The Thief and The Prince (a WilLiam fan fiction)

Close Calls

~Will's POV~

Graser, Scott and I continued to walk through the village making sure to keep a low profile. As we were walking I could tell that Parker had doubled the patrols, so now there were even more guards to be aware of. As we were walking down the road, I see that Phoenix wasn't kidding when she said that the amount I'm worth was raised. On every tree there was a poster with my name on it, with a bounty of 50000 in gold. I couldn't believe that Parker wanted me that much. But I also knew that if anyone were to hand me over to Parker, he wouldn't pay up. He is too conceded to give anyone his 'hard earned money,' even though Strab is the one who collects- or rather, takes the money from everyone.

Speaking of the devil, Strab walks in front of us, heading towards a house to presumably collect taxes again. Graser, Scott, and I try to go the other direction, as to not be noticed, but then a large gust of wind ripped through the town and blew Scott's hood off of his head, revealing his face. Now there really wasn't any reason for Scott to cover his face, but if the guards recognize Graser and I, and saw that Scott was with us and say Graser and I got away, they could capture Scott and do either one of two things to him. Either use him to try and figure out where Graser and I are or kill him for presumably helping a fugitive. And Graser and I have agreed to never let anything happen to Scott. Out of all our friends, we worry about Scott and try to protect him the most. Out of all our friends Scott and Graser are the youngest, so we try to keep him out of harms way and worry for him more. True, him and Graser are the same age, but I know Graser can get out of almost any kind of trouble. Scott on the other hand, I'm not so sure. He is our best friend, and we don't want anything to happen to him.

As the wind blows his hood off, Strab was walking this way and just had to be looking right at us. Once he realized it was Scott, he drew his sword and pointed at Scott. "Hey, You!! Scott, Stop!!" He shouted. Scott stopped and Graser and I stopped as well not wanting Strab to do anything to him. Scott motions for us to keep walking, not wanting us to get caught. Graser and I hesitantly walked a few feet away from him, pushing threw other people who stopped to watch the commotion, before ducking behind a building to listen, wanting to be there to stop anything that might happen.

Strab walked up to Scott and forcibly ripped his cloak off of him and threw it to the ground. Scott visibly flinched at the sudden force. Strab forcibly grabbed Scott's wrist and pulled him closer to him. You could now see the extremely large height difference between them, as Strab was a whole head taller then Scott. Strab shouted, "I don't know why I listened to you last night! A few minutes after I left my post to go where you told me, I received word that someone broke into the palace! So how do I know if you weren't the one who helped them break in?" He paused to let out a small laugh as his grip on Scott's wrist tightened. "Ya know. I could arrest you right now, as a prakashan, and for every time you get in my way and annoy me." He finished. The crowd of people began to shout at Strab, screaming that he was unfair in trying to arrest Scott for something he didn't do, and that he should leave him alone, and basically, just plain out screaming at him.

Strab glared at the group of people and used his other hand that wasn't wrapped around Scott's wrist to grab his shoulder and forcibly shoved Scott into a pile of stacked barrels, causing some of them to break and Scott to fall to the ground, as he clutched his wrist. Everyone in the crowd stopped their yelling and protesting, while Strab just looked down at Scott and laughed at him. My anger was at its limit. How dare him hurt my friend! I took a step forward to stop Strab, but Graser grabbed my shoulder to stop me. I turned around to look at him and saw that he was glaring at Strab as his face twisted in anger. I knew that I couldn't just walk right up to Strab and fight him, but I also couldn't just stand by and let Strab hurt Scott. I wasn't too worried about him arresting Scott, they were all just empty threats. But I was more worried about Scott getting hurt. I had to do something, anything! Come on Will! Think! Think! Think!