Three weeks of travel had passed, with another two to go. Fall seemed to be winding down quicker this year and already twice on this annual trip, there had been a dusting of snow overnight. Aresia couldn’t wait to get home. She didn’t want to be stuck in a snow storm any more than her servants did. It could create for a dangerous situation, for humanoids and animals alike.
Supplies had been gotten to each location that had needed them, adding a delay to her trip, but in her mind it was necessary. If your employees respected you, there was less of a chance of them turning on you. And as far as she could tell thus far, all of her employees at the mines and vineyards found her to be a good employer, generous when it came to their salaries and good to them when it was time for winter, instead of letting them suffer as other owners did. In some cases, even the housing where the vineyard maintainers lived were repaired while she travelled. It was a necessity, as far as she was concerned. She wanted to build an empire eventually and empires needed money.
Aresia had been half-asleep when the carriage lurched and came to an abrupt stop. Shouts from her servants outside woke her up and against her lady-in-waiting’s words she opened the curtain to see what was going on.
“Don’t worry m’lady, we have it under control, just some brigands. Please stay inside where it’s safe,” said one of the guards.
She waited for several minutes, her ears twitching as she listened to the fighting and her frown grew as it seemed to get closer, and worse, not better. With a frustrated sigh she pushed the door to the carriage open, momentarily blinded by the bright light before she assessed the situation. They were effectively surrounded and slightly outnumbered. She reached out with her mind, and faltered for a moment. Her shout was loud and clear to her fighters. “They have a wizard with them,” followed by a location before she focused her own arcane energies. She could feel the energy building in her as she worked the spell, pulling what she could consider her max limit before channeling the spell.
Lightning came from the sky, five, six, seven strikes before her chanting was abruptly cut off, the wind knocked out of her, six to seven inches of an arrow protruding from just below her ribs. She stumbled backwards, falling back against the wall of the carriage before falling to her knees, the magic backfiring around her and within her. For once in her life, she knew no control, couldn’t control what was happening around her and to her. She had to focus, had to expell the energy before it consumed her. The power of the arcane energies she had summoned into her were released in a small focused explosion near a grove of trees just as a second arrow slammed into her right shoulder.
She crumpled to the ground, unable to move, unable to talk, the last thing she saw was a group of fighters moving to defend her prone form before darkness consumed her vision.
Seeing Aresia go down had driven them to fight harder to protect her. They weren’t certain if she was dead or alive. If she was alive and they lost, they could only imagine what would be done to her till she died. The battle lasted an hour before the brigands were slain, as well as six of their own were dead, numerous fighters injured. The only fighter that could do healing was among the dead.
Aresia was one of the more serious injured, unconscious, unresponsive. Her clothes, volumous pale blue dress and petticoats were soaked red with her blood. The arrow that had hit her shoulder was easily removed and she was haphazardly bandaged to stop the bleeding. The one below her ribs was the difficult one. No one wanted to remove it, so instead it was cut off a couple inches above her clothing, left inside till they got to a location where she could be cared for. She was carefully put into a wagon, supplies moved from there to the carriage and they attempted to make her comfortable before taking off. They would look for a house or a farm, something where it would be cleaner where she could be taken care of.
It was slow going. She came to consciousness several times over the next two days. She couldn’t remember ever hurting this bad before in her life. Everytime she woke up, they shifted her, made her drink tea, water, anything they could get her to consume, sweetened with honey. The third day she started throwing up anything they forced her to drink, her body wracked in pain from a fever.
“Send riders out to see if there are homes off the beaten path. She’s running a fever,” she heard someone say, “If we don’t get her care soon, she will die.”
Aresia shivered, tossing her head slowly. She wasn’t going to die, she wasn’t ready to die. But she was too weak to do more than shake her head before darkness claimed her. The caravan stopped that day to set up a temporary camp while the riders sought assistance. They just hoped they found it soon enough.
