The FEDS Pact

Chapter Seven

After a restless sleep and the coming of early morn, Dredge our newly made friend awoke us. At least my body told me it were the morn, I couldn’t see out to confirm the fact. There was little speech involved as we prepared for our departure, all with high nerves on the consequences of failure. First we dressed, clad in the same armour the prison guards wore which Dredge for one already displayed. He couldn’t have stressed any more the importance of the hefty iron helmets we wore in hiding our youth and true identities, though all I can comment on is the pure irritance of the nose guard. Before I advance any further in the telling of this story I mustn’t fail to add I were hardly convinced we’d pass through the prison unnoticed, but this being my only shot at survival I chose to go along with it.

Much to my delight once dressed in the chainmail the armoury followed, finding a sword being pressed into my grasp. “These are fair swords, lightweight so any able arm can defend oneself. Use them wisely” Dredge muttered gruffly giving his own larger sword a swing in example. It were a strange sensation bearing arms, obviously I’d used a firearm but a sword…. This feeling was entirely new to me. So just for a moment I stood there, balancing the blade and just generally trying to get a feel for the single item that would either save my life or bring me death. My gaze had cast to the blade, a great shining sapphire surface, just for a moment until I returned to reality finding myself facing a cold steel blade. Outta the corner of my eye I caught Jaden shiver, the prospect of using this blade to stick into another human being no matter how evil rather unsavoury I’d say, at least in his eyes. Then he said rather uncertainly “Yh…Yh… Yes a most beautiful blade. But only for emergencies. Right?”. “Indeed dear Jaden, we will have many of them in our travels” replied Dredge stonily, a cold wind blowing briskly into the cell as he prepped a couple of extra throwing knives for our travels. Then we left.

Luckily so the cells two other occupants had been removed during the night with how shall I put it? Little protest that’s it, in order to carry out whatever fate awaited them leaving us quite alone to do as we pleased. There’s not much more to say really, the gate opened with a creaky slide and our fate was placed in Dredge’s hopefully capable hands as he uttered in a hushed tone “follow me”. We descended say three flights of winding stairs illuminated only dimly with a handful of torches. This in fact although a little eerie worked to our advantage, enabling us to shield our true identities ever more effectively when we passed a guard, on a couple of occasions.

Within what mustn’t have been more than a short stretch of minutes we found ourselves being hit by streams of light, making me wince a great deal not being used to the sun and all. After a few uncomfortable blinks and a little concentration I came to realise we were looking out over a courtyard, it being quite literally our gateway to freedom. One problem. There must’ve been an entire battalion of troops there, marching in aggressive unison. I were the first to register the blatant hopelessness of what lay ahead saying tiredly “there’s so many, we’ll never get through unseen”. “Come on let’s just get down there for starters….” Dredge began a little awe-struck himself by the mass of troops ahead obviously meaning this wasn’t exactly “normal”.

No more was heard of Dredge’s plan though as a gruff shout cut in “Quickly! Intruder at the west gate!”. There were a few grumbles of confusion and discontent throughout the ranks, but then there was another slightly more vigorous order “MOVE OUT! MOVE OUT, TO THE WEST GATE”. The troops reluctantly began to march, filing out of the courtyard until only we remained while Jaden whispered “they’re moving off, see Huck some luck at last”. We made our way down into the courtyard and through it with relative ease, quite literally nobody there to challenge us…. Well until we reached the gate, our last stop before freedom. There were three burly guards standing to attention, one of whom wore a long feather perched quite quirkily on the uppermost point of his helmet. I don’t know to symbolise he was in command?