“Rinda?” a shrill voice called out. “Rinda!”
The boy had meant to whisper but his voice rang out clear and loud, echoing through the vast grim silence of the forest.
“Shh! Be quiet!” came a young girl’s sharp reply from the foliage nearby. Remus stuck out his lower lip in a pout, but the unseen Rinda was far from finished with him.
“Really! Is that cotton you’ve got between your ears? Have you forgotten where we are?”
“But—” her brother began.
“The Roodwood!” her voice came again, cutting him off.“In the lands of the tyrant king of Gohra!”
“But Rinda,” he continued, slowly craning his neck out of the bushes to look around,“I thought you’d gone and left me.”
“It’s all right anyway. I think those riders have left.” Rinda’s head slowly emerged from the bushes a short distance away. She checked to make sure the horsemen really had gone past them without her brother’s unfortunate display catching their attention. Finding that all was quiet around them, she slowly began the difficult and painful process of extricating herself from the shrubbery.
The bushes were those of the vasya, known for its delectable fruit and for the uninviting thorns that bristled from its leaves and even from its fruit. Rinda took the utmost care in pushing them aside, stretching out her slender white arms to hold down the thorny stalks as she wormed her way out of her hiding place. First her shining platinum blonde hair, then her slender, bare shoulders, then her delicate undeveloped torso, and finally, her legs, long and slim like a boy’s in tall leather boots, emerged from the thorny hiding place where they had spent most of a day and a night.
“Ah! There isn’t a bit of me that isn’t positively prickling with pain.” She shook herself and began to stretch her cramped limbs, but a little cry from her brother interrupted her long-awaited exercise.
She ran over to find that he was having considerably more difficulty than she had in extracting himself from his uncomfortable nest. He was fighting a losing battle against the thorn-covered leaves and stalks that caught on the soft skin of his hands and legs, leaving cruel trails wherever they touched.
“Can you do nothing right? The way you’re thrashing about, you’d think you wanted to cover yourself with scratches.” Rinda showed no restraint in her criticism as she helped him to his feet and deftly plucked out the vasya twigs tangled in the boy’s platinum blond hair.
Standing there, their hands joined, the two looked amazingly alike—which was not surprising, since they were twins. There in the shadowy undergrowth of the forest, they shone like two perfect pearls, with their matched leather jerkins and leather boots, and their silver short swords hanging from their belts. They had the same braided platinum blond hair, the same beautiful face—Rinda’s intent and spirited, her brother’s innocent and carefree—and the same mischievous violet eyes. They were like two sylvan spirits; so beautiful, it was a shame no one was there to see them.
The twins themselves, however, could not care less about appearances at the moment. Indeed, they were perfectly happy not to be seen.
Remus rubbed his hands and legs where the thorns had left him with more scratches than skin. As soon as he was on his feet, he began whining.
“Rinda, what do we do now? I’m starving!”
Rinda turned her attention to the gear at her waist. Next to the short sword, a soft leather satchel hung on her thick leather belt. But even after a careful scrutiny of its contents, she could find nothing that seemed useful in their current situation.
“Well, I didn’t think of bringing any traveling food. With everything that was going on, it’s a miracle I brought anything at all.”
‘So let’s hunt—perhaps we can catch something to eat.”
“I think not,” said Rinda. “We haven’t come to the Roodwood for a summer picnic, Remus. How many times must I tell you? We can’t be running about chasing after animals. You know what would happen should someone from Stafolos Keep discover us? Even if we did catch something, we wouldn’t be able to light a fire to cook it. You’re welcome to eat raw taulos innards if you wish, but I’ll pass, thank you very much.”
“But… I’m so hungry I could faint.”
“You’re not the only one, you—” Rinda seemed on the verge of another scathing critique, but she suddenly broke off and looked around. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Hoofbeats! The riders are coming back!” Rinda shushed her brother before he could protest and dived back into the vasya thicket, heedless now of the clinging thorns. Though any who beheld her would have seen the promise of a dazzlingly beautiful woman—a few years were all that she lacked—she was not yet of an age to worry about her beauty or about preserving the rare softness of her skin.
“Remus! Quick!” Rinda hissed at her brother, who was still standing, quizzically cupping a hand to one ear. He turned and made to crawl into the thicket—but too late. The overgrown track that passed through the forest hard by the thicket where the twins had been hiding was suddenly filled with the pounding hooves of a squad of black-garbed riders. Their leader, the black plume atop his black helm fluttering in the wind, barked a sharp order through his faceplate, and the riders drew up and leapt from their horses in unison. All wore the same black helms and black cloaks, with faceplates down and great broadswords slung across their backs.