Trackers.

Riding into the clearing on powerful horses are a rough looking band of mercenaries. The first you see is a smallish man wearing studded leather armor and soft boots, he dismounts and looks over the scene of your lovemaking. ?It looks like there was a fight here.? He says to the second to come into view, a much larger man wearing thick plate armor covered slightly by a thick riding cloak.

?Did she live? Is there any sign of which way she went.?

Ellie makes a couple of quick flicks with her fingers and suddenly you hear her voice in your mind, ?Quick summon your biggest nastiest beast and either kill them all or take their attention from us so we can run.?

You nod your head to her and call the words to mind. Suddenly a spell forms in your head, you know it will take all of your remaining magical strength till you have a chance to rest, but knowing the danger you are in you decide you had better do it. You cast the spell aiming at a point just behind them. Suddenly in a pop of light the creatures appear. You are a tiny bit impressed as a pair of wolves appear. They both snarl at the men and attack but you know they will be taken apart rather quickly. As the men turn to the beasts and attack the two of you quietly run off into the forest trying not to make a trail, leaping from rock to rock as best you can. Eventually both of you are too tired to run any longer and soon realize you may not even reach the river if you continue in this direction.

?We need to make a decision Freya.? She states flatly as both of you lean against trees and catch your breath.

?Assuming those men were from the king, it is obviously you they were after.?

?So what do we do?? You ask her, your chest heaving.

?The way I see it we basically have three possible means of escape assuming they are after us. We turn southward sticking to creek beds and rocks till we meet the river, then follow it to it?s mouth, keeping hidden as best we can. Once at the mouth we should be able to catch a ride aboard a ship and head far away fairly easily. Or we instead go up stream into the mountains where it is said strange and terrible beasts roam. It is surely dangerous but no one would expect us to go that way. Our last real option, possibly the stupidest, is to simply keep walking west till we get to the next kingdom some 12 days walk from here. If we had horses I would like that idea, but as it is the most obvious it is surely the path they will take. Assuming I am right and the reason they haven?t caught us already is because they lost our track. Well I guess we do have a couple of other stupid ideas if you want, we go back to town and apologize for what you did, and beg for mercy, or kill them and take their horses.? She laughs at the last idea and looks to you for your choice.