Aidan rolled his eyes and jumped to his feet.
"Come on, we have a long walk ahead of us."
Aidan knew within the first hour that there was no way they would get to Camp Ward in four days. Aside from the problem that Timothy had never walked more than three miles at a time in his life, the road was riddled with fallen logs and became more and more overgrown the further they went into the woods. At least there was no problem with water, there were streams everywhere, though they always seemed to choose the worst places to cross the road.
Aidan also found, to his disappointment, that he was unable to keep up the pace he had wanted for very long either. Four months of doing nothing but magic had not made him any fitter.
When the sun was beginning to set and twilight was creeping over the forest, the boys had only made it about fifteen miles, for which Aidan knew the Rangers would have been ashamed.
"You know," Timothy said between pants, "We probably should have taken some horses."
"They never would have made it over some of those logs, and they would attract predators at night."
"Wait, predators? What predators? What was that?" Timothy said, flinching back as a long, eerie scream split the air.
"Just a screech owl," Aidan said, rolling his eyes as he strung up his hammock.
There was silence for another few moments before a low moan dominated the night.
"Well then what was that?" Timothy asked, his staff at the ready.
"Uh, another owl." Aidan said.
Actually he was fairly certain it was a large cat, but it was probably better if Timothy didn't know that.
They spent the first night tossing and turning in their hammocks, finally falling asleep to the mournful howling of a wolf pack in the distance.
"Tonight," Timothy said, the bags under his eyes sagging, "We light a campfire and keep it going all night."
The smaller boy jumped down from his hammock and fell to the ground.
"Oww," he moaned, "My legs hurt so bad."
Aidan laughed and rolled off his own hammock, only to fall to his knees in a similar fashion.
I swear, if I live through this thing, then I will run around the entire fort three times every day.
"Come on," Aidan said, struggling to his feet," if we walk it will get better faster."
Thankfully, the path began to slope downhill as the day wore on, and they were able to make twenty miles. They fell into a clearing, exhausted, and just laid there for about five minutes.
Eventually, Aidan stood up and stumbled into the trees to gather firewood.
He had just found a small pile of dry branches when he heard a twig snap behind him.
He spun around, staff at the ready, and saw a little humanoid creature lying on the ground.
He cautiously picked up his staff and began to walk towards it. As he got closer, he could hear soft moans escaping its mouth, though it appeared to be unconscious.
Aidan had to stare at it for a few seconds before his brain could understand what his eyes were telling it.
It was a small creature, maybe two feet tall, with long, loping legs and arms and green tinged dry, scaly skin. It was covered by nothing but a loincloth, and small white hairs sprouted from its face and head. A lizard-like tail protruded from its back end, and its four fingered, clawed hands were clutched over its tiny chest.
"What are you?" Aidan asked the creature.
In response it moaned loudly and rolled over, revealing a knife wound across its torso, slathered in green blood.
Aidan had once seen a cut like that on a human. It wasn't serious and didn't go deep, but it was extremely painful and would leave a nasty scar.
The boy gently picked the creature up and hurried back to where Timothy was setting up camp, leaving his firewood behind.
The younger mage was hanging both the hammocks from different trees when he saw Aidan.
"What the-"
"I don't know, but it's hurt." Aidan said.
Timothy dropped his hammock and ran to his pack, pulling out a sewing needle, thread, and a few herbs.
"I think you have a pot in your pack. Get some water, bring it to a boil, and make some tea out of these," he said, tossing the herbs to Aidan.
Aidan grabbed the pot and ran down the path to where he had noticed a small stream earlier.
As soon as the water was in the pot he put his left hand under it and muttered "ingo."
Firewood is stupid.
Flames began to dance on his hand, though he felt no heat. He couldn't keep this up all night, but it was far hotter than anything that had ever burned in a campfire.
He walked back to the camp as fast as he could without spilling any boiling water on himself.
Timothy was kneeling over the creature, and was just about to finish sewing the wound closed.
"I'm going to speed up the natural healing process with a spell, but I also need the tea to counter any infection. I can't speed up its body without also speeding up anything that might infect the wound. This is complicated, so give me time to think after you give me the tea."
Aidan poured the boiling drink into a cup and muttered "freegaea," which meant cold.
The cup instantly cooled, to the point where ice crystals started to form on the top of the tea.
Aidan shrugged and handed it to Timothy, who opened the creature's mouth and poured in the herbal remedy. Aidan could not do anything but watch as his friend sat back and began to chant a long spell, holding his staff in both hands, with the tip touching the wound.
The older mage was only able to catch some of the words in the spell, such as mahor, eslang, morka, and saneo, which meant heal.
It was incredible to watch the blood on the cut dry into a scab and fall off, replaced by healthy, new skin that was barely even scarred, all in a few seconds.
After about a minute Timothy stopped chanting and fell back, sweat dripping from his face.
"Will it be okay?" Aidan asked.
"Yeah, he'll be fine."
"What do you think it is?"
Timothy thought for a moment.
"At first glance I would say a gnome. He's the right size and shape."
Aidan raised an eyebrow.
"Are you sure?"
"No, I'm not, but I am tired. You're gonna have to tie this thing up tonight, so that it doesn't give us the slip in the middle of the night. I'm going to sleep."
With that, the smaller boy walked to the strung hammock and fell into it, asleep before his feet left the ground.
Aidan opened his mouth, then closed it. He pushed down the irrational anger that threatened to rise and tied the creature's hands behind its back, and then tied that rope around a tree.
He strung up his hammock and fell into it, the fire completely forgotten.
Aidan felt someone poke his arm.
Maybe if I keep my eyes closed, they'll go away, he thought.
Then his eyelid was pried open, and he found himself face to face with a greenish, flat nose and a smile full of fierce lizard-like teeth.
The mage let out a yell and instinctively punched towards the creature, who hissed and ducked out of the way.
"Timothy, it's free!" Aidan called, rolling off the hammock and on the ground beside his staff.
Timothy ran into the clearing from the woods just as Aidan was about to clock the creature on the head with the scepter.
"Hey, stop it!" the younger boy said, grabbing the staff before it could strike the unfortunate gnome, or whatever the creature was.
As soon as the green skinned beast saw Timothy it jumped from the ground and landed on his shoulder, an impressive feat for something so little.
Aidan stopped moving, his still groggy mind slowly catching up to the world around him.
"What?" he asked, slightly incoherent.
"It's okay," Timothy said, laughing, "Turns out I was right about Grogg here. He's a gnome. He and his family used to live in an apple tree, until a farmer decided he needed the tree and kicked Grogg and the rest of them out."
Aidan's forehead creased. For one thing, the odds of finding a farmer this far up in the mountains were minimal at best.
"Where is the rest of your family?" Aidan asked the gnome thing.
Instead of answering, the creature hissed at Aidan and whispered something into Timothy's ear.
"He says none of them made it. He got attacked by the farmer but managed to run away, the rest of them weren't so lucky. He also says he doesn't like you very much."
Aidan was starting to feel hot anger rise in the pit of his stomach.
"Timothy, can I talk to you?"
"Uh, sure. Grogg, can you go see if you can find anything in my pack that you can eat?"
The green beast jumped from Timothy's shoulder and made it to the bag in a few lopes.
"Timothy," Aidan said, "are you sure that thing is a gnome? You seem awfully friendly with it considering you only saw it for the first time last night."