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He’d been walking for days. Well, nights , more specifically, a countless number of nights. He’d lost track at some time in the months he’d been running, not that he would ever dignify his persuants with the knowledge that they had him scampering like a rat from a sinking ship.
He hissed as the first lights of morning started to break the trees, slinking deeper into the shadows of the trees and his heavy cloak. He needed to find a place to rest, but there was nothing around. There wasn’t even a cave. It was just trees. Trees and roots and leaves and… sunlight.
He’d barely made it twenty-six years, and this was how he was going to go? A plume of smoke and a pile of ash. Such a pathetic end for a Count.
He pushed on, pulling his hood lower on his face, head bowed, barely seeing where his feet fell as he search for a place to stay, a place to hide .
He had almost crushed his nose into the low hut before he’d seen it. He didn’t have time to be polite, that hellish heavenly body already peaking over the horizon, so he found the door, a bit of cloth hug over a hole in the wall, and slipped in. It was blessedly dark and he allowed himself a chance to breathe. If he was lucky, there wouldn’t be any problems. Hide for the day, leave in the night, continue in his travels.
It was an embarrassingly long hour before he noticed the three women cowering in the opposite corner from where he rested.