The Golden Amulet (PJO, Sequel to The Silver Ring)

Chapter 25

"Put your hands up and slowly exit the building!" a man shouted from outside.

"What do we do?" I asked Rosaline as we took cover, hugging the walls lest they fired any more arrows at us.

"What we excel at: running."

"We're not going to fight?" Adriana asked.

Rosaline gave her an odd glance. "Of course not. We have what we want, don't, we? I don't want to further exacerbate the conflict between Chaos and Void soldiers."

We weren't in a hurry to get out of the house since it was our only source of cover. Outside, we didn't know how many Void soldiers there were, or their motive. 

If the arrow was any indication, we would be walking to our execution. (Well, at least for Adriana and I; Rosaline would reform within a couple of days, but still, she wanted to avoid that at all costs.)

Rosaline glanced out of a window and sighed. "We're surrounded." Then, raising her voice so the soldiers could hear, she said, "All right! I heard you! I'll exit through the door." She peeked up again and sighed irritably, lowering her voice again. "They're not moving."

"We gonna attack them?" I asked, not particularly pleased with the idea of killing any more humans.

"We still might be able to run. I'll go through the front door and you two jump through the windows. We can split them up that way—"

She was interrupted by Psi's hooded head popping up through a nearby window. "This way's clear, guys!" he whispered. "They bought your ruse."

"Screw the plan," Rosaline said. "We jump through the window, and run as fast as we can to the forest."

"What happens if they follow us?" Adriana asked.

I was familiar with Rosaline's types of plans because they were like mine except a bit smarter and less dangerous. "We'll deal with that when it happens."

Rosaline sent me a glance. "You meant it."

"No, I meant exactly what I said. You don't possibly think running is going to work?"

I couldn't keep the smug smile off my face as Rosaline ignored my question and climbed out of the window. Adriana followed suit, followed by me.

We found ourselves rejoined with Psi's presence, who was hugging the wall of the hut. In his dark robe, he looked almost invisible—invisible enough that I only noticed him after softly bumping him.

"Watch your surroundings, idiot," Psi hissed as though I had pushed him, and not just gently touched him.

"Sorry," I said diplomatically. I looked around, casing the environment.

We had exited from a window on the opposite side of where we had exited, meaning we were facing the center of the village. A brisk wind had emerged, causing us to shiver since all of us were wearing thin clothing; they were helpful in combat by being more flexible, but not at insulation.

We headed deeper into the village, attentive to our surroundings. All the other huts had no lights on, indicating that they hadn't been alerted by the soldier's shouts.

"Those were reinforcements," Rosaline explained. "Chief Katuni—commander or whatever his title is—might have found this situation as a pertinent way of capturing more Chaos soldiers to question. Or he knew we would break into one of his buildings after only a hour of 'setting camp,' but that's unlikely. They're probably in dire need of more soldiers to torture after we broke out of the stronghold, but he doesn't know we're the same people, which means he hasn't heard of our deadly reputations."

"Why might that be the case?" Psi asked, glancing at me, which indicated he knew the answer already.

"Hey!" I cried out, offended. "That Void stronghold was a little more than a maze of mineshafts. Wherever I needed to go stealthily, I had to knock people out. What should I have done—kill them?"

"Yes!" Rosaline, Adriana, and Psi exclaimed.

I opened my mouth to retort, but I cut myself off when I realized where Rosaline was leading us; we had done a full one-eighty. "Why are we going back towards the map house when we just ran away from it?"

Indeed, the dark silhouette of the house that we had just escaped was once again coming into view. Amazingly, the soldiers had still failed to make a solid perimeter, so we couldn't see any soldiers from the side we were viewing the building from.

Still, Rosaline lowered her voice. "I might have dropped the map in my hurry to get out of there." She said this casually, as though she had forgotten her coat in a school classroom.

I goggled in astonishment at her. "And we're going back for it? There's no way you hadn't memorized it in the few seconds we were looking at it."

"That's true," Rosaline admitted. "But only the path we need to take. Not where the bases were marked. And it would make a solid bargaining tool."

She fell silent as we once again silently climbed into the hut. Everything was the same, except tucked to the side, a scroll of paper laid half-emerged in the soil.

Rosaline pointed me to it, since I was the closest. "Meet us outside."

As they climbed back out, I quickly pocketed the scroll, muttering about how I wasn't a slave.

When I clambered out, Rosaline and Adriana had disappeared, leaving me with Psi. We hugged the wall of the hut and did our best to blend in. Given that no Void soldiers were in sight, they either bought Rosaline's bait a few minutes later than they were supposed to or just did a shoddy job of making a perimeter. "Where're Adriana and Rosaline?" I whispered to Psi.

"They ran into the forest. I told them I can accompany you back." Psi pointed forward towards the green. "By the way, just so you know, I tried my best to warn you guys as early as possible, but one moment they weren't there . . . and then I heard the sound of a bow being drawn."

"I guess Rosaline did a good job having a scout on the roof, huh?"

I had the sense that it was the wrong thing to say. Psi's next words were sour and accompanied by a glare. "Easy to say when you weren't willing to do it."

Before I could console him, or even admit that I was wrong, a twig snapped in the distance. Our heads swung that way as we heard the sounds of multiple people about to round the corner.

"They're coming," I said breathlessly. "We got to run."

"Good luck doing that," Psi said snidely. 

He suddenly kicked me in the nether regions as hard as possible. It hurt. A lot. 

I doubled over, wheezing in pain. And instead of helping me, Psi promptly chose this moment to run, leaving me in my vulnerable state to fend for myself.

"Get back here!" I bellowed angrily toward Psi. But he kept running until he too disappeared into the forest.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have screamed for two reasons: firstly, I knew Psi wouldn't listen to me, and it was just a waste of my energy; and secondly, it alerted the soldiers to where I was.

Sure enough, the soldiers picked up the pace and rounded the corner. There were four of them, armed to the teeth in weapons, though they didn't have any armor on. "There he is!" the one of them shouted, pointing at me. They doubled their pace, probably thinking I was an easy target to apprehend, given I was on the ground.

Panic filled my veins as I struggled to get up in my wounded state. I limped forward, towards the forest, praying to any deity to help me.

Ten steps away. The soldiers' footsteps behind me grew louder.

Five steps. I could hear their breath.

Three. I still hadn't been caught.

One. I could still hear them, but I thought I could see Rosaline—

The world shifted and suddenly I was tackled to the ground, with my face pressed into the dirt.

"You're coming with us to be questioned," a man growled into my ear.