Crown of Shadow

Chapter 3

Elisia felt exceedingly sluggish and tired. Visions swam before her eyes until finally she was able to concentrate on the fire in front of her. Her legs and arms were bound tightly with rough rope and it took her a while to notice the figure of a man before her. She groaned in pain as she felt her head swim making it nearly impossible to concentrate on her surroundings. A painful shout wrenched her fully awake. "Sir the princess is awake," a voice called.

"Princess?" Elisia thought shaking her head. Suddenly a man appeared before her. He seemed around twenty so only a couple years older than herself and had blonde hair which was a rare color in the kingdom of Amuren. His face was handsome but cruel and his eyes which were a deep blue showed no sign of sympathy.

"Afternoon my lady, enjoy the trip?" He smiled cruely and he spoke with a strange accent. "No?" "Well be prepared for more." "Feed her." he said turning to one of his men. We don't want our bounty to starve before we get there.

At the mention of food Elisia suddenly realized how hungry she was until she saw what they were about to feed her. It was gray and lumpy and looked absolutley unappetizing. She was just about to push the crude wooden bowl away and demand to know what was going on when a flaming arrow burst into the clearing landing three feet away from the man's foot. The man leaped up alarm in his eyes and scanned the clearing. "There!" he shouted pointing to afigure who was aiming another arrow, but this time it wasn't flaming.

The men raced toward the figure who shot the arrow piercing the blonde man's hand straight through. The man screamed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain from the slender shaft embedded in his palm. Elisia crawled to the man, keen to avoid any new arrows, and searched him desperatly for a blade to cut her bound hands. Every evil kidnapper has to have a blade right? She cursed angrily, just her luck, no blade. The man recovering from shock got to his feet shoving Elisia back to her spot. Elisia heard a clang of metal and saw that the archer was now fending off the blonde mans henchmen with two sleek swords. Elisia looked looked around to see that she had landed next to her bowl of untouched sludge. Quick as thought before the blonde man could join the fight she heaved a handful of the putrid mixture into the eyes of her oppressor. The man cursed and staggered backwards, as Elisia struggled to her feet.

Desperatly she tried to untie her feet, but she had reached no progress when the hooded swordsman tossed her a knife and kept on dueling. She struggled to cut the bonds when the blonde man, still with heavy sludge on his face ripped the knife from her grasp with his left hand and held it to her throat. 'Surrender or we kill her." he yelled at the warrior.

The warrior hesitated then slowly dropped the swords. The men who had been fighting him immediatly surged upon him holding his hands behind his back. One of the men then ripped of the warrior's hood. Immediatly all the men gasped. Standing there was a young women.