C A S C A

Chapter 6

My heartbeat quickens in fear and I instinctively reach for my sword. I lick my dry lips to speak again, "why haven't they ambushed me yet?"

He chuckles, "that's not how it works..."

"Explain!" I say a little more forcefully. I don't have time to waste on his attempts to lengthen our conversation.

"There's a door alongside the opposite wall. You won't see it, you guys never do. You have to feel for it. The newcomers are always brought there first..."

My eyes dart away from his window and I turn around. Just as he's said, I run my hand over the mildew covered walls and immediately feel the large metal loop on the doorknob. I pull it open, torches leading the pathway down the stairs. I click my tongue, they knew I was going to find this.

"Wait," the prisoner calls for me as I take my first step down. "If you somehow live and are able to escape... take me too. You owe me..."

I don't reply and am thankful to not hear him call for me again. I reach the end of the steps where another door awaits me, this one seemingly bulkier and thicker than the rest. Perhaps they better secure this room until the prisoner loses his strength and then is sent to the other cells where he has no chance of escaping in his state...

I look through the small window that the door has and my lips part in shock when I find the Black Swordsman in plain sight. He's bleeding heavily from open wounds across his chest and abdomen. Just like the others, his wrists and ankles are also shackled tightly to the wall.

Unthinkingly, I pull the unlocked door open and rush inside. If it didn't feel like a trap before, it definitely did now. But I don't think about that when I assess his deep gashes. "Hey," I call for him, hoping I'd get him to be conscious again. What if he's dead? I quickly press my fingers to his muscular neck and thankfully find a weak pulse there. I sigh in relief.

I look around the rather large room and I find all of his stripped weapons and armor thrown to the side. I'm a little startled to see all his armory, it looks like enough to provide for a war.

What am I doing? I don't have time to waste!

"Hey," I call for him again, gently shaking his hanging head. "Swordsman!"

Thankfully he finally begins to stir. His long eyelashes slowly flutter open and with a wince, he meets my eyes. He smiles despite his protesting lips, which begin to bleed from an open crack. "You came..."

"You didn't give me much of a choice," I say and reach for his shackles, trying to figure out how to get him free.

"You're going to have to break them," he croaks. "Use your sword."

I don't waste more time and quickly do as he says, the chains break on impact. But it also does some damage on my sword. I figure I'll worry about that later and quickly continue to break all his chains until he falls limply into puddles of bodily liquids on the hard ground. I drop by his side and pull him up, my arm tight around his shoulders.

Despite the fact of his large build, he seemed thin and weak. I wonder when was the last time he had eaten something. "Can you stand?" I ask stupidly.

He nods his head despite still using me for support. I reach into my satchel and pull out a pouch made of tough animal skin. I bring it to his lips without warning and he snarls.

"It's water," I tell him and that gets him to part his lips and he quickly gulps it all down. It's as if he hasn't drank anything since he's arrived.

Maybe he hasn't.

"Thank you," he says, his voice no longer hoarse and forced. He manages to stand on his own feet, weakly, but he still does it. He treads over to where his armor lays and as quick as he can, begins to put it on. I move in to help and then he reaches over to pick up his sword, and just when I think he can't, he does. Singlehandedly, he carries his enormous sword as if it was weightless. Perhaps he wasn't as weak as I had thought.