Chapter 4: Escape
They had left the building and continued to walk. Today was the 10th day they had been away from home. They had been captured for four days as well so they had both been missing for about 2 weeks.
This is a long time for a child to go missing and it unnerved Aislings parents. They had been looking for her the whole time. Many people would give up on their child by this point and stop looking.
Not Aisling’s mom and dad. They had found the entrance to the cave and even found the kidnapper hideaway. Father had brought the men of the neighborhood with him, and they had started to search the cave. They came with torches and string.
They had tied the string to each persons’ waist so as to not get lost. Hours later, they had come across the corpse. The thing was pale white, with an elongated head. It’s sharp teeth yellow. The tail, long and whip-like. Its feet were narrow and its talons many.
A large sword wound in the side of its chest. In fact, father could spot foot marks in the ground a dozen or so feet from the thing. The person’s feet looked a lot like Aisling’s feet.
She was alive and well. That is what this evidence told him. The others came over to look and the footprints left in the hard stone. It would take a lot to make marks like that.
…
Aisling felt good this morning. Well, she didn’t know it was morning. But she felt like it should be around that time. If she felt like this, then something good would have happened. She felt so good in fac that she could do a jig.
She wasn’t going to of course. But the option was there. Sylvia looked at her quizzically. It had been some time since they had gotten to know each other, and she now knew that this was strange.
Aisling usually had a sorrowful expression on her face. But now she was rather happy. She in fact was skipping to and fro. Dennis seemed just as confused as Sylvia.
She was looking at her with an expression that red, “today is going to be a good day.” She didn’t know if that was true, but it sure helped the mood of the girls. They continued to walk down the tunnel until they heard a noise. The noise came from in front of them.
This caused the whole group to stop. Just as they stopped a Broken one appeared in front of them. It seemed like they had caught up and found the group of three.
In the somewhat illuminated passageway, it rose to its full height. The only light source keeping them from panicking was a light spirit. The spirit seemed angered by the mere presence of the Broken one.
It started buzzing all around the thing and making angry sounds. Ther thing tried to attack the little guy, but it dodged. Zipping all around the beast once more it tried hitting the broken one. It simply bounced off of the thing.
Aisling was starting to panic. After all, they were in a narrow passage and all their ways out seemed blocked. They could go back the way they came, but that wasn’t foolproof. The thing could follow them.
She also didn’t want to risk being chased by this thing. It was, assumedly, much closer to them than whatever other things were chasing them. She hoped she was right about that and that they didn’t have to worry about being kidnapped in the middle of the night.
But they did need more space to fight this thing. This was a very small passageway, and they couldn’t really fight in here. They would have to spread out. This didn’t bode well considering that she didn’t know if this was the only Broken one here right now.
It was at that moment that Dennis the Wumplebirve did something strange. He stood up on his hind legs and roared. The roar seemed to scare the thing and it back peddled.
Dennis then put both of his front legs up and turned to the wall. He struck it. part of the strong stone gave way and caved free like a block of soap. He kept carving the wall out until they were deep in the wall.
It took awhile to carve the new tunnel. He kept digging for 2 hours. The two girls didn’t fully understand why he was doing this when they could just go back the way they came. It seemed to Aisling that the Wumplebirve had a plan.
He had gone for about 150ft until the cave opened up again to another passageway. This time, the two girls saw something they didn’t expect. There was a corpse in metal armor stuck to the wall.
He was above the floor, his feet dangling 5in from the ground. The corpse was nothing but a skeleton. The two girls didn’t know what to say, they had seen a lot in the past like, 2 hours.
The thing that got Aisling going was the fact that Dennis managed to scare the Broken one. She got the impression that nothing and no one could scare a Broken one. But then again, she didn’t even know much about them. Perhaps Sylvia has something to say about that.
She looked over to her companion only to find that she was staring at the corpse of the man pinned on the wall. It was then that Aisling noticed the armor the man seemed to be wearing.
It looked like crusader armor. The helmet was the only thing that looked like it didn’t come from earth though. Its eyes were tear-dropped-shaped. The helmet also had a central ridge coming from the chin all the way up to the back of the head. Vertical slits were on the cheeks and there were six of them.
On his chest was the emblem of a harp. The harp was blue and green. The main body of the harp being green with the strings blue. The front of the harp was a dragon and transferred to a harp.
It was the same harp that the Irish flag used. It seemed that this man used to belong to a holy order. The chainmail underneath the fabric he was wearing seemed to be mail. It glistened with a silver-blueish light.
Sylvia was mesmerized by its beauty. The thing pinning him to the wall seemed to be a red colored sword. The blade looked like it was made from a mythical metal.
Mythril of, course, was considered magical but not in the realm of legends. The sword was going straight through his neck. The only place where it seemed that it wasn’t Mythril.
It was now that Aisling noticed that the young girl wasn’t looking at the man, but the armor. She seemed entranced by it. like the armor was her birthright. Meanwhile, the sword seemed like it was calling to Aisling.
This wasn’t the blade of Emner though. Because fate smiled on the little girl and she didn’t even know it, the blade only was able to ask to be used instead of ordered.
This sword is a Vladewood blade. Partially, a blood Vladewood sword. A blade grown from Vladewood was a very rare find. For Blood Vladewood was extinct. For if Blood Vladewood was carved into a blade and enchanted with a special enchantment that stopped the rotting of the wood, it would start to drink the blood of those who it killed.
This was because the wood needed fuel for the enchantment. Usually, a Vladewood blade would draw Chi or mana from the wielder, slowly killing them in the process. But Blood Vladewood would draw from the victims it reaped.
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She pulled the blade from the man’s corpse and looked at it. the blade thrummed under the hand of its new lord. It saw that she was powerful, and decreed in its heart that it would serve her.
Aisling just thought it a cool, yet unique and unnerving blade. Sylvia looked at the newly fallen knight and grabbed his armor and stuffed it into her pack with the force of a Karen buying the right brand of peas she wanted.
The two of them set the corpse in an honorable position and said a soft prayer. They then left the corpse to follow Dennis as he walked off. He was still waiting at the end of the new corridor for them as they did so.
…
Venator was baffled. He had expected the girls to run back the way they came, but it was not so. It seemed to him that the Wumplebirve had come up with an idea.
Said idea was to make a new tunnel and ignore him all the way back here. What irked him wasn’t that he did that, it made sense no, what irked him was the fact that the tunnel connected with another one that he hadn’t explored yet.
He looked at the corpse of the Irish Knight and sighed. He didn’t expect the tunnel to have this guy here. It also appeared to be a member of the ‘Harps of Vlade’. It was really an irksome encounter. These knights had used Mythril as armor and now he would have to deal with that.
The girls would probably use the armor to their advantage. But now he was right confused. He couldn’t tell if they went right or left. He cracked his stiff neck and sighed. He had been doping that a lot recently.
When he got home, he would have to take out some of his stress on his lover. He didn’t worry about her since she was into that sort of thing. Stretching, he went right. His pets then followed him down the hall as they had been tasked with getting their fellow to stop running from the Wumplebirve.
As he walked, he thought about his son, the person who would succeed the throne. He was a good boy. Maybe too good. He needed to know who was boss in their relationship.
Well, that was for the future, if he wanted to get close enough for that sort of thing to even be possible, he would have to get close to him. Maybe he could give this Beastkin girl to him as a present. He would have to train her in many different arts.
“Pets would some of you be good and go and scout out the party we’re following?” he asked, or rather ordered them.
Two of his five pets went ahead and started to tail the party of three. This was going to go well for him. At least he thought. For one thing he didn’t know was that Dennis had found a tunnel with a dead end. But the dead end aligned with the tunnel that led to the surface.
…
They were close to the end of this tunnel. Since Dennis could tunnel and dig his way around, Aisling guessed that this was what he was going to do. They were probably near the end of this chase.
If she had to guess, the hunter or the Broken ones were on their tails. She could sense it. They were close, very close in fact. She looked behind her and saw something in the darkness.
It was one of the things. It had found them yet again and was tailing them instead of outright coming after them. That probably meant it was a scout. That also meant that it was scouting for something or someone.
The handler for these broken things was nearby. She could feel his gaze locking onto her. It sent a shiver down her spine. She gripped her new sword she had just gotten, and she could feel it pulsate.
It tried to gage her feelings but all it could tell was that she was nervous about a thing that was going to happen. It couldn’t tell her that it was here to kill any force that threatened its new master. In fact, it was kind of happy, the life force of whatever was making this strong person shake was surely tasty.
She gripped the sword handle and looked forward once more. They had made it to the end of the tunnel and now Dennis was starting his digging. He quickly made his way into the dig rock and stone of the cave. It was then that Sylvia noticed Aisling’s nervous face.
She looked at her friend and smiled. She too had guessed the purpose of them coming down here. Of course, that didn’t make this any less terrifying, but at least shew had her good friend here.
During this whole adventure, they had started to get along swimmingly. She trotted over to her friend and gave her a big hug this caused Aisling to blush as she had been thinking about how their friendship had become rather close.
She also had been thinking about what Sylvia would look like when they got older. Her blonde hair and green eyes were what one would call beautiful. When she got older many men would froth at the mouth just to see her…
That wasn’t a good line of thought to go down. She was only 11 right now. And Aisling was only 3, looking like six. She wouldn’t have any chance with her. Especially since being Homosexual was looked down on in this region of the world.
In the Byzantine Empire it wasn’t looked down on at all though. So, if Aisling was to move for any reason, it would be there. This line of thought and explanation was going to weird places, so we’ll stop here.
She looked at Dennis again. It seemed like he had finally breached the other side and was nearly done. The three of them heard noises from the other side. Relief flooded through the two girls as they started to help out Dennis.
Aisling grabbed the sword she got from the kidnappers and started to stab at the rock. It soon became clear who was on the other side of the stone. It was her father. His voice came to them like a waterfall.
“Aisling! My little girl is that you? Fathers here! Wait for a little longer. I new you were alive!” he shouted to them.
Did everyone think she had been killed or sold to something of that effect? Well, it made sense, she had been missing for weeks. It would be a shock to say the least if they didn’t think so.
A Sound came from behind them, and the two girls turned and looked at where it came from. A man was stranding there. He wore what seemed to be casual clothes for spelunking, his brown hair and blue eyes were stark against the things behind him. He looked to be about 5ft 5in.
He raked a hand through his hair. It seemed like he wasn’t used to caves all too much. He cracked his neck and sighed. It seemed like he hadn’t had the best day ever.
“I finally find you both, and your just about to get into the hands of your father… this is just a horrible month in general,” he sighed yet again. “Well, might as well kill all of you. Well, except for the little kids but I’m getting ahead of myself.”
Aisling’s rage started to swell. This was the man who would kidnap kids. This was the man who would use these ‘Things’ to capture them. What sick mind this man has. What kind of fucker would do that?
Well, she knew, this was the man who had been hunting them. They had been on the run for two weeks. If anything was to be gained from that it was this man sucked at his job.
“Pst, Sylvia, grab this sword and try and break away this rock,” she told Sylvia.
Sylvia nodded her head and went to town on the rock. Stabbing it like it had murdered her mother. Dennis was nearly through, but the hole so far was only big enough for one person.
Aisling squared off against the Hunter. Rage fueled gaze and the man seemed taken back by the eyes of this young girl. She pulled the Vladewood blade from her belt she had put on and made a stance.
It wasn’t a good stance, but it was correct for the most part at least. He seemed put off by this as he had never seen a stance like that before. It was much more fragile looking than most sword stances in this world.
Aisling had seen a documentary about a sport known as HEMA. It was basically a sword fighting sport. She only remembered a few things from it but what she knew would be deadly.
She had heard that all HEMA noobs sweep the legs so that’s what she was going to do. And she was too short for anything else. The man rushed forward, and Aisling went between his legs.
She then slashed at the back of his knees when she found herself behind him. He darted forward and whipped around so as to avoid the blow. He slashed at her from above and she met his blade with hers. She pushed the blade aside and pushed the point of her blade forwards and to the side, this staggered him somewhat.
Now was her chance so she took it. she swung the blade left with a swift motion. This made the blade cut into the top of his forearm and the surface of his stomach. He jumped back a little.
He looked down on his stomach and a rage filled scowl surfaced on his face. He darted forward stabbing at the little girl. But she side-stepped him and cut at his knees.
“GAH!” he yelped in pain as his shins were nearly cut.
He had dodged but he was falling behind because of his lack of practice with the blade. He had never really needed to use one as his pets usually found his prey soon enough. But his pets wouldn’t go near the girl right now. They could sense the bloodlust from the spirit of the sword.
She had just picked up the blade and seemed like a naturel. She of course had seen HEMA in action, but that wasn’t why. The sword she was using was helping her. It was basically giving her soft-lock aim assist.
Right now, he was fuming like a toddler that hadn’t gotten his way. He swept in a large arc in hopes of tripping the girl but that didn’t do much. She simply blocked and swept his and her blade up, causing the sword to slip from his grasp.
It was then an arrow landed in the back of his shoulder. He looked back to the tunnel and noticed that the grown men with sickles and axes were slowly making their way forward.
“FUCK,” he cursed and ran back to his pets.
He tried to grab little Aisling, but she stabbed his hand, and he moved around her. Cursing as he did so, he hid behind his pets and pulled back. If they hadn’t found the sword, then she would have had to deal with the Broken ones and the hunter known as Venator.
This had been a crazy two weeks. Buit as her father went down on his hands and knees to hug her, all of her worry melted away.