Chapter 17

When Luke and Marion woke up the following day, it was storming out; nothing severe, just one of those late summer storms with steady rain, some wind, and usually a little bit of lightning. As it was a warm rain, Luke went out without putting clothes on. It was about the perfect temperature. With some persuasion, Marion came out, too. She was still a bit nervous about showing her body off, but as time went by, this would disappear. Soon, both were playing like children, jumping in the water puddles. Before long, Marion was working on getting everyone else to strip down and join them.

The women quickly stripped down, and Bard followed suit not too long after. After all, how could he miss this chance to check out some of the hottest women he had ever met? Robin was raised to be very modest and believed Satan would soon visit to punish them for being naked so he wouldn’t strip down with everyone else. Marion respected his views and didn’t try forcing him, which he appreciated. As long as he respected her views, she respected his. This was an arrangement he could live with.

The rain continued for almost an hour. During this time, the miserable feelings of the day before were forgotten; the group was having too much fun. Playing in the rain was fun, and they were all busy teasing Marion about her careful walking. Everyone had heard her the night before, which helped the group recover from Stella’s death. The only person left out was Matt, but Marion had helped him move to where he could at least watch the ladies playing in the rain. Matt watched the entire time; his eyes never left Pollyanna, and he was sure she stayed where he could watch her.

All too soon, the rain stopped, and it was back to business. Marion had left it to Pollyanna, Stella’s closest friend, on where to bury her. Pollyanna picked a small church in the village where Stella was originally from. So, the entire group made the four-hour trek to the village church. Once there, the group realized that the whole village had been abandoned. From the looks of things, it had been abandoned not that long ago.

Gabriella found a space in the cemetery, and Alice located a coffin for Stella. Luke and Bard dug the grave, going down 180cm. Once the grave had been dug, everyone but Matt grabbed a line and lowered Stella’s body into the ground. Once done, Marion spoke a few words. After she had finished, but before everyone started to bury her, Pollyanna began to speak:

“For my best friend, the woman who taught me to be a woman and encouraged me to fight like a man, I cannot thank you enough. I swear this, though, that I shall never stop working toward freeing the people of this tormented land. No one should have to make the choices that some of these women have had to make, like being forced into the position of selling their bodies just so that their children can have something to eat or watching soldiers rip away those children because the family couldn’t pay the record high taxes levied on them. All this because some lazy noble wanted to host a bigger party than their neighbor. Go in peace now, Stella, and know I will always love you for all you have done for me.”

“Amen,” everyone said while trying to hold back their tears.

When she finished, everyone in the group started to weep; Pollyanna had just said out loud what everyone had been feeling in their hearts. Eventually, they started burying their friend, and Pollyanna finished things by pushing the cross Gabriella had made into the ground. The cross had once been Stella’s sword, but Gabriella had broken it in half after Stella had been killed and had etched Stella’s name and date of death.

After they finished, Luke put his arm around Marion’s shoulder. This always made her feel better, and it did this time. Looking around, Marion started getting curious about this village. It looked like a nice enough place to stay, so the group split up to search the village. Luke found a fully intact blacksmithing shop that still had its tools and plenty of raw materials lying around. Marion found a small tavern, but all the alcohol was gone. Robin and Bard checked out the church while Gabriel went up to check out the steeple since this looked like the perfect place where she could pick off intruders. Alice went through the houses and found one significantly cleaner than the rest. It had an ample supply of herbs that Alice recognized as having medicinal value. Also, it still had the tools to process the herbs and books containing information on using the herbs.

Pollyanna, meanwhile, stayed with Matt and talked quietly. Although Luke had made crutches for Matt so that he could at least hobble around, he tried to keep that to a minimum. Although he did move about once a day on Alice’s orders, she wanted to ensure he didn’t stiffen up too much. Pollyanna and Matt realized that they were quickly falling in love and only hoped nobody would object. Luke already knew about them and had told them as much. He had no objections as long as they continued to do their duties. Luke had wished them the best of luck; they looked like they belonged together and made a cute couple. Of course, Luke also made sure to pull Matt to the side to warn him that if he ever hurt Pollyanna, he or Marion would hunt him down and kill him in the worst way possible.

Within an hour, the group met back up at the church. Marion decided to move their base of operations here as soon as they could get all their gear, and they had scouted the area. Everyone agreed with her; this was far nicer living than in the forest, plus there was so much here that they could use that it would be foolish not to move. A bonus was that they were now further away from York and, therefore, safer for the time being. The last thing that justified their move was that they had been recently discovered and didn’t know how long it would be before Cecilia would try again. Marion figured that it would probably take them about a week to move. Matt and Alice would stay behind in the village while the group moved.

Moving around was extremely painful for Matt, and Alice would have to take care of him. Pollyanna announced she and Matt were now an item in the most obvious way possible. She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a giant, wet kiss on his lips. That simple kiss began to turn into something more when Matt started pushing his tongue into Pollyanna’s mouth. Only Marion, loudly clearing her throat, made them stop. When Pollyanna looked up, she looked like the kid who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. This made the rest of the group fall over laughing, and Pollyanna’s rapidly reddening face didn’t help as she buried her face in Matt’s shoulder.

Eventually, everyone in the group was able to compose themselves. Marion told Pollyanna to stay behind, not only to help protect Matt but also to start scouting the area. The rest of the group would be back the next day with some gear and hear what Pollyanna had found while exploring. Marion and Luke couldn’t understand why everyone in the village was gone. It looked like everyone had just stopped whatever they had been doing and left.