Chapter 5

I looked around the room, trying to find an exit that's not out of the front. The bookshelf was still in front of the door, and moving it just to go into the bandit's line of sight was a silly idea. I walked over to the back of the room, and looked back at Anca who was putting away the books we were reading. She nodded towards me, and stood up. I grabbed my crossbow off of my back, and flipped it to the blunt side. I began to kick in a few boards, to test which one is the one that will get us out of there. I finally found a creaky one. I started to kick it in. Once my arm began to get tired, I started using my crossbow.

After a few minutes of this, I finally got the board broken off. I decided to see if I could fit through it. No way, I thought, as I tried to crawl through it. I decided to try breaking the board right next to it, to see if that'd make a bigger hole. I broke through this board too, after a few minutes, and finally was able to crawl through the hole. I ran back and grabbed my knapsack, and then pointed Anca to the hole. She nodded, and then began to run there. I followed her, and then began to lead her to safety.

As soon as we exited the cabin, there were woods straight ahead. I turned down towards the left side of the cabin, and hid behind the corner. I told Anca to go the other way. I snuck my way around the corner, when I heard a scream from Anca. "Dammit, they're still here," I immediately turned around to get back to behind the house. I ran swiftly, running into a elbow as I turned.

I heard Anca screaming, telling the other bandit to let her go, but I couldn't get to my feet before the other bandit who elbowed me mounted me. "You think you're a big, smart guy, eh? Sneaking out the back of this cabin?" He punched me with his right hand. "Well, we're smarter." He took another hook. "You're nothing," he yelled at me. I could feel blood trickling down my face, but I doubt I would be able to release my hands from underneath the bandit's legs. After a few more angry words, he released me from his trap. I laid for a second before getting back up.

As soon as I regained my composure, I looked towards him, but found an elbow coming towards my face quickly.

And then, things went black.

"Jer? Jer, where did they take you?" I whispered out to the black room. I had no clue where I was. I immediately curled up into a ball and sat on the floor. "Right when I was gaining confidence, too," I mumbled to myself. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. "No, no, Anca, you're not crying now, you're not crying now," I told myself. I began to run through the events that happened. First, after the one bandit dude knocked out Jer, they had another guy come up and grab Jer with him. The one that was holding me back hoisted me up over his shoulder after tying my hands together. I couldn't wrestle out of his grasp, so I decided to just accept it.

But no longer was I accepting it, I was going to get out of that prison one way or another. I could barely see inside of the room, but soon my vision adjusted to it. It was still dark, but at least I could make out objects. I looked down at my hands, they were still wound and tied. "Great," I thought. Of course, I'd have to get those off before trying to escape. I scoped the room. The sharpest thing seemed to be a very dull blade near the wall. I knew that couldn't be the only thing, so I looked towards the bed they gave me. It was stained with blood and God knows what else. I placed my foot on it, and then stepped down on it. "Hmm... awfully springy," I thought.

I ran my hands around the bed, looking for an breaks in the mattress to reveal a loose spring, anything to get this damned hand-tie off. I was finally able to find one, underneath the rock hard pillow. I placed my hands right behind the spring, so there was nothing between me and the spring. I placed my foot towards the base of the bed, and then started to pull. After a few minutes of exerting myself, I finally got it off. I massaged my hands for a second, and then looked towards the door.

There was a window on the door, which I was able to see out of. There was a hallway leading to what looked like the main room. It was bright in the main room, and I saw a bandit laughing. I squinted, and saw that he was holding something. "He's holding my damn Southern Isles coin!" I gasped to myself. I felt anger rush over me like anger has never done before. I humphed and walked back to the bed to devise a game plan. I began to think about what some of the people I've read in books have done. "What did Dorthea Danielsen do in this situation?" I whispered quietly to myself as I started racking my brain for a game plan.

I looked towards the door, and then it hit me. I threw my hand up towards my hair, and grabbed a pin holding my hair in place. I realized that that might mess up my hair, but I didn't really care at this point, all I cared about was getting out of there. I crawled back over to the locked door, grabbed the door handle, and began to move my pin towards the lock. As I held onto the door handle, I shakily inserted the pin. I began to twist it, when I realized, books aren't realistic at all. I've built up most of my life around books, and I've just had that epiphany while trying to open a locked door in a dungeon to a bandit's place. What the hell am I doing?

I dropped the pin and grabbed the door handle as I fell to the ground. I didn't want to fully fall, so grabbing onto a locked door handle would protect me from that, wouldn't it? Well, as it turned out, the door was not actually locked. I had a giant epiphany about books being unrealistic, and the door was unlocked the entire time. Funnily enough, my first thought after this was something about my hair. This is not important, though, as I excitedly, but quietly, opened the door.

On the other side was the hallway. I knew it was trouble to go into the main room myself, so I decided to stick to the wall. I like to think that I blended in well, but what happened was probably luck. I was able to get to the main room, where the bandits were laughing amongst themselves on the other side of the room. I heard them say disgusting things about me that I'd rather not detail, but I had had enough of it, so I crawled next to a table, where they haphazardly left my dagger.

Inhaling, I slowly tried to sneak around them to the hallway on the other side of the room. After I got about halfway, I heard one of them yell, "Hey, did one of them escape?" darting to his feet quickly. I sped up my crawl, reaching the hallway by the time the other ones saw me. "Get him! Or her! I don't know which one it is!" I heard clatter as they moved the chairs out of the way. I got up to my feet and ran to the end of the hallway, reaching a door. I opened it up quickly, pulled out my dagger quickly, and held the door closed. Obviously, with 6 burly men like them, the door wouldn't last, so I decided to hold it.

I looked around the room, and saw a man lying in bed. "Psst, psst, hey you." I whispered to the guy. He slowly turned, and I finally saw the man's black eye.

It was Jer. I cringed, and he said, "N-Norma?" I shook my head quickly, as they almost pulled the door open.

"Jer, get your butt over here and let me cut you loose from those hand wraps." He slowly got up, and placed his arms in front of him. I pulled my dagger out of the sheath, and then cut the wraps from Jer's hands. Then, I told him, "Grab that chair over there, and put it underneath this door handle." He obliged. I pulled away from the door once the door-chair blockade was set up. I then told Jer, "Get ready to fight, grab something that can be used as a weapon, and then get ready. Okay?" He nodded.

He placed one foot on the bed, using all of his power to break one of the legs off. The way it broke, it made it very sharp. I nodded towards him, and then looked towards the door. I began to move the chair, letting the door be opened.

Using quick thinking, I grabbed the chair and when the first guy ran in, I bashed it over his head. I watched as he tumbled to the ground, unconscious. The next guy ran in, and I just threw the chair at him. They all tumbled back, and I climbed over them. I ran to the main room, and then grabbed a sword off of the table. "Jer! Need a sword?" I ran over to the room with Jer in it, as the guy who was out of the room got to his feet. He looked at me with anger, and lunged at me. I whacked him in the face with the sheathed sword, sending him to the ground. I tossed the sword over to Jer.

I watched Jer unsheathe the sword, and begin to sword fight with one of the people in the room. I sat there cheering for a second, when I was grabbed from the back. Not having any of that, I bit down hard on the finger he was trying to keep from going inside my mouth. He recoiled immediately, and I took the chance to do something I learned in a book. I kicked him square in the middle of his nether regions, and then stood back. He kneeled down, as expected, which allowed me to knee him in the face, sending him sailing backwards.

I stood back, and smiled at my handiwork, when all of a sudden I felt a sharp pain in my back. I reached around and felt my back, and noticed a nice, clean bolt sticking out of there.

Almost immediately, I passed out.