Knows everybody's disapproval…
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Both soldiers heard me, their head whipped in my direction and two pairs of icy blue eyes locked onto my location in the tree.
Then Silas snarled.
They were both at my tree it what seemed like less than a second, teeth still bared as their liquid blue eyes glared up at me, I gasped and wriggled on the branch I was seated on, trying to get free so I could climb higher.
The next few moments passed in a panicked blur, I scrambled higher in the tree, followed by threatening snarls that seemed all to close. Terrified, I glanced back, and met the eyes of one of my pursuers, in all their savage glory.
He bared his teeth at me once he knew he had my attention, in a way that was more grimace than smile.
“Little girl thinks she can escape, eh?” His taunt came out in a mutated and garbled voice, probably due to the teeth he had to speak around.
I gasped and tried to pull myself higher, but there was only so high I could go in the tree.
“She a runner, Silas?” his friends voice was equally as vicious, garbled yet somehow still the most frightening thing I’d ever heard.
“Looks like it to me.”
I was struggling to go any further, and in a last ditch attempt, I surged upward, reaching desperately for that high branch, where I would go from there I hadn’t got to yet. But I didn’t need to worry about that, because as soon as I leapt, a cold hand closed around my ankle, yanking me downwards.
I lost all grip on my failed escape route, and fell down to earth, falling on top of the closest soldier, which meant my fall was broken slightly, and the angry branches didn’t get chance to kill me before I had hit the ground.
I wish they had.
The ground was hard and unforgiving when I crashed down onto it, the soldier underneath having seemed to disappear in mid-air. I lay still for a moment, in shock, then all the air rushed out of my at the hand at my neck. Ah, there was the soldier.
He leant in, until his face was right next to mine, his glorious teeth inches away from my neck, and tightened his hand around my neck, cutting off my air supply.
“Got you know, haven’t I? Dirty little Runner thought she could get away,” he laughed harshly in my face, not expecting an answer from my gasping mouth.
Suddenly, the hand was gone, and I felt relief for a short second, then terror quickly took hold again. One of them gave me a quick kick to the ribs, rolling my on to my side as I gasped, partly in pain and partly to catch my breath. I curled up and clutched my ribs, breathing shallow at the pain.
The men were growling more things at me, but I wasn’t understanding the words, all I could hear was the deafening crunch of their footsteps in the snow. They landed another kick on my body, to my back this time, and I screamed, my convulsing only seeming to make my injuries more painful. They were laughing, and I vaguely heard the drawing of a sword.
They began to speak again, no doubt spitting insults at my bent over form, and the words faded in and out.
“Let’s see how loud we can make her scream-.”
I panted, my own heart beat deafening to my ears.
“She’s very young for a runner-.”
Another kick was landed, and I sobbed into my frozen hands.
“They have power, aging is optional for the-.”
Suddenly, I felt a blade cut across my back, slicing through my clothes, and the skin underneath, then it was gone, and their savage voices finally ceased.
The only sound in the clearing was my broken sobbing, and the breeze as it whispered through the snow covered trees. I didn’t question the silence, only prayed that when it ended, my end would soon follow; I didn’t want to suffer.
The soldier broke the silence, but not in the way I had expected.
“Shit.”
There was a pause in which they both seemed to hold their breaths; I lay as still as I could.
“You see that too, Silas-.”
“Well what do you think moron? Shit, shit!”
I remained lying on the ground, not looking at them, and finally noticing that I was surrounded by snow, and it was making me wet. I wasn’t bothered by the cold, but there was an odd damp sensation on my back which wasn’t very pleasant. Oh, I remembered, I had been cut, it was my blood. My mind conjured up a vivid image of blood dripping onto pure white snow, and I shivered.
My movement seemed to pull the two men into action.
“Get the lantern Tylan, and clean the blade. Go, quick, we need her back in camp, you go ahead to prepare.”
Dimly, I recognised the complete change in the tone of voice, from savage, to urgent and soft. Then I felt arms beneath my back and legs, lifting me gently. I cried out at pain the movement caused by back, I could feel more of the hot liquid dripping down.
I struggled weakly as he lifted me, though I knew I wasn’t really having any impact. When he began to walk, I cried out weakly, and was quickly, albeit gently, shushed by the man carrying me, I think it was Silas. I fell silent immediately, my eyes suddenly focusing on his face, when previously it had all been a painful blur.
Like I had noted before, he had pale skin, the exact image of my mother translated into the male gender, with pale, ice blue eyes and platinum blond hair. I was the same, except from my midnight black hair, inherited directly from my Pa. other than that, there was nothing of my Pa in me, we had looked to complete opposites, with his bronzed skin, warm brown eyes and dark hair, like the rest of the village, there wasn’t a blond among them. It’s another reason why I think they hated us; we looked almost like aliens when stood in the town square.
The gentle swaying his footsteps caused drew me back to the present, as I drew out of the numbness the abuse had put me in and began to register the stinging pain of my ribs and the cut across my back. My eyes focused in time to meet my captors eyes as he watched me, I gasped and began to struggle, finally catching up to what had happened.
He cursed, and held me tighter, jolting my back.
“Stop, I’m trying to help,” I gaped at him in disbelief, though my movements did stop, he was helping? I couldn’t think of a situation where beating me up constituted as ‘helping’.
He gritted his teeth at the look on my face and looked away.
“We didn’t know who you were, really, this all could have been avoided if you had told us at the start,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
When he glanced at me again, to see my bewildered face, he hissed through his teeth, and stayed silent.
And since I wasn’t one to start up a conversation with a man who beat me up then carried me off into the forest under the guise of ‘helping’ me, a thick silence settled. I decided he was my best bet of getting out of the forest alive, and it wasn’t like I could escape him anyway, we had seen what happened when I attempted that.
He carried me further into the woods.
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Finally, I got this chapter done! Yay! Please vote and comment, it really encourages me. And the dedication is for a randomly selected reader/follower, thank you and i hope everyone enjoys! xx