It didn't take long for Devon to return. The three prisoners gratfully slipped on the warm and comfy clothes, which was a big difference from the ripped and worn-out clothes, but Belle made sure to bring along her brown leather jacket, since it was her new favourite one, ever since the wild boar incident. They, then all wrapped a belt around their hips, holding a sword and dagger on their left side. Once they were ready, they all started to check the weight and feel of their new weapons.
Next, came the tricky part. Escaping.
They all agreed that they would leave one at a time to not make it look suspicious.
Alex went first, Logan refusing to leave his brother behind. Then Logan left after counting to 5 minutes. Then, Devon and Belle were the only ones left. They sat silently, waiting for 5 minutes to pass. Devon glanced over at Belle, seeing her light brown eyes gaze upon the monotonous cage. She had dirt on her face and scares as well. Her hair was knotty and frizzy and she looked rundown and weak. But, Devon seemed to see underneath all that, to realise how beautiful this girl really was.
Without warning. Belle averted her gaze and caught Devon's eye watching her. Belle couldn't stop a small smile touch her lips. "Were you watching me?" Belle asked and by the bright pink colour that shaded Devon's face, she had been right. "Why were you watching me?" she asked, not needing to wait for an answer. Devon shrugged, knowing he had been caught red-handed.
"You're beauti-" Devon began, but stopped himself in in mid-sentence realising what he was about to say. It was a problem for Devon, he had a big mouth and always managed to let things slip out of his mouth sub-conciously. He cleared his throat nervously, as he felt Belle's amused gaze burn into him. "nothing..." he mumbled, not knowing how to cover up his stupid slip of the tongue.
Belle let her small smile grow bigger as he tried to shake off his comment. And, with nothing else to amuse her, decided to press the subject.
"You weren't going to say, beautiful, were you?" Belle asked, watching as his face started to grow into the colour of a betroot.
"No! Of course not!" he rushed to say.But, when he saw Belle put on a slightly hurt look, he then started to speak incoherently, unable to think of a way of covering his mistake up without hurting her feelings. "um..I mean you are, ugh ermm well you know..I didn't-" Devon kept mumbling on, but Belle interrupted, finally deciding that Devon had suffered enough.
"Devon, I'm messing with you." Belle said, unable to stop a small laugh escaping her lips. Devon was now a violent red, realising how stupid he must of looked. Then, the place went silent again. He checked how long they had, from an old watch that he managed to knick from his father's treasures of what he brought back from his raids. 3 minutes to go. He sighed , his voice slightly echoing off of the small enclosed walls of the cage.
"So, how are you doing?" Belle asked, "With the news of your father." Belle added, after Devon gave her a confused look. After she added that last sentence, his facial expression lost any sign of happiness.
"I just hope he's okay." Devon sighed depressingly. Belle nodded in understanding.
"I'm really sorry for them taking them. I really am. No one should deserve having their father taken away from them." Belle said, moving toward Devon as she sawtears at the surface of his eyelids, fighting to roll down his freckled cheeks. She found a nice spot right next him and put an arm around his shoulders. Devon's breath was cut shot as he realised how much proximity was between him and the beautiful girl.
His heart beating 100 miles an hour, and he started to wonder if the girl, whose name was aledgedly, Annalise, could hear the loud thump of his heart beat, as it banged against his ribcage.
They sat in silence, until Devon suddenly remembered the time and checked to see they had been too long.
"Let's go." Devon said, and felt disappointed as Annalice took her arm off of his shoulders.
<--------<<<-
Devon and Belle had decided to go together, since they reasoned that it wouldn't cause too much attention.
As they made it to the group that was now gathered behind a large sapling, Logan and Alex let sighs of relief leave their mouths. "How long do you want to be? We thought you were dead." Logan said, his eyes filled with concern.
"Sorry," Belle said, not knwoing what esle to say. "We lost track of time." Logan raised an eyebrow at this.
"How can you lose track of time?" Logan asked, then realization dawned on him, "unless..." Belle felt her cheeks burn at Logan's last word, seeing what he meant. She shook her head aggresively.
"No, NO! Ew, I mean, no offence Devon, but he isn't my..." Belle paused trying to think of an unoffencive word. "...type." Belle said, and Devon felt his heart sink as he heard 'Annalise's' words. But, made an effort to hide his feelings. So, he just simply nodded in agreement.
An awkward silence grew upon the group, Alex feeling a pang of jealousy as he started to suspect a special relationship growing between the Skandian boy and 'Annalise'. He tried to push it aside, but he had to admit, if looks could kill, he would have died a thousand times already. She was covered in dirt and dry blood and scares, but yet, she still looked as beautiful as a princess.
"So," Logan said, clapping his hands, interrupting Alex's thoughts. "are we gonna escape or are we just going to day dream about Cinderella." Logan said, gesturing to Belle.
"What?" Belle asked, confused of how this was all suddenyl about her. Logan let a smile creep on his face.
"Did you not just see how Alex and sea wolf boy over here look at you just then." Belle felt blood rush to her cheeks, feeling them catch on fire. She looked over at the boys and saw their blushing faces.
"Well, um. Let's go and escape before this conversation gets anymore awkward." Belle said, before taking a deep breath. "Now, once we reach the two Wargal guards that are at the steps, me and Logan will kill them, and then we all run like mad men out of here before any Wargals or Skandians can catch up to us. Got it?" Belle explained, and the boys nodded in understanding. "right." Belle swallowed loudly, feeling a knot in her stomach as she stared at the vicious looking Wargals that she had to kill. "Let's go..." Belle, taking the lead in the small group, Logan quickly jogging to her side.
"You ready?" Logan asked, as the Wargals noticed the group coming toward them.
"Too late to back down now." Belle said, before unsheathing her sword without any warning and charged at the closest Wargal. Logan then quickly unsheathed his own taking on the other Wargal.
Belle took an overhead stroke at the Wargal, but it quickly realised what was going on and unsheathed it's own sword deflecting the stroke easily. Belle felt a jolt run through her right arm as she felt the strong force of the Wargal's sword. But, before Belle could react and take another sword stroke, the Wargal quickly pulled the sword away and aimed it's point right for Belle's heart. Belle, trained to react quickly spun to the right, not giving the Wargal anytime to react and put her sword through the Wargal's chest. The Wargal let out a growl of pain and fell to it's knees. But, in the Wargal's last breath, it took one more sword stroke at Belle. The blade found it's target, hitting her leg, right above her ankle. Then the Wargal died.
Belle let out a yelp of pain, blood already seeping through her new Skandian trousers. Belle felt panic run through her, as blood squirted out, meaning the blade hit an artery. Belle went to fall to the ground, when Alex caught her from a hard landing.
He then gently lowered her to the ground, tears springing from her eyes of panic. The sound of steel on steel rang out around them as Logan still struggled to kill the other Wargal, with Devon giving a helping hand with his small battleaxe.
Belle looked up into Alex's blue eyes that sparkled in the afternoon sun. Belle saw fear drowning his eyes and for a moment she just stared at them. Then, she quickly lowered her eyes, knowing that if she didn't act soon, she would die. She sat up right, ripping the lower half of her trousers that was now covered in blood and threw it away. She then did the same thing to her other leg of trousers, but instead of throwing it away, she wrapped it around her deep bleeding wound, pulling it as tight as she could to stop the blood flow to get to her injury.
She then took a deep breath. The wound was safe for the moment, she just had to watch carefully to see when the wound stops bleeding so she can mend the wound properly.
"Are you okay?' Alex asked, who was crouching next to her. Belle let a relieved sigh free from her lips.
"Peachy." she said. They sat in silence as Logan managed to sneak in a stab at the Wargal while it was occupied with Devon trying to kill it. Making the Wargal let out a screeching high pitched scream of pain, before slumping to the ground, dead. This caused Wargals near by to whip their heads up, to see where the screaming came from. Once the Wargals saw the small group and the Wargals dead on the ground, they charged at them, battleaxes and swords at the ready.
They the kids all looked at each other in fear, before Belle recovered first from the momentary shock. "Go, go, go!" She yelled, forcing everyone to action. Alex put his hand in hers, helping her up, ignoring the tingles that ran through her body. She leaned to her left side, since her right leg wasn't going to be much help and attempted to run. But, even the slightest weight made sharp pains run throught her body. She let out a yelp of pain, almost falling to the ground, before Alex grabbed hold of her.
Then suddenly, Belle felt her legs being lifted off of the ground. "What are you doing?" Belle asked, terror and fear obvious in her voice as she could see the Wargals making ground faster then she liked.
"Saving your life." Alex replied, as he picked Belle up onto his shoulder, gripping onto her legs to keep her on there.
How charming.
Then, before Belle or anyone could protest, he started to run as fast as he could, the others already half way up the mudbrick steps.
Belle's body bumped up and down, with Alex's shoulder digging into her stomach. And she tried to keep her eyes on the ground, as she realised she was facing directly at Alex's hide. "Oh wow." Belle said to herself under her breath, feeling very awkward at that point.
Alex leaped up the stairs, two by two, before he reached the top, running as fast as he could. Belle could hear the guttural protests of the Wargals trying to catch up. But once they ran further onto level ground, the protests seemed to die down, until there was no sound except for the other 3 boys' panting for breath.
Finally, they stopped. Alex then lowered Belle to her feet, his face red from exhaustion. "Well that was..." Belle began, trying to think of the right word to describe what just happened. "surprising." she settled on the word. They all went silent the boys trying to catch their breaths, while Belle sat on the green grass, checking her wound. It was only bleeding lightly now, which meant that the worst was over, so she decided to ease the tightness of the bandage letting blood flow down to her foot again.
After Belle had finished, and the boys had caught their breaths, she checked the sky to see there was a couple of hours still left until sundown. "We better make the most of what light we have left." she said, "We'll, head north, toward Thorntree forest." And, with that, they all set off at a slow jog, with the boys taking turns in escorting Belle and keeping her on her feet.
<--------<<<-
"How long do we have to do this?" Logan whinged, after the second day of escorting Belle. Belle simply rolled her eyes.
"I'm not that bad." she protested. And Logan let a snort of disbelief come out, earning himself a punch in the arm. He yelped in pain, the other two boys laughing.
"Oh yeah, you're not bad at all." Logan said sarcastically, making a second punch come his way."Ow! Stop doing that It really hurts!" Logan whined. Belle let a smile touch her lips.
"I'm glad." Belle replied smartly. Logan furrowed his eyebrows angrily.
"Hey! That's mean!"
"Ha! Better get use to it, pal."
"Don't call me pal." Logan said grumpily
"I will call you pal, because I know it annoys you, and since I'm bored out of my brains, I find it amusing to annoy you." Belle said.
"You're so annoying!" Logan grumbled, Belle raised an eyebrow,
"Do you want me to punch you in the jaw? Trust me, I've done it before." Belle threatened, and Logan went wide-eyed and kept his mouth shut, giving Belle his best glare
Belle's eyes then wondered around the small group, until her gaze landed on Alex. The big Skandian coat was way too big for him, making him look so sweet and innocent. Belle then was caught by surprise when her suddenly turned his head, and their eyes locked. His eyes twinkled with the warm afternoon sun, and Belle couldn't help but let a small, shy smile touch her lips.
Alex's breath cut short as his and Annalise's eyes met. Her pretty brown eyes making her look flawless. When he noticed a small smile pointed toward him, he felt the urge to gape as he noticed how her eyes sparkled whenever she smiled. This made Alex return a warm and welcoming smile.
But, within seconds, the moment was ruined as the sound of hoofbeats caught their attention, which soon followed by a sight of a group of men that appeared to come out of a forest near by, riding on horses with weapons in their hands coming straight towards the group. Belle nooticed they wore black cloth around their mouth and nose, and hooded black cloaks as well, with only their eyes being revealed. Belle was for a second confused, but then she realised who these men were.
They were bandits.