Captain of the Guards: Watching and Waiting

They moved forward through the forest, the road was straight and flat, and while the forest encroached in several places, it was level in the way that only well built roads could have been.

Occasionally ancient paving stones could be seen through in places, worn and old. The trees were thick, but the underbrush was light. Cedric could hear the druid chattering on about how that was typical in the older forests, where the trees hoarded all the sunlight.

He was glad of the small mercy of a lack of ground cover which would make it more difficult for an ambush to occur.

Cedric wasn’t sure of any of that, and he was vaguely irritated that the young man was more occupied with talking than paying attention to his surroundings.
He still felt like he was being watched, and the farther they travelled down the road, the more intense that feeling became and the more certain he was of the hostile intent behind the gaze.

Underneath the babbling of the druid, Cedric could hear Alstone mumbling under his breath. He couldn’t make out the words, but the cadence of the words had the angry buzz of a man muttering and cursing to himself, the way he had often heard tradesmen and laborers curse when things weren’t going their way, or a difficult task was at hand.

The farther they travelled through the area, the more concerned he became, despite nothing happening. Through the trees he could occasionally see bits of ancient buildings, weathered pale pink stone worn down and misshapen by centuries of neglect, mother nature and the elements. (the color of the stone offended him on some level, it should be white or grey in his mind, not the color of a sow which when he considered it was a problem in itself, the first thing that came to mind when he saw the bits of ruins peaking here and there was the fleshy color of an animal, and not stone).