A horse and a young man walked beneath the sun with a look of uncertainty etched upon their faces.
In his hesitation to return to the road, Uriel led Zeresha further into the hilly terrain putting as much distance as he could between himself and the dead bandits.
Due to the chase, it was possible that they left tracks leading to the scene.
More like a certainty.
Due to that Uriel made sure to get far away from the scene while also trying to avoid the road, the combination of the two ensured that if he wasn't already lost now he was completely and utterly at the mercy of the world.
The only good news was that since he was lost those chasing would be unlikely to be able to track him down, and from the little he knew of tracking it was much harder to do in rough terrain.
He utilized the sun's movement and angle to figure out the four basic cardinal directions and turned to face the north, at least what he hoped was north.
To his knowledge, the war was occurring further up north which meant that was the direction the soldiers were bound to be heading in.
As they walked along the rough terrain the sun gradually started to decline, and the chilly winds started to pick up.
Uriel found a spot under a short tree and led Zeresha under it, as they waited for the night to come he gathered some loose tinder and broken twigs and got to work making a small fire.
In just a few short minutes he had a fire going, and just in time because a minute later the sun completely vanished from sight and the coolness of the wind started to pick up with a nasty bite to it.
It was the season of the frost after all, and things would only get worse for the next three months until the long night arrived.
As they sat down Uriel gave Zeresha's swollen leg a message earning him a number of complaints from the mare but it had to be done, he also gave her entire body a check to make sure that she was okay.
Last he had to clear out her hooves, but it was only then that he realised that he had completely forgotten to pack the hoof pick and file.
All that he could do without the tools was pry out some of the dirt that got caught up in her hooves with his fingers, but it wasn't very effective.
Then he pulled out the food he had managed to gather from the mayor's inn, it was all that he had, to survive on, two blocks of cheese, four rolls of bread, and some strips of dried meat, he felt that he could make it last a week and if he ate sparingly maybe even two.
He cut the rolls of bread into quarters and decided to eat a quarter with a little bit of cheese, and left the dried meat alone, as it would last much longer than the bread.
As for Zeresha, he didn't need to overly concern himself with her food, wherever there was grass she could eat and she had been doing so for a while now, nibbling on whatever grew around the tree they were resting under.
The only major problem that they had now was water, all that Uriel had on him was a single water skin and he had no idea when he would be able to find water again.
But still between his needs and Zeresha's half the water skin had been emptied out already, and that was despite being extremely sparse with it, he only allowed himself one mouthful and one for Zeresha, which got him no end of complaints from the mare.
Eventually, Uriel decided to call it a night, he pulled himself close to the fire hoping that it would keep the cold away for a while, and pulled his cloak tight around his body.
He was exhausted in more ways than one but sleep didn't come easy to him that night, within a few minutes he fell asleep, but it was a short-lived rest.
Only five minutes passed when Uriel awoke with a start, a cold sweat coated his body and his breathing turned frantic.
Nightmares had come, nightmares that were no mere dreams, but rather things of the past night, of seeing his village burn and rewatching the deaths of his parents.
It felt like an eternity, but it was only just a few minutes in reality, a truth made clear by the flame that was still burning with warmth.
Uriel sat down and rocked himself back and forth in front of the fire hoping that he would eventually get a peaceful sleep, it wasn't until Zeresha came to him and wrapped herself around him sharing her warmth with him that he was able to fall asleep again.
And like that the hours of the night passed by.
When Uriel awoke again the stars were still shining high in the sky, but there was a degree of brightness coming from the east, indicating that it was almost sunrise.
As he climbed up he looked at the remnants of the fire, which was just a bunch of ash.
In his surroundings the grass and shrubbery were all covered in a thin coating of ice, he shivered as his cloak came free from his body and exposed his skin to the cold.
It was biting cold and if not for Zeresha's warmth he was sure that the frost would have gotten to him as well.
Uriel took a few minutes to stretch and wake up his tired and exhausted body, it still ached from the efforts of the days before, by the time he was done the sun had piqued over the horizon and rapidly melted the frost wherever the rays had touched.
He went to Zeresha and woke her giving her belly a soft rub.
As the mare got up she looked at him and opened her mouth with an expectant look in her eyes.
Uriel smiled bitterly as he looked at her parched tongue it forced him to move his tongue around only to realize that it was just a dry.
"Girl we don't have much left to drink," he muttered sadly, but the mare didn't seem to understand as she started to let off a series of complaints before nudging the water skin on his waist.
"Okay, okay girl, but we not going to have anything after this," he said and opened the water skin, the mare guzzled it down in seconds and when the flow cut off she looked at him expectantly.
Uriel could only give a wry smile as he turned it over to show her that there wasn't even a drop left over, a sight which seemed to baffle the large brown eyes of the mare, as she tilted her head and moved it under the water skin looking up through the hole in the water skin.
Uriel chuckled as he watched her strange behavior, and gave her neck a gentle stroke, "Come girl, let's get moving, maybe we'll be able to find a stream somewhere out here," he muttered.
"Nghhh," she cried and started to walk next to him.
Uriel knew that the closest village to Old Meadow was called Kilwood village, and it could take two to three days to get there following the road, as he was not on the road and lost he figured it would take a little longer.
But there had to be a stream or some water source that went to the village, he could only hope to find it, in turn, he could follow it and perhaps make his way to the village.
The morning gradually passed by and the sun removed the cold making it a decent day to be out and about, though as the hours dragged on Uriel could feel his throat becoming like dry sandpaper, and after a while Zeresha started to complain.
She kept on nudging the waterskin, and each time Uriel was forced to stop and show her that it was empty, he didn't know what she expected to happen, perhaps she wanted him to magic some water into it.
The thought of magic gave Uriel an idea, he didn't have magic but he did have eldrin.
"Turn to water," he said placing his hand against the ground and trying to tap into that peculiar power he felt, but just like always it did nothing.
"Water manifest,"
…
"Water appear,"
…
"Let there be water,"
…
He tried phrase after phrase anything he could think of until it hurt to move his dry tongue, but in the end, he couldn't produce a single droplet of water.
When the day passed he crumbled to the ground feeling too weak to even light a fire, and with the state of his mouth eating felt impossible.
A moment later Zeresha fell down next to him and wrapped herself around him sharing her warmth as they fell asleep feeling hungry and dehydrated.
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