Try and Catch Me

He says – The Dark Times (3)
As he gathered and ordered his men to prepare to come to the woods, he heard the gist of what happened. The young man was named Frankie, the son of Tamara’s friend. He told Eldric how he went to the cottage and asked for Tamara’s assistance and how Lia was in town to deliver the medicine. It was Lia who told Frankie that they needed to tell Eldric about the origin of the drink and the cure from Tamara. Only they got separated because of the people — with Lia following the crowd and Frankie searching for Eldric.

Witchhunt. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth. The town had a long-standing fear and hatred for the witch. The people were quick to dismiss the wrong happenings as the wrath of the witch. It was easy to rile them up and make them stand up using the name of their King.

‘Under my name.’ he gritted his teeth, holding his heels tighter against the sides of his horse.

He prayed, if there were any listening gods, that Lia would never hear this or she would never forgive him.

But his hopes were crushed when he arrived.

He smelled it before he saw. The thick, acrid smell of smoke hung in the air. There was something else in the air that was only made visible when he arrived at the place where the cottage stood. The people gathered in the area, upon seeing his men, thought for sure that they were reinforcements. Their faces transformed from fearful to victorious.

Eldric scanned the surroundings until his eyes found a solitary figure in front of the burning house, the source of resentment that was spreading throughout the air. Lia stood there, her beautiful hair a tangled mess, her shirt and pants were torn, and a trail of blood coming from her forehead. From the stones that surrounded her, it was not hard to tell where it came from.

“Stop this at once!” he yelled then turned to his men, “put out the fire.”

Waves of murmur and dissent traveled around the gathered crowd. The mayor, in all of his roundness, came in front and looked up at him.

He did not like the mayor when they first met. Eldric found the mayor easy to read, there were so much, so many of them in the Imperial City. Everything around the man exuded humble bragging. From the way he dressed to the way he decorated his house, the mayor acted as if he was one with the masses with his simple lifestyle.

Beyond that, once you dig deeper from the surface, you would learn how fake he was. He owned quite a few estates across the country, a room full of different weapons which he said to be gifted by various merchants. Only the outside decor of his home was simple. The insides were lavished with intricate designs and pieces of high-quality furniture. He only spoke of the names of other powerful people to impress the others.

“Arrest the mayor for treason,” he ordered, his eyes never leaving the mayor and watched the older man pale in front of him.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“Also under the charge of murder.”

“What is murder in this? I’m executing–”

“An order from me? Under the name of our benevolent King?” Eldric gave him a dry laugh. “Don’t delude yourself. Our King will never discriminate and he will exercise justice and fairness to everyone.”

“That was the witch! And that,” the mayor pointed to where Lia stood, only there was no one in there. “Where is the other witch?”

“Over there!” someone shouted.

Everyone looked towards the area around the clearing. Some time in the middle of the confusion between their arrival and the arrest of the mayor, Lia moved and ran towards it.

Eldric ordered some of his men to subdue the crowd and ushered them back to the town where he would address them and went to find Lia.