The Blade and The Bird

Chapter 13

The room was dark as Sidra tried to see what was in the room above her. She could hear the sounds of water droplets hitting the ground and the air smelled of must and mold. It seemed like she was in a dungeon. She tried to look to her right, and she could make out the bars of a cell in that direction. She had been right, this did look like a dungeon.

She could see someone in the cell closest to the grate but their back was to Sidra.

"Hello," Sidra whispered as she tried to get the person's attention.

"Who are you talking to?" Baron asked from down below.

"There's someone in a cell up here," she looked down at him.

"Maybe don't bother them, you'll get caught," Baron chided. Sidra ignored him.

"Hello, over here," she whispered again toward the person. She watched as the person began to turn out as it looked for the source of the voice.

She realized the person was an older man. His back had a hunch in it, and she could see through the shadows that where his feet should be were cloven hooves. His long beard obscured most of his face but she could make out a look of surprise as he noticed her peeking out of the grate.

"Who are you?" the man asked her.

"That's not important. What is this place?" Sidra asked him.

"It's a dungeon. What are you doing down there?"

"Who are you talking to?" she heard Baron ask from down below. She ignored him.

"Is it safe to come up? Are there guards?" she asked the man.

"There is a guard. He should be coming down soon," the man answered. "But it's just us right now."

"Us?" Sidra asked. She tried to look further into the room.

"There are five of us here," the man told her.

"Five Mystics?" she asked.

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Seriously, Sidra. Who are you talking to?" Baron shouted up at her again. The man seemed to hear Baron at that time.

"Is there someone else with you?" the man asked her. Sidra didn't reply to him, instead, she ducked her head back down the grate and looked toward Baron.

"I'm going up," she said to him before she climbed further up the ladder and pushed the grate up and out of her way. She pulled herself through the hole in the ground and looked back into the darkness below where Baron waited. She noticed that at some point her hand had stopped glowing.

He followed after her and poked his head out of the hole in the ground. He had an unreadable expression on his face as he looked at the dungeon before him. Sidra watched as Baron climbed the rest of the way out of the ground and stood next to her in the gloom of the dungeon.

"A dungeon," he said aloud.

Sidra was about to say something when she heard heavy footsteps coming toward them. She motioned for Baron to stay quiet and then inched forward. There was a spot near the furthermost cell where it turned into a hallway, and she pulled her knife from her belt loop and waited. A guard rounded the corner and caught sight of Baron, but before he could move forward, Sidra slammed the hilt of her knife into the side of the guard's head and he crumpled to the ground unconscious.

The man in the cell let out a surprised gasp as she watched what Sidra was doing but he didn't say more.

"What are you doing?" Baron hissed as he looked at the unconscious guard on the floor.