a canopy overhead. Dawn enterde the hollow thankfully, took her bedroll out of her storage ring and laid down. The last thing she saw as she closed her eyes, was Ankou sitting next to her alertly, ears pricked up. He was guarding her sleep.