Of Ashes and Wind

Leap of Faith

"The brat stinks." Hiram complained.

"Gods above, did you even let the girl bathe." Another man chuckled, "No matter, Redwood isn't too far from here so we don't have to put with her much longer."

Phoenix's eyes fluttered open, she tried to remember where Redwood was, the image of the map that she spent days staring at came to the forefront of her mind.

Redwood was east along Great Granite Range, a small forest of giant trees at the base of the mountain.

And a few days journey from Brilux.

It finally clicked in Phoenix's head on how far from the Bladed Mountains she was. She doubted her father, a master hunter and tracker, would be able to find her this far out. Plus, she had no idea how long she's travelled from all the times the bandits had hit her head hard enough to cause a black out.

The skin at her wrists were rubbed raw from the tight bindings and her head itched to no end, especially the back of her head. Phoenix suspected that it was that way due to the dried blood.

Phoenix noticed something peculiar about the bindings.

They had loosened – no doubt from the lack of nourishment. She knew she was getting skinnier.

She fought down the smile and looked up in time to see Hiram grab her by the hair and dragged out into the blind sunlight. Phoenix yelped at the bright sun, her eyes screwed tight and unused to the light.

"Pretty eyes on this one," A man dressed in better clothes than Hiram looked Phoenix up and down, "She'll fetch a good price."

"How good?" Hiram eyed the man. "My crew and I went through a lot recently, Jacob.

"So I've heard, word is that you stumbled upon the former Palace Guard Captain and his old crew from the army." Jacob let out with an easy grin, "Might have bit off more than you could chew that time."

"How much?" Hiram gritted out, his beady eyes staring the man down.

"It'll be worth your trouble." Jacob beckoned Hiram to take Phoenix and follow.

Like before, Hiram grabbed Phoenix by her short hair and dragged her. Because she was bound, Phoenix screamed at the way her scalped burned from dragging along her body weight.

"Shut up!" Hiram moved to raise a hand at the child.

But Jacob stopped him, "The smell is something that can remedied, but major bruises will cause the cost of the goods to go down." He growled at Hiram.

Phoenix looked up to see that was brought to a covered wagon, the curtain was pulled back enough to reveal the metal bars of another cage which was empty in addition to crates and barrels.

"Here, 50 gold pieces." Jacob pulled out a bag of gold coins and tossed it to Hiram, "Surely it's more than worth your while now."

Hiram inspected the gold coins; his fingers were caked in dirt while they picked up the otherwise well-polished gold coins. Phoenix thought of a stray dog eating a steak dinner for the first time when she saw Hiram's face.

Jacob crossed his arms and watched Hiram with interest while the bandit sorted through the bag to ensure that all 50 coins were there. He spread out the back on the back of the wagon's open carriage.

A glint got into Phoenix's eye.

Tristan's hunting knife was tucked into Hiram's belt.

Phoenix bit the inside of her cheek, she looked around and took note of the high surroundings, there was a path that was obviously used by the bandits to get down.