On throughout the night—if it was even still night—they wandered. Both were impossibly weary, nearly driven mad by their longing for daylight and fresh air. The torch burnt from a blazing fire to a few smoldering cinders, and still their search seemed hopeless. An eerie silence fell, filling their minds with darkness. At first they tried to keep up conversation to break the stillness, but eventually they gave up and let the silence have its way. Finally, they reached the end of the corridor, feeling the cold stone with hearts sinking even lower.
“It’s a dead end,” Colton mumbled.
Tyran raised the torch, though now it made little difference, and examined the walls and ceiling.
“No it’s not,” he said.
“What?” Colton did not dare to allow hope to enter his voice.
“It’s a trapdoor,” Tyran said, his voice suddenly taking strength. “We found the way out!”
Colton took the torch and lifted his gaze to the ceiling, not daring to believe.
“It’s the entrance!” he embraced Tyran, too stricken with happiness to wonder what might lay outside.
Tyran reached for the ceiling again and cracked the trapdoor, light flooding the passageway. Glancing briefly through the entrance, he motioned to Colton silently and then pulled himself out of the tunnel, leaving the torch behind. Colton followed, shocked to find that the sun was already low in the sky. He had been in the tunnels for nearly 24 hours.
Colton shuddered and glanced back at the black hole in the ground, kicking the door shut as if to shut out the darkness. There were no men in sight, the two emerging in a small, roofless enclosure behind the stables at the edge of the palace. Straw was strewn thickly across the floor, concealing the tunnel’s entrance. Tyran kicked it back in place as Colton went to the door, opening it upon a narrow alleyway leading past the stables.
“It’s clear out here,” he murmured.
Tyran appeared by his side. “We have to flee the city by morning,” he said.
Colton nodded, ready to move on, but a noise behind them caught their attention. His eyes falling once again to the floor, Colton recognized the sound of men in the tunnel beneath, fumbling for the trapdoor. His gaze met Tyran’s for a tense second, and then Tyran pulled him from the room and down the alley, which led them directly to a small courtyard.
A few soldiers moved about on its other side, locking buildings and preparing for the night. Tyran said something under his breath, glancing around in increasing frustration. Colton, standing behind him, grabbed his arm and pulled him through the stable doors. He bolted them shut behind him and glanced back at Tyran, looking through the window as their would-be pursuers passed, speaking loudly of the escapees.
“Alert the guards,” one man was saying. “They must be found before nightfall. I will inform the king personally.”
There was a brief response, and then the men were gone. Tyran glanced uneasily at Colton.
“They already know,” he said.
“Then what’s next?”
“We can go forward, and be caught, or we can go back the way we came.”
“The tunnels? Never.”
“No, I just mean the room. We can climb the wall there—maybe slip out of the palace before word spreads.”
Colton agreed, but with little conviction. “I suppose we have no other chance.”
Tyran was already at the door, cracking it and glancing across the courtyard.
“They’ve gone now,” he said, leading the way from the stables.
Returning cautiously to the room from which they planned to make their escape, the two scaled the wall and slipped down outside the palace as night fell. A still grayness now cloaked the land, broken suddenly by the beating gallop of many horses’ hooves as they tore around the side of the palace. Colton and Tyran flattened themselves against the wall, its heavy shadow their only concealment. The riders flew past them, torches carried high, fanning out across the land below the hill.
“Is there even the slightest chance we can slip past them?” Colton asked quietly.
Tyran ripped the gold cloak from his shoulders.
“If there was ever any man who knew how to teach the art of sneakery, it was Ealric,” he said.
Colton grunted. “I only wonder what part Ealric had to play in all this,” he said.
Tyran did not reply, leading the way down the hill as far from the horsemen as possible. From there began an unimaginably long night, made all the more unbearable by the fact that throughout the entire preceding day and the night before they had been constantly surrounded by darkness. Now, as tormenting as the darkness was, it was their only shield from their pursuers.
Across the palace’s wide fields and then through the broad streets past the nobility’s estates they crept, silent but with one mind slipping out of sight whenever anyone drew into their view. Then the streets grew narrower and the great mansions turned gradually to crowded, rundown shacks. Filth was strewn across crumbling roads, guards standing in tired groups at the corners of the squares, still Colton and Tyran continued, till they reached the edge of the city and with it the towering wall that made Vellatha a prison. Colton leaned against the wall in weary frustration, resting his aching ankle as Tyran looked up and down the wall for the entrance that would let them out.
“Do we even know that there is a way out?” Colton asked.
“There are seven—one in each city.”
“Guarded, I’m sure.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be warriors?”
“Exhausted, starving, wounded—outlawed—warriors.”
Tyran heaved a sigh.
“What, then?” he asked. “We give up?”
“There’s nothing left here for us but death.”
“What about Fianna? Don’t you still have hope for her?”
Colton was silent, unwilling to meet Tyran’s frown.
“You haven’t given up on her, have you?”
“I have nothing to offer Fianna anymore,” Colton said sharply. “I was a fool to make her the promises I did.”
“So you’re just going to leave her? Just like that?”
Colton looked away.
“Listen to me. Fianna cares about you. She never loved you for the fine things you promised her. And nothing would hurt her more than you walking out of her life.”
Colton whirled back to Tyran.
“And what are you doing to Aiza?”
Tyran’s scowl turned dark.
“Don’t bring Aiza into this,” he said.
“Don’t you see?” Colton said furiously. “Alastor’s stolen everything from us. Fianna and Aiza are trapped in this world, and we’re being driven out. There’s no love we can cling to anymore. Here we’ll die, and out there we can at least find survival.”
“Survival! What does survival mean in a hopeless, bitter life? Better to die than let all you love be stolen from you.”
“There’s nothing we can do now, Tyran. It’s too late. We were deceived, and nothing’s going to give us back the ignorance of our happy dreams. Fianna’s gone—along with Aiza. And as painful as that is, it’s the truth.”
Tyran’s jaw was clenched, but he was silent. Colton’s voice softened as he spoke again.
“I’m sorry that’s the way it is. But Aiza’s gone now, and she at least can live her days in peace not knowing Alastor’s deception.”
The tramping of soldiers silenced Colton suddenly.
“Who’s there?” a voice called.
Colton and Tyran made no sound, but it made no difference as the guards approached.
“Who are you?” the soldier asked again.
“We’re… guards,” Colton volunteered.
“Elite guards, actually,” Tyran said. “We were sent directly by the king, to…”
“To search for two escapees,” Colton filled in.
“You don’t look like guards,” the man said shortly.
“We’re not ordinary… street guards,” Tyran said. “The king sent us.”
“We’ll see what Lord Olmir says to that in the morning.”
“There will be no need to speak to Lord Olmir,” Colton retorted. “By morning the escapees may be out of reach.”
“I’m sure there will be others to search for them, if such escapees do exist,” the man insisted.
“You don’t understand,” Colton went on, but Tyran had tired of trying to convince them.
He leapt for the man’s sword, wrenching it out of his grasp and striking him to the ground. Instantly the rest of the soldiers were upon them, but without the training Colton and Tyran had received they were a poor match. Within only a few minutes they were on the ground, some groaning, some unconscious, and Colton and Tyran were sprinting down the length of the wall.
“How long till more guards are sent after us?” Colton asked breathlessly.
“Not long enough,” Tyran answered.
Just ahead Tyran drew up and stood still, the entrance lying before them. Colton stopped beside him, eyeing the guards at the gate in the wall.
“There’s more than a dozen,” he whispered. “And I’m not much better than a cripple like this.”
“You’ll have to prove yourself stronger than a cripple,” Tyran said. “The only way for us to survive is to get past that gate. The wall’s too tall to scale without being seen.”
The whinny of a horse split the night suddenly, and Colton’s glance met Tyran’s.
“They have horses?” he said.
“We only have to outride the guards,” Tyran said.
Colton led the way, slipping across a wide street to the other side of the gate where several horses were tethered. Already saddled, Colton waited for Tyran and then swung astride, slashing the horse free from its tether and swallowing the cry that rose in his throat at the pain. Tyran was already whirling his horse about and together they charged the guards. The fight itself was almost silent, a couple cries being all the soldiers had to offer against the fugitives. The clashing of swords sounded briefly, and then one of the horses reared and struck down the gate. Colton and Tyran fled into the night, none of the guards remaining to pursue them.
This is so good, Victoria!
>>Here we’ll die, and out there we can at least find survival.”
Both from a grammar standpoint, and story standpoint, I think you should fix this sentence.
Grammar: What is being contrasted is
1) If we stay here we will die (and not get the girls)
2) If we go, we still won't get the girls, but we will at least live
These are not *and*, they are *but*. They are contrasted, not joined.
Story:
It seems to me that this is an important turning point, or decision point, in the story It reminds me of a Bible story ( I will let you guess which one). I think it would be good to have this fleshed out a little more, the choice made a little clearer. One man, at least, is saying, "There is no way for us to both survive and get the girls. And if we don't survive, we don't get the girls. So there is no way to get the girls. Put that out of your head, it is not an achievable goal."
I think his comment about 'leave my girl out of the discussion' (sorry, I don't do names well, it began with an 'A' I think) is a common one... but I personally don't like it. I would have preferred to have him agree... 'Yes, my girl too. But what does it matter? There is no way for us to..."