Under the cover of darkness, Delilah edged forward on foot through the undergrowth, her eyes well accustomed to the dimly lit surroundings after her long ride. If recent events had taught her anything it was that nothing could be taken at face value and nobody could be trusted anymore. And so it was that she decided to approach the road with an exaggerated degree of caution, leaving an exhausted Jet tied up in a nearby copse. As she moved delicately through the wet brush she thought of the cool dampness of the rising mist from earlier, licking at her face, with a gentle but ominous warning of the rain that would soon follow. She should have heeded the signs; she should have turned back. But now, it was too late, and she could only move forwards and face up to whatever lay ahead.
As the streetlamp came back into view, Delilah could once again make out the familiar shapes that she had noticed from the hillside. What she had first assumed to be a few abandoned vehicles, now revealed themselves as the backmarkers in a long line of neatly parked motor cars that stretched a good hundred metres down the road. There must have been at least 30 of them, stacked bumper to bumper. It was a sight to behold. Even as the daughter of a baron, she had not had the opportunity previously to see such a gathering of wealth in one place. Fuel being such a precious post-Fall commodity, meant that hardly anybody across the barony had the luxury of owning, let alone running motorised transport these days.
With that, the whirring of the engine that had initially grabbed her attention, along with the flickering lights she had seen on her approach to the road, got louder and a pair of headlamps crested the hill ahead, as a large black luxury sedan started making its way down towards her position. She pulled back instinctively, hiding her face in her hood and tucking in as low as she could into the undergrowth. As the lights went past, she crept down alongside the parked cars, keeping below the window line and managing to keep up with the slowing sedan. It came to a stop at the end of the road, its headlamps illuminating a large iron gate set between two steel obelisks. Peering over the edge of the last parked vehicle's bonnet, she could now make out the massive stone walls adjoining the gate towers which appeared to wrap their way around the trees as they seemingly disappeared into the small surrounding woodland.
The car's lights flashed a few times and two shadowy figures emerged from one of the steel towers, stopping momentarily beside the driver's window, before motioning the vehicle towards the gates, which were now opening up before them. As the vehicle glided through the gates and beyond the walls, the masculine figures turned and made their way back into the tower, the light from the open door glinting off the steel of the double-barrels, held purposefully in their hands.
Delilah had more unanswered questions running through her head now than before she'd left the house. Being curious, and still very lost, she had an insatiable desire to have at least a few of them answered. Teeth chattering, she flicked the wet hair out of her face. This turn of events wasn't helping her to get back on track with her intended mission. It was, however, becoming a compelling adventure in itself.
"Heeh-Heeh-Heeh!!" Jet's neigh broke the silence. Delilah's eyes darted nervously towards the tower but evidently, the men inside had heard nothing behind its thick steel walls, and the door remained closed, as the minutes ticked by.
She turned her head back towards the copse from where she could now hear Jet whickering and shifting his weight around uneasily beneath the boughs of the old Oaktree. She still had no idea where they were but she was absolutely certain that this was not the Port town that she had been seeking, and could only hope that Jet wouldn't draw any attention to their ill-fated presence.
She backed off quickly and quietly from the road and made her way back to the copse. Now that the rain had subsided, she needed to have a dig in her saddlebags to see if she could find a dry tunic amongst her possessions. As she approached the beautiful black stallion, she noticed that he appeared calmer than before. She caressed his face and pulled him in close. "There's my good boy, now where's that dry jumper of mine?" She was about to move around to open her side bags when she noticed something small and white at her feet. Bending down to pick it up, she froze. A sugar cube. Somebody had been there. Somebody was probably still there ... and now that somebody knew that she was there too! She reached sharply for the reins to pull herself up into the saddle as quickly as possible; escape now the only thing on her mind, but the reins went taught and pulled back.
Her body tensed and she raised her eyes defiantly to meet those of her would-be adversary. Instead, she found herself staring straight into a pair of familiar big brown doe-eyes.
"Henry!" she stammered. "What on earth are you doing here?"
"I've been following you all night, Delilah! You don't half make things difficult. Your father seemed very upset yesterday about your nighttime shenanigans and, seeing you leave on Jet again this evening, I was worried that you may come to some harm or at the very least get yourself into a fix. So I saddled up Amber and here I am. As for you getting yourself into a pickle, it turns out I wasn't far wrong..."
This was written for A Tale of Two Pizzas - Ongoing contest week 10
Photo credit: Pedro Figueras