“Half of you, come on.” A knight called into the core room. “We’ve got a situation growing outside.”
“What time is it?” One of the guarding knights asked, bored.
“Midday. Come on! Half of you! Let’s go!”
There were nine knights plus the priestess. Grumbling complaints at one another, eventually the knights sorted out that between them, five would go to figure out what exactly was going on.
And Abby really wanted to go with them. Being held prisoner was boring!! Was this what it was always like? Now she felt bad for all the princesses in fairy tales that were captured by dungeons for their mana. Technically Lucid was trying to do that too, but it wasn’t like he tied anybody down! To be fair, he didn’t have any rope, but still! Abby doubted he would do something so barbaric!
“You know, this would be much easier if you untied me.” Barry mentioned. He scraped a stone across the checkers board carved in the floor with both feet. A rather impressive feat, since he had to balance on his hips to move his tied up ankles as one.
“Uh huh.” The priestess didn’t change her expression, sliding her own piece across the board. She yawned from her lounging position next to the board.
Abby rolled across the ground, getting to a position where she could see the retreating light of the priest that led the knights out of the cave system. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She had zero clue as to why the knights would need to be called away, and without Owyn here to spell it out for her, there was only one person to ask.
Abby rolled back to the center of the room, bumping into a sleeping Lady Bellamy. She jolted awake, sitting up and looking around with bleary eyes. Abby squirmed around, sitting up to sit next to the confused Bellamy.
“Some of the knights have left. Something’s going on.”
“So?” Lady Bellamy rolled her shoulders, clicking the joints. Although the church had healed her, it was still sore apparently.
Abby bobbed her head to mock her ‘so’. “So? What’s going on? Why would they be doing that?”
The sleepy Bellamy yawned, but Abby could see her mind start to work. “My guess is that some people are starting to get agitated. We’ve been missing for a day and a half now, maybe two days, and in a town as small as Setterton, that tends to get noticed.”
“So what is the church going to do about it?” Abby whispered, desperate for answers.
“At this point, I have no idea.” But her face said otherwise. She was beginning to piece things together. “They’re obsessed with Lucid, so let’s assume that this has something to do with that. Since they brought such a large army, and they’re not planning on using it against Lucid, it would probably be a safe assumption to guess that the army is here for some other reason. Population control is my guess, but how? We don’t exactly have a lot of food just readily sitting around Setterton, we need the farmers, bakers, and all the others to make the food for us.”
Lady Bellamy continued muttering to herself, but it became a little unintelligible from there. Abby nodded, approving. She wasn’t the thinker, she knew that. Abby was the muscle. So she should do her job. With only four knights guarding them, there probably wouldn’t be a better chance than now to escape. What should she do? Are they supposed to just leave the caves and risk the outside world, or do they try and retreat back to Lucid? With so many members of the church on the outside, it made sense for everyone to try and make it to Lucid somehow.
Ok, so the plan would be to get close to that knight, since he seems the least alert, and then steal a blade of some sort. She’d cut herself free, and then-
“If we’re going to do that, why not put only one or two in every room? No need to bunch them up like that.”
It was Franz. Shit! That meant he was probably talking to-
The cardinal hummed for a second. “I can see why you would think that, but consider our distribution of forces. If our men are to guard each villager individually, none of them will be able to take breaks. We brought twice the population of this little village, and some of them are required to keep it running in the villagers absence. Plus the patrols, the guards along the roads... everyone has their role. We can only dedicate half our force to guarding the villagers.”
The giant cardinal, as well as Franz and Tabitha, wandered into the room, already aiming for the deeper exit.
“One knight for every other villager would be fine, considering the number of women and elderly. The only exception should be these young adventurers here. One knight guarding them each, at all times.”
“I see.” Franz nodded along. "So how many villagers would you suggest per room? Is there a particular distribution of farmers to others that we should aim for?”
“Hey!” Abby shouted. Mostly because she wanted to know what was going on, but also because she was still angry at Tabitha. “What’s going on?!”
The cardinal paused the procession, glancing at her over his shoulder. He disregarded her almost as quickly, resuming his walk. “Lucid seems to value these ones the most. Place them closest to the exit. We’ll keep the Baroness outside the caves for now.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Understood.” Franz bowed quickly, retreating. He barked orders to the knights in the core room. “You heard him! Take these three to the entrance of the cave! You’ll resume guarding them there!”
The priestess sighed, but got to her feet as Franz scurried after the cardinal. “You heard him. Come on.”
“Dibs on carrying the little one.” The lazy knight called.
He walked over to Lady Bellamy, hefting her up over his shoulder. Abby struggled against her captors, but her heart wasn’t really in it this time. She just didn’t have the energy to fight any more than this. She’d only been given one meal, and sleeping was just uncomfortable on bare stone. Besides, her ropes were starting to chafe, even through her boots.
Eventually, she just slumped over the knight's shoulder as they carried her and the others through the dungeon. Her dejected demeanor changed however, once they heard the sounds of many recognizable voices coming from up ahead. Abby tried to not move as much as possible to hopefully keep down the noise so she could hear better. Sounds of villagers complaining, cloth on stone, and sharp metal noises of knights moving quickly. It didn’t take long for them to pass by the first of Settertons villagers.
A number of farmers shuffled by the knights, staring at Abby with confusion. She met their downcast eyes from behind her knights back, recognizing despair in all of them. A rope bound each of their wrists to a neighbors, creating a long human chain. They shuffled carefully and slowly, unsure about the terrain of the foreign caves. Various knights of the church walked alongside them, swords out and ready.
They walked into the next room over, where the chain continued through the whole thing. And through the next room, and the room after that. On and on, this chain of villagers went, all the way to the exit of the Setterton caves. The knights carrying Abby, Barry, and Lady Bellamy turned the last corner, dumping them at the far side of the entrance, away from the line of villagers slowly making their way into the darkness below.
Each villager noticed Abby and the others, and while some of them looked relieved to see that they were alright, others only found despair to see them tied up. Abby saw men holding hands with their wives, elderly shuffling along, more confused than anything, and some very angry farmers. The larger men and women of the village glared openly at the church, but tied to their fellow villagers, did nothing. The last of the line disappeared into the caves.
“They’re missing four.” Lady Bellamy muttered to Abby and Barry. “Two farmers, and the lumberjack and his son.”
“I didn’t see the Baroness.” Abby mentioned at a whisper.
“You heard them,” Barry said. “They said they were keeping her outside the caves for some reason. What’s going on?”
Nobody had ready answers.
Distant sounds of shouting came from outside. With a seeming majority of the knights down in the caves below, there was nobody at the entrance except for the knights guarding the adventurers to go investigate. One of the guards wandered over, taking a look outside.
“Shit. Matt, come on, some stragglers are fighting back.”
A second knight stood and followed the other outside the cave. That left only two knights and the priestess behind. Abby shared a look with the other two adventurers. Without mentioning anything, they all knew exactly what they needed to do.
Barry shifted, bringing his bound wrists below his hips. With a little rocking motion, he brought his hands in front of him, and Abby and Lady Bellamy copied him, doing the same while the knights were distracted. With a nod from each of them, they picked their targets. Barry to one knight, Abby to the other, and Lady Bellamy would take the priestess.
Abby leaned onto her hands, springing her legs up and over her body. She brought her knees down on her target knight’s head, splitting them at the last second so her thighs wrapped around his neck. She squeezed, bashing her heels against his helmeted forehead. He gave a muffled sound of surprise, and Abby picked his knife from his belt. He struggled, prying her knees apart so he could breath while she laid against his back. With deft movements, Abby quickly sawed through her bindings, feeling immediate relief when her hands burst free.
She wrapped her hand around the knight's waist from behind, pulling. The motion forced her hips into the back of his head, and the man fell forward, forcing his hands away from her legs to catch himself from the fall. Abby used the momentum to vault herself upright. With the knight bowing his head under her weight, his neck was exposed perfectly for Abby to just plunge the knife through his spine. Abby hesitated, perhaps for a second too long, before sticking the knife in the side of his neck. More flesh, more blood. He might be able to survive if he got treated fast enough. Abby didn’t know though, she’d never killed a human before. She didn’t want to start now either. She hoped it would be good enough.
She struggled to get a hand on his sword, drawing it out from its sheath. Turning to face the others, she saw Barry attempting to strangle his knight. The knight in question wielded a bat like mace, and was constantly bashing it against Barry's back behind him. Abby thought quickly, and plunged the sword under a joint in the armor, grievously wounding him. No cry of surprise came out, but he did stop attacking Barry. Abby went to help Lady Bellamy a second later, but found that she didn’t need help. She was kneeling behind a prone priestess, rock gripped in both hands.
Barry’s knight fell as Abby cut through her bindings. She quickly freed Barry and Lady Bellamy, passing her the knife and keeping the sword for herself. Lady Bellamy also looted some things from the priestess and Barry took the mace. Without waiting a second longer, all three of them bolted for the exit.
Six knights engaged with three men outside, a little ways into the forest. One knight and another villager lay on the ground, not far behind the fighting. Only the knight still seemed to be struggling to keep his blood inside, with a hand against his throat. The villager, a man not much older than Abby, lay with wide, angry eyes open against the grass.
A gurgling cry from inside the cave alerted one of the knights fighting. He turned around to see the three adventurers standing in the exit of the cave.
“Hey!”
Abby dove for the small bridge across the creek, knocking it into the water. Then, she turned to Barry and Lady Bellamy, pushing them in the other direction.
“I swear on the Bellamy name!” Lady Bellamy shouted. “We will return! Just survive until we do! Please!” The please choked off, but the message got across.
The three standing villagers roared, bashing wood axes against the knights, keeping them engaged, even outnumbered as they were. One man, with broad shoulders and red eyes, even managed to draw blood from a knight, bringing him to his knees. Another savage attack, and the man's skull caved in, even beneath his protective helmet.
Abby didn’t dare witness the rest. She pulled at Lady Bellamy’s arm, forcing her and Barry up the mountain behind the cave, and eventually, out of sight.
I did it Owyn. Abby thought, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. I escaped. Now what?