Nedric had a plan but he needed more information. It was no good trying to escape from one brother if the other one was likely to be ready and waiting for him when he made his escape. Then there was the matter of Elsebeth and how he could rescue her. He would be lucky if he could disable one of the brothers, let alone both. He thought that he might be able to get away himself but as yet he could see no easy way to help her and that caused him some anguish. Worse though was that he felt that he was under a time limit. He had no idea when ‘they’ would arrive and what they would do.
In the end there was nothing to do but wait and see what chance would bring his way. He knew that he was unlikely to be able to overpower either man and that it was his mind that must work for him. He guessed that they could not be more than a few miles from Nigh but in the forest there was no easy way to tell where they were and even if he could get away he might easily get lost unless they were close enough that there were markers to help him.
In the mean time he had the shed and a collection of various scrapes and bruises. There was little that he could do but he spent some time kicking at the logs to see if any were loose. He tried kicking at the door as well but it seemed to be securely held and if his plan were to succeed he didn’t want it to be easy to break down. At last one of the brothers told him to stop making so much noise or one of them would break his legs for him. He stopped in the hope that they would think they had subdued him.
Instead he decided to do some exercises. He knew that he was nowhere near as fit as he could be due to his work. An impressor spent long hours in one place, doing what looked to anyone else as not very much. It also took a lot of concentration and a great deal of energy but that wasn’t apparent. Nedric had felt completely exhausted for most of the time he had been working. He wasn’t sure that getting a job had been such a good idea.
The exercises hurt, or rather his limbs and body hurt from the abuse they had received in the previous few hours. As he exercised he could feel every ache and bruise but gradually as he put more effort in to his exercises the pain began to fade a little. The movement easing out some of the soreness from maltreated muscles. Nedric made sure that he was exercising in the way he had been taught at the keep. He didn’t want to strain any muscle that he might need for his escape and make his freedom harder to obtain. He engaged in stretches at first and when he felt more able to move tried a variety of jumps. Incidentally checking that the roof was firmly supported and that there was no escape there.
At some point in the day he realised that there was no putting off the inevitable and made use of the larger wooden bowl. He found the process demeaning and it angered him. What right did these men have to dictate how he performed basic bodily functions? It was bad enough that he was a prisoner without having to be degraded as well. He decided he would try to escape the next morning.
As soon as the day began to cool he started. Although this was by far the easiest part of his plan, today it was hard to concentrate and without a calm mind nothing would happen. He had to force himself to forget where he was and did so by going back to some of the basic mind calming exercises he had learned at the keep, eventually he reached the appropriate level of calm and concentrated.
Melkum slid back the bolt to the shed door and waited. There was no rush to the door but then he wasn’t really expecting one today. Prisoners were all the same, first time the rush, second time the lurk behind the wall. He had no intention for falling for either. If the person stayed in the shed he would just throw his food in with him. If he rushed out he would get the same treatment he had received the day before. Still it was rather quiet in the shed.
He eased the door open, something wasn’t right! He could see that there was no one lurking along the wall but what was wrong was that he could see too well. The shed should be dark, not well lit. He opened the door wider and looked in. He could see the bushes behind the shed. The prisoner had escaped! He went into the shed to see how it had been done.
When he entered the shed he heard a noise. If his reactions had been a little bit quicker he would possibly have avoided Nedric falling on him. As it was he moved just enough for his temple to connect with a flailing hand holding a wooden beaker. It momentarily stunned him enough for Nedric to hit him again and then kick him in the head for good measure. As he was sprawled on the ground, Nedric moved out of the shed and bolted it behind him.
The shouts behind him started almost immediately. Nedric didn’t stop to think and ran into the forest, he had to get away as quickly as possible. Behind him he could hear Melkum shouting and Holkum coming over to the shed to investigate. This was his one chance to get to Elsebeth so he started to circle around the buildings keeping out of sight and hoping that the brothers would do something stupid like rush after where they thought he was heading.
He moved to where he could see the door to the loggers cabin but was hidden by some bushes. He could hear the two moving around in the cabin and then a scream, which must have come from Elsebeth. Then the two men emerged through the door with a squirming Elsebeth held with an arm behind her back being forced between them.
“We know you’re out there. If you can’t see me you can here this.”
Melkum pulled Elsebeth’s arm further behind her back and she screamed.
“If you don’t come back here right now, we’re going to break your girlfriends arms.”
“Run away, Nedric! Get help!”
Elsebeth shrieked with pain, as her arm was forced further up her back. Nedric could see the contortions of agony on her face and almost stepped forward but his head told him that it was senseless. Holkum went back into the cabin and retrieved a bow and an evil looking dagger. He passed the knife to his brother who was still gripping Elsebeth in a way to keep her screaming.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Well, how about if we play with your girlfriend, will that bring you out?”
“Let’s find out for ourselves what sort of a woman she is.”
Melkum didn’t bother with undoing any of her clothes but rather ran the dagger down the front of her blouse so that the buttons went flying as they were cut off. Melkum put a hand inside her blouse and shouted.
“I’m going to have fun with you’re woman unless you get here right now.”
There was a noise at the other side of the clearing. Before Nedric could stand up to save Elsebeth any more indignity, Holkum had put an arrow to his bow and shot in the direction of the noise. Nedric eased himself further away from the clearing.
He could hear Melkum berating his brother.
“You stupid moron. He’s hardly going to come out now if he thinks he’s going to be killed. Now you’re going to have to go and find him.”
“Why me?”
“Because I have to guard this girl in case he tries to come back for her whilst you are out finding him. Now get hunting.”
Nedric backed even further and heard the crack as a twig broke under his foot. Holkum heard it and an arrow was speeding in his direction. He threw himself out of the way and heard the arrow bury itself in the soil where he had been moments before. He could here one of the brothers running towards him and picked himself off the floor and made a mad dash for cover.
He ran through the forest as if his life depended on it. Undergrowth tried to cling to him but he didn’t notice it so fixed was he on the idea of getting away. He could hear the sounds of pursuit and he ran as hard as he could away from them. There was no thought in his actions, just the need to run.
He was no athlete, soon his lungs were burning as he tried to move and the sounds of pursuit seemed just as close as before. An unseen branch, hidden in the leaf litter tripped him and he sprawled in the forest dirt. He was up again and running as soon as he could sort out his limbs.
He ran downhill, it wasn’t that he consciously made the choice but it was easier and his legs were tiring quickly. Strangely his mind was aware of odd fragments of his flight. The colour of the moss on one of the branches under which he ducked. The sound of a bird warning others about the commotion beneath. The strong, sweet smell of one bush with bright-red blossoms that swelled around him as he ran over it, crushing many of the flowers. He was stumbling more often and the sounds were getting closer.
There was a large bush in his way and he took a leap over it. As he was leaping through the air he realised that there was no forest floor on the other side of the bush. He hit the slope that fell away in front of him and buckled at the knees. He was rolling and he had no control. He desperately clawed at a small bush only to have it come out of the ground in his hands and then when he thought he would never stop he hit a small tree that knocked all the breath out of his body.
Panic made him grab for the tree when he realised that his legs were just hanging over an edge. The earth was sliding from under his body but he held the tree limb in a death grip. He tried to find some purchase for his feet.
It was then he heard the movement above him. Whichever of the brothers had been following him obviously knew the area well enough not to have followed his route precisely as he stopped at the top of the slope presumably looking down. Nedric froze. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen him but he was still moving around and was not getting any closer.
When they moved off, Nedric realised he had been holding his breath by the gasp he made as he let it out. He was still hanging there and he didn’t seem to be able to touch anything with his legs. He was going to have to pull himself up with his arms.
This presented a problem. He was going to have to let go with one hand in order to move his hand up the branch and pull himself higher. He didn’t feel like he had the strength to do it. He had heard the phrase ‘a cliff-hanger ending’ and hadn’t expected it to refer to his life. He could feel the slight protuberances in the smooth bark of the branch move slightly under his fingers and knew that he would not be able to hang on for much longer.
His hands slipped a bit and he gripped the branch for his life. His wildly swinging legs touched something and then lost it again. It gave him some hope and he swung in his legs again until his left foot touched a bit of rock. It was only a toehold but it let him put a little weight onto the rock and off from his arms.
With one foot in a firm support, Nedric felt more secure. He slid slightly further down the branch and was able to find support for his right foot. He now had three supports and felt secure enough to look down. He almost wished he hadn’t.
Looking down he could see a fifty or sixty-foot drop with rocks below. He was suspended at the top of a cliff that stretched in both directions for hundreds of feet. Below the forest started again and he could see treetops stretching for miles. Nothing looked familiar but that wasn’t his immediate concern. It was more important that he got down without killing himself.
That was made difficult by the contour of the cliff. Whilst his feet had purchase, his hands were holding a branch and there were no easy handholds as the cliff went in at this point. His only option was to ease himself down whilst holding onto the branch until he could get a better grip. Fortunately the rock looked fairly weathered below him and he hoped that meant footholds.
He slid his hands down the branch and felt with his foot, nothing! He tried sliding down a little further. The strain on the branch must be tremendous but if he were only a foot lower he would be able to reach his old foothold with his hand. He eased down a little further letting his foot feel for holds as he moved.
Suddenly the branch he was holding moved. There was a loud ripping sound as it started to pull away from the trunk. The jolt almost threw him from the cliff face. He was now only a few inches from the handhold. He should now be able to get hold of it, of course that meant letting go and with a nasty fall waiting for him he wasn’t keen on the idea.
“This is either the bravest or the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” he muttered to himself. He let go of the branch, which whipped up out of his reach. The fall towards the handhold seemed to take forever but finally his hand was able to close on the rock and he breathed a sigh of relief when his other hand found a hold just below. He now was hanging from his hands and one foot but at least the cliff was unlikely to break. Stretching his leg he was able to get a foothold and at last he could breathe more easily.
Going down wasn’t easy but it was nowhere near as frightening as those first few minutes. At one point he had to make his way across the face of the cliff, as he could find no footholds below him. At another point there was a slight ridge where he was able to sit and rest.
He took the opportunity to look below him; he didn’t want to find that he had gone through all this just to have one of the brothers waiting for him at the bottom. There was not a sign of a person or indeed of any habitation as far as he could see. The sun was beating down on him and he felt exhausted and slightly giddy but with less than twenty feet to go he was confident he was going to get away alive.
When he had recovered sufficiently he climbed down the last stretch of the cliff. Finally his feet touched the ground and he nearly collapsed with relief. His heart was thumping and his arms felt like they had been stretched beyond bearable limits. With limbs that felt like they had turned to jelly he had to sit down for a few moments to recover. Now he had to get back to the village, the only problem was that he had no idea where he was.
His thoughts turned to Elsebeth. He wanted to get back to Nigh as quickly as possible so that he could return with a few of the Esteril Rangers and rescue her. He knew that the two thugs were unlikely to hurt her, as if they intended to carry out any of their threats they would have done them rather than just threatening. In spite of this logical thinking he still hated the fact that he was leaving her with them and was filled with rage at the thought of them handling her as they had.