“Let’s go! Girl, it’s time!” Ruta said with a sigh, looking up the pine tree.
There, on the very top, Anna sat staring in the distance just like she had done for the past month. In front of her was the view of unruly Musana and Nemula rivers meeting and forming the much larger, slower and wider one – Mizibi great river. It was not that great at this point yet, but from here on it stretched far to the south-east on the way, absorbing thousands of smaller streams and ending its journey in the White sea as the largest river of the continent.
The six women needed to go directly south though, to the city Pananga, the capital of Livania kingdom. Everyone knew the queen was waiting for their report, but every day Anna pleaded her companions to postpone the departure just a little bit.
Following Lana’s orders, they arrived here sixty four days ago and patiently waited for her to show up while hunting and resting, fully taking advantage of the last days of the summer. They did miss their leader, but for the first two months since the departure they missed their male-slave even more, more precisely – his cooking, of course.
They did bring his big pot along even though it was an inconvenience, but for some reason no matter what meat or roots they boiled in it, nothing tasted even close to what he used to prepare. After trying to cook for a first few days they collectively gave up, deciding that cooking was a lowly activity designed for men and it was easier to wait for Leo to show up rather than lowering themselves to the level of a male-slave, even though going back to half burnt roasts was not too pleasant of a choice.
Swiftly rushing through the forests they arrived in just nineteen days after separating with Lana near Rukla city, but even though she promised to meet with them two months later, she never showed up. In fact, today was the sixty fourth day since Anna and the rest arrived or the eighty third since they split up. That meant Lana was already twenty three days late.
The first ten days were ignored in a silent agreement and no one even mentioned her. All six went on with their daily activities and only now and then stealthily threw glances over unruly waters in hopes their leader miraculously would show up on the opposite side.
On the twelfth day Anna stopped pretending everything was fine and climbed the tallest tree at the riverside and almost never climbed back down ever since. Just like now for over twenty days she kept staring in all directions in hopes to finally see a sign of her older sister, but no matter how hard she looked, it was simply impossible to spot something that wasn’t there.
Anna knew they had to leave and she knew that since her sister hasn’t showed up yet there were no hopes to see her again, but something deep inside didn’t allow to her give up. But there came a point when the common sense was bound to win and that point came when Lana was twenty three days late.
“F…” ‘Fine!’ was what the young girl on the treetop intended to say when a lout shout reverberated over the three rivers and the surrounding forests.
“Aaaaaannnnnaaaaaaa!”
Ruta, Una and the rest froze in surprise for a split moment, but the one getting called almost jumped down from the top of the tree and ran in the water with the leather armor still on, rushing to the other side.
Anna had never swam so fast in her life, but when she got out she saw her male-slave sitting on the ground his hair disheveled and face dirty, but next to him lie her elder sister, clumsily bandaged and covered in dried blood.
“You really don’t know how to swim, do you?” Leo grinned widely, but she ignored the tease and ran over to Lana, on the way smacking the boy on the forehead who, either because of the slap or because of exhaustion, passed out.
The events during the past few months had been too incredible and Leo was certain that if he ever got back, Jack would never believe what happened. The first part was more or less fine – them arriving to the realm with no Qi and afterwards him getting enslaved by a bunch of women. Even the part when they hunted the imperial troops was plausible because Leo had a bunch of new scars to show for it.
But breaking the superhuman lady out of the prison sounded like a made-up fairy tale of a knight rescuing a beauty and afterwards riding in the sunset together. Besides the fact that there were no horses since for some reason no one tamed beasts in Dreadlands, Lana was no beauty, at least not according to Leo’s standards. Anna, on the other hand, would’ve been a completely different matter, but unfortunately for the past month instead Anna’s firm breasts poking his back, he had to bare with Lana’s soft mounds. In fact, it was not a month, but whole forty eight days since they left Kinta.
He didn’t have to carry her at first though.
After successfully leaving the keep Leo went back to the familiar backyard and when the sun set, pulled out Lana from the basket, introducing her to his questionable hideout. Since she seemed to be unconscious he cut the ropes binding her hands and used the bandages he stole last night to slightly patch her up and left to get some food and water.
When he came back she was awake, but even though she pretended to be fine, her shallow breathing and the face paler than the moon indicated otherwise.
During the meal they didn’t talk, except Leo asked the question that was bugging him since the moment they left.
“How come it was so easy?”
Lana suppressed the cough from choking on the water she was drinking and replied in a low, hoarse voice, “What ‘easy’?! Even if we ignore the two guards stationed in my cell who suspected you were up to something, but whom I managed to kill, you got lucky! And we’re still in the city – it’s only a matter of time till we get caught.”
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“… t ... two guards?” Leo was shocked.
“Of course! Who did you think they were? Fellow inmates?” Lana snorted, “To put a guard in the same cell with the prisoner is the oldest trick in the world …”
“Ok, ok!” Leo tried to calm the madam down, “How long do we have until the hell breaks loose?”
“Sigh … I don’t know … till sunrise?” Lana sadly shook her head, “But don’t worry, I won’t go down like this! I need …”
Unfortunately there was no one left to listen to what she intended to say. After hearing the first part Leo jumped over the wall and disappeared.
He returned only when the sky began to color red with a large sack in each hand.
“I thought you ran away.” She honestly said to Leo who shrugged in return.
If it was a realistic option, he would’ve attempted that long ago. And what they were about to do was as risky as anything else he could’ve done up until now.
He emptied the sacks he brought along, then tore off the clothing Lana still had on and changed her bandages. This time he stole a whole sack of them and after ten or so breaths Lana looked like a large mummy all nicely bandaged up. It was enough for her clothing to not get bloodied right away if she didn’t move around too much.
After verifying the quality of his work, Leo made her wear a dirty linen shirt and trousers, but since her feet were covered in blood, he washed them first and then made look dirty right away.
Lana, of course, guessed his intentions and her guess was verified when he cut her hair short so that she looked like a proper male-slave. While Leo had to suppress a giggle noticing Lana’s monkey ears for the first time, she had to swallow bitterly seeing him putting a leather leash around her neck. It was disgusting, humiliating and all her instincts screamed to kill the boy, but she barely resisted the urge.
When Leo was satisfied with Lana’s looks, he quickly washed his face and hands and then changed into a nice, dark blue robe with high collar to hide his Adam’s apple. Afterwards he wore a pair of expensive looking boots a nice belt and a hat, but then took the last part off, neatly combed his hair and wore it again.
Now he looked like a girl from a well-off family and if a random guard didn’t have Lana’s nose to distinct his boyish or masculine scent, whatever it was, no one would ever find out his identity without stripping him first.
“Alright. The last part!” Leo pointed at the stack of random pelts he also brought along, “You’ll carry that … sorry …”
He was sorry for making her carry stuff while she was in this miserable state, but he was even more sorry for putting a leash on this strong and proud woman. Even in the Aurora mortal realm she might’ve stomped on most men with how her character was, to not speak about a place like Dreadlands, but Leo promised to himself to never tell anyone about this if they survived since she also would probably like to keep it a secret.
The city was still partially asleep and both of them managed to vault over the wall unnoticed. In the back yard they left a pile of rubbish that will be found pretty soon, but more so the fact that the most wanted prisoner was missing and the city would be turned upside down within moments after that.
For some reason Lana insisted they had to leave through the same eastern gate she was arrested at thus the master-slave pair marched through the city, trying to look unimportant. Luckily there were enough people in the streets for them to remain inconspicuous and when a while later they arrived at the gate, only a line of fifteen or so merchant wagons filled with iron ore in addition to few lone hunters separated them from freedom.
Apparently the merchant owning the ore was well known therefore the inspection went swiftly and neither Leo nor Lana attracted too many curious glances.
When it was their turn to get inspected, to one of the guards the pair did look rather weird, but before she could ask anything, Leo said, “This moron yesterday got hoodwinked by a merchant! Allegedly they left through the eastern gate in the late afternoon. Did you see them? … with a wagon and two male-slaves?”
The questions were so idiotic the guard didn’t even notice Leo’s accent and after she shook her head Leo kicked Lana’s butt and loudly said, “Move, weakling! Pray we’ll find her otherwise you’re dead!”
The scene was slightly silly and the guards at the gate, hunters and merchants could only snicker and shake their heads at the young girl’s stupidity. There was no way any merchant on the road would satisfy her demands even though she brought the ‘bad’ wares back.
But both Leo and Lana didn’t care.
She uttered, “Sorry, master!” and with shaky steps went downhill. To the onlookers it might’ve seemed the male-slave has been punished last night by her master, but only Leo knew it was a miracle she was still be able to walk at all. In fact, initially he was already trying to think of ways to carry her out and her being conscious was an unexpected surprise.
To not stand out the pair walked at the same pace as the others, but before they managed to cover half a mile, loud alarm bells resounded through the city. Leo kind of hoped the guards would immediately close down the gate and do the search inside, but apparently they had some kind of protocol in place that instructed them to search the people who just left the city or maybe even those at the bottom of the mountain.
But he didn’t intend to find out. After throwing a quick glance over his shoulder and seeing a large squad of soldiers rushing down the road, Leo finally threw all caution to the wind. He directly tore off his robe, threw Lana on his back and at a lightning speed darted away.
There were a couple of law abiding citizens who listening to the shouts ‘Stop them!’ tried to stand in their way, but after one got kicked in the face and the other directly stepped on, no one on the road leading down the mountain dared to even look at the escaping pair the wrong way.
The distance from the city gate to the foot of the mountain that for a regular merchant took half a day to go either up or down, Leo covered in less than a quarter of that time.
When he was at the field where they camped before ascending a couple days ago, he heard Lana weakly whisper, “Go along the river … until the two big rivers meet … long way … two months time …”
The instructions couldn’t be any clearer and Leo ran along the river, jumping from rock to rock and somewhere far behind an angry and desperate bunch of guards followed. He didn’t know what kind of experts will be on his tail therefore all he could do for now was to run at the fastest speed he could muster.
Lana was barely half the Cleaver’s weight, thus he almost didn’t stop till noon except for the few times to drink or pee. He knew Lana won’t be able to keep up even if she was conscious, thus didn’t even bother to put her down until the late night when it was too dark to run.
In this manner he continued for days, on the way trying to apply the knowledge learned from the seven women and hiding his tracks. Even though according to Lana it was a long way and they had two months time, to his great surprise he managed to cover the distance in less than fifty days. That was the reason for him happily shouting Anna’s name the moment he arrived.