Meddling in Foreign Affairs

Chapter 13: Escaping

It was much easier to get out of the city than it was to get in. Aya knew her way around, and was able to lead them around the most-traveled paths for the guards. When they got to the bush-fence, Dismas cut a hole for them to crawl through, but did his best to cover it up so that it wouldn't be spotted easily. From there, Dismas led the way to where he had hidden the gear. Byulat looked extremely happy to be reunited with the weapons that hadn't been on his person and confiscated by the elves. In fact, it was the happiest that Dismas had ever seen him.

After they had their stuff, Aya started leading them away through the forest. They waded through the river for a while after Byulat suggested that the nose-elf might be able to track them down. It was wet and uncomfortable, but would hopefully prevent any future confrontation. As they were walking, Dismas ate some of his food. He was starting to run low, they would probably have to find a village or someplace to get more. And Aya didn't have anything but the swirling purple dress she had been wearing when they left. It was made of that strange elven fabric that seemed too thin to be sturdy, but never tore on the branches it caught on, and it had small flowery decorative bits sewn in.

When the sun started to rise, Dismas noticed that Aya was starting to sway as she walked. The first time she ran into a tree, he forced them to stop.

"When was the last time you slept?" Dismas asked.

Aya shrugged, already half asleep. "I've been pretty busy, I'm not sure. Probably a few nights ago?"

"Why? Don't elves sleep every night?"

"I have specialized training with Aesculus in order to improve my abilities. By exhausting my body, I am better able to focus on improving what I can do with my mind. At least that's what it's supposed to be."

"Okay, well, you need to sleep now. Because if you slow us down and we get caught, you disobeying Aesculus would have been for nothing."

"No, I can keep going! It's not that bad. If we stop now, they'll find us, we're not far enough away."

"Aya, if you don't get some sleep, you're going to lead us off a cliff or in circles. You're in no condition to be walking all day!"

Byulat stepped forward and threw Aya over his shoulder. "You sleep, we will walk. We have been steadily going northeast, we will continue that way."

Aya shifted around until she was in a more comfortable position, one where there weren't any weapons digging into her stomach. "This is actually very nice. I'm going to sleep now."

Dismas stared after Byulat as he started walking away with Aya. It hadn't even crossed Dismas' mind to carry the elf, but she was probably relatively light. He didn't think that Byulat would have been willing to help like that. Apparently he wasn't so predictable as Dismas first assumed. Only when he could barely see them did he start to follow behind.

Aya was still sleeping when the sun was setting and Dismas and Byulat decided to stop for the night. They carefully laid Aya down before getting ready to sleep as well. Byulat suggested making a fire, but Dismas wouldn't let him because he didn't want to draw any unwanted attention. It was warm enough without one.

Dismas couldn't remember whether it was time to put on more of the medicine from Dyomahai or not. His shoulder wasn't hurting, though, so he decided not to worry about it. As he was getting out his sleep system, he realized that it wouldn't have mattered anyways because the medicine was no longer in his backpack. It must have fallen out somewhere along the way.

It was before dawn when Dismas woke up, and Byulat was already awake and eating breakfast. Aya still hadn't moved from when they put her down the night before. Dismas walked over to her before turning to where Byulat was sitting. "Do you think I should wake her up? She's been sleeping for well over twenty hours."