Reader Beware

Chpater 26

            Rika sighed, leaning back against the wall, wishing that there was a scrap of paper somewhere in the room. Or that she still had her bag. She sighed again. Escape plan three, go out through the window, had ended the same way the others had. Failure. Sure, the window opened. She could even fit through it. But as she was nearly five stories up, she wasn’t about to jump out. Not unless she was desperate.

            Again, she looked around the room. High-ceilinged with tall, glass paned windows that let in a lot of light, it was hardly the somber cell she’d imagined she was going to be tossed in. The furniture was all made of some dark wood, maybe chestnut or mahogany, every piece stately, elegant, and Rika suspected, an antique. The bed that dominated the room actually had bed curtains.  This was her first time seeing real bed curtains. Normally she’d have been excited, but under the circumstances, she only spared them enough of a glance to wonder if she could make a rope to climb down with. She’d measured all the material in the room, and was still going to be short, so that idea had gotten tossed too. It was the kind of thing that only worked in books, and even in another world, things like escaping weren’t that easy.

            Reminded of her books, Rika bit her lower lip, thinking through every instance she could remember of characters getting kidnapped and then escaping. The first couple of ways she had to reject out of hand. She couldn’t fly, her magic had only shown itself in the ability to make paper move so far, she had no idea how to pick a lock, and she was hardly about to try to seduce the guards through the shut and locked door.

            But the next method had her sitting straight up, the first smile she’d worn since being shoved into the room spreading slowly across her face. This one could work. If she was careful. And if she was fast. There would only be the one shot, and if she messed it up…Rika shook her head. She wasn’t going to think like that.

            Moving quietly into the attached bathing room, Rika scrutinized her reflection in the tiny mirror there. Well, she was certainly pale enough to make this work. But that alone wouldn’t be enough. As silently as she could, she dipped her hand into the bathtub and rubbed the wetness over her exposed skin. Only when her whole body was shining with dampness did she pad back into the main room.

            Starting beside the bed, she deliberately stumbled forward. She staggered a couple of steps before falling to her knees. Remembering all the wounds she’d seen in the last fight and the one before that, especially the ones Shetton had inflicted, Rika was able to retch loudly and very convincingly. In fact, she was forced to fight her stomach down. She didn’t want any trace of weakness actually throwing up could cause her.

            After a minute of that, long enough that she figured the guards had to have heard, Rika threw herself to the ground, doing her best to collapse as loudly as she could. She shifted her body slightly, making sure she was in an easy to rise from position, before closing her eyes. Listening intently, she heard voices edging upwards in volume. A few moments later and she could hear the door being unlocked then thrown open.

            Curses followed what she guessed were the guards’ first sight of her. “If she’s dead…” said one voice, sounding terrified. She heard two sets of footsteps hurry over, reminding herself over and over not to move until they were in the right spot. She could hear one kneeling beside her while the other carefully touched her forehead, saying “She’s alive, but if anything happens to you, you know Lord Atelic’ll have us strung up faster than you can say ‘Not our fault.’”

            She leapt up, twisted, and managed to deliver a perfect right cross to the guard who’d touched her’s jaw. He went down without a sound, eyes rolling up. Rika didn’t watch, already swinging herself around to face the other one. Before he could eve cry out, Rika sank her foot into his stomach, then leapt to her feet and slammed a fist into the base of his skull to be sure of him. When she was sure they were both down and going to stay that way for a while, she moved.

            Racing to the door, she cautiously poked her head out, looking up and down the hall. Seeing no one, she slipped out, shutting the door behind her. The longer before anyone knew she was gone, the farther ahead she’d be able to get.

            Remembering having come up the hall, and having seen a staircase on the walk to the room, Rika went that way. She knew she needed to get down. And if she was very lucky, she’d be able to find servant’s clothes or something similar to change into. If she’d seen any female soldiers, she’d have tried taking her guards’ uniforms, but she wasn’t about to do anything to make herself stick out anymore.

            Keeping her head down and hurrying like she had somewhere to be, Rika rounded the corner of the hallway and nearly ran straight into the men standing there. She stopped, stared, then tried to turn and run. But she wasn’t quick enough.

            One of the soldiers grabbed her shoulder before she’d done more than half turn around. Rika lashed out at him with a fist, making him let her go. She tried to lunge clear of the others, but they were faster. Two sets of hands closed on her arms at nearly the same time. Rika kicked backwards as hard as she could, feeling the strike connect and one set of hands loosen, accompanied by a groan of pain.

            But the others were already converging on her, all of them trying to hold her. Rika knew she’d messed up and there was no way she was going to escape from this lot. There were far too many of them. But she certainly wasn’t about to make it easy on them, not after everything they’d put her through. She kicked and punched without hesitation, hoping that every blow left a bruise on her captors. If she couldn’t escape, at least she could make them work to hold onto her and maybe slow them enough that her next attempt would succeed.