She slinked through the woods speedily, leaving a trail of small overturned rocks, unrooted ferns, and snapped branches, carefully keeping to the shadows as she moved.

It wasn’t long before she came upon the group. There were four of them moving together, all dressed in practical dark colours. All of them carried swords. Their faces were uncovered. She trailed them quietly while sticking to the trees to the side of them.

Darger’s blond hair was easily recognizable. He was leading the group, and it was obvious from the way he swaggered up front. The rest were Darger’s cronies, boys whose names Arainthe never bothered to learn. They stuck close to Hruine’s marked trail. From their whispered conversation, it sounded like they were getting more anxious.

“Where is she?” Darger scrowled. His eyes at times darted left and right, before always returning to the front.

The rest of his boys shrugged. One said: “Are we sure we’re following the right person? It’s just a hood. Anyone could be under it.”

Ah, Arainthe thought, sidestepping a gnarly root to avoid tripping, and then avoiding a patch of dried leafs. Her senses were heightened from a shot of fear and adrenaline, and while her targets were careful to stay soft, their words still carried to her.

Darger glared at the one who spoke. His expression was ugly and heated. “I bribed those guards. They saw her face. Shut up.”

It was stark clear who he was after. She had a bright red target painted on the hooded cloak. Also, she would have words with the guards when she got back.

There was a palpable chill growing at her back. Darger didn’t take well to being insulted, especially in front of an audience, and Arainthe knew this since the first day she met the boy. She also knew Darger was a spiteful little snake. She had seen it in the Temple, had seen the revenge he heaped on those whom he perceived had wronged him, and she had fended off his attacks herself. It rarely got physical, but he was the son of a noble and the coin was a powerful motivator. Bribery and squeezing his target dry of resources -- shutting down their access to the instructors, to the storehouse of daily ware, to the fucking kitchens -- were his preferred form of attack. His tactics rarely worked on her because she had friends at lower places, and it infuriated him.

So what was he after, here? What exactly was he planning?

Her targets stayed quiet, but from the tightness with which they gripped their swords, from the way Darger gripped something around his neck, and from the ugliness on Darger’s face, Arainthe could guess that their feud was about to get physical.

She breathed. Her foot slipped on a rock. Her arm crushed against a tree.

“Who’s there?” Darger and his crew reacted, their eyes shooting to her direction in a flash.

Shit. Arainthe cursed beneath her breath. In the next second, she was running, silence be damned. Their flurry of footsteps soon followed.

She was more at home in the wilderness than they were. She moved faster. She tracked better. She knew her directions. She dressed well for moving, and she had an adrenaline spike on her side. It wasn’t long before she lost both sight and sound of her followers. Later, logic would tell her that they wouldn’t dare follow too closely, because what if they lost sight of Hruine’s chalk trail? There was a very real possibility of getting lost in this forest.

Soon, she found her way back to the trail of overturned rocks and snapped branches. As she forged forward, Arainthe weighed her options. What should she do now? She was on Hruine’s trail, and Darger was on hers. Darger and his cronies weren’t the friendly sort. She hadn’t intended to be very friendly to Hruine either. Maybe it was time to make some friends.

Up ahead was the rotting carcass of a very dead deer, where vines had began to show through the carcass’s bones. It marked a turn in the trail, which led back towards Hruine’s chalk-marked trees. Arainthe shivered. At the very least, it would be nice to have one less enemy.