The Tale of Four

The Tale of Four

(Part A)

Chapter One

Tap….Drag. Tap….Drag. I was being carried. Tap….Drag. The persons shoulder was digging into my stomach. The sound I was hearing was the person walking. It sounded like he was limping. I could tell it was a man from the masculine sound of his voice when he breathed deeply, and the fact that my legs were touching his chest. The chest definitely didn’t have female attributes.

I heard the sound of a metal door opening and I was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. Luckily the floor wasn’t concrete, but in actuality was a dirt floor. Only after I heard the door slam shut and the man walk away did I groggily stand up. Through the dimness of the torch light I was able to make out my surroundings. Wait, torch light? I was definitely in a jail cell of some sort. Either the people that owned the place had a weird interior decorator or I was in a really real dungeon. The person in the opposite cell from me had to be into prisoner cosplay, or he was a legit prisoner, which would make me be in the same situation. The only difference is that he was chained to the wall and I was not.

Tap….Drag. Tap….Drag. I heard the footsteps, of the man who brought me here, becoming louder. The man in the other cell who had been watching me since I got up, looked in the direction in which the man was coming, then back at me. He seemed about to say something, but was interrupted by the man appearing around the corner. He stopped in front of my cell door and turned to face the other man. He did something I could not see which caused the prisoner to violently jerk forward. The Jail Keeper, for who else could he be, just chuckled.

He turned back towards me and I got a good look at his face. He was short for a man, about 5’6”, with thinning hair the color of rust. When he smirked at me I saw that his teeth were yellow and some blackened. A few teeth were even missing in a couple of places. The Jail Keeper was a little overweight and walked with a limp. He unhooked the keys to the cells from his belt, picked one out, and opened my cell door. The prisoner started yelling in a language I couldn’t understand, without turning around the Jail Keeper yelled back. I couldn’t understand either of them, but I knew I wasn’t going to like what was about to happen.

As he inched towards me the prisoner was still yelling. I didn’t know if he was edging him on or what. It didn’t sound like it though. It sounded like he was almost pleading with him to stop. But perhaps that was wishful thinking. The Jail Keeper got close to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and pushed me back onto the ground with little difficulty. If my martial arts instructor had seen that she would have been ashamed. What was the point of taking the classes if I didn’t use it properly when I needed too? Of course I was still groggy and weak from before.

It sort of sunk in what was happening when the man climbed on top of me. He started to rip out my tucked in work shirt from my pants. I started to freak out and scratched and kicked at him. I was yelling but I didn’t know what I was yelling. He didn’t seem to care either way. When he had enough of me fighting him, he back handed me hard across the face and held my arms down with his hands. With his hands now occupied he started to kiss me. He started at my lips and worked his way down my neck and to where my breasts were covered by my shirt. With nothing left to kiss he made his way back up. I was as tense as a board when he came back to my lips. As he started to kiss me again I relaxed and kissed him back.

I think he was shocked at first, surprised that I had resigned myself so quickly to this fate. After a few seconds of kissing, just like him I started to trail downward, first his neck then the top of his dirty chest. He was excited. I could feel his excitement pressing against my stomach. He began making moaning sounds. When I came back up to his throat I gave it a slight kiss before I sank my teeth into it.

He tried to pull away at first but that only made it worse. I drank a lot of milk as a kid so all of my bones are strong, including my jaw. There was no way he was getting out of my grip. When pulling away didn’t work he started to strike at my head, but the angle was wrong and the hits didn’t do much damage. Deeper I bit; soon instead of screams he could only make a pathetic gurgling sound. I could feel his blood pouring into my mouth, but still I didn’t release him. Only when I felt my teeth touch each other did I let go. The Jail Keeper crumpled to the floor and continued to make that pitiful noise. I couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed the knife that was also attached to his belt and stabbed him in the chest. He stopped moving almost instantly. I stepped back from his corpse and it took a full minute for me to process what I had just done. When realization took hold I lost the contents of my stomach in the far corner of the cell.

“Cough….Hack. I…I just killed someone.” I whispered. “His blood, I can still taste his blood.” I started breathing short ragged breaths. I knew if I continued I would hyperventilate but I just couldn’t calm down. The prisoner next to me was talking, but I still didn’t understand him. He just kept talking and wouldn’t shut up. “What?!” I yelled, or tried to. It came out more like a strangled cry than anything else. My voice sounded scared and weak. I hated it. My hatred for my weak voice, more than anything else, brought me out of my daze. I hated feeling weak. I got up from the fetal position that I had taken in the corner of the cell and walked towards my cell door. He was talking and nodding his head at the Jail Keeper. I didn’t want to look at him anymore. “I don’t understand what you are saying.” I said frustrated and on the verge of tears. From the look he got on his face it seemed he finally realized what the problem was.

He changed his tactic and started shaking his chains and nodding his head towards the corridor. It took a second for me to figure out what he wanted. “The keys, you want the keys.” It turned out he hadn’t been nodding towards the Jail Keeper, but towards the rings of keys right beside him. “Ok.” I said and nodded my head in conformation. The prisoner stilled his movements and waited for me patiently while I got the keys.

As I inched forward towards the Jail Keeper I could see the complete devastation that I had caused. The knife sticking out from his chest was nothing compared to what had once been his throat. I could see that I had almost ripped his throat clean off. The chunk that I had bit was only slightly hanging on by two thin strands of flesh. I almost lost my lunch again, if there was anything left from the first time. I quickly grabbed the keys and walked away.

It didn’t take long to find the key to my cell and then to the prisoners as well. When I got close to him I found that he was quite handsome. He had a strong regal face, and though tough to tell with him hanging from a wall, he as about 6’3”. The strangest part was that he had long dark purple hair and spectacular violet eyes. They were beautiful, but strange. He seemed to be looking at me with concerned eyes. That couldn’t be right. He is a criminal who just wants to be free. But I just killed someone, so that makes me a criminal too.

It took a little while, but I found the right keys for each of his hands and legs. There was even a chain around his neck, which I also unlocked. When he was free he hurried to the cell door and peeked into the corridor. When he was sure that no one was coming he went into my cell and I heard him pull the knife out of the Jail Keeper. While he was doing that I sat down with my back to the cell wall and put my head onto my knees. I didn’t have long to rest however because the man grabbed me by my wrist and pulled me along. I struggle a little at first but soon gave up. He was as strong as an ox; there was no escaping his grip.

He led me through many corridors, but he seemed to know where he was going. It looked like we had been in the lowest part of the dungeon and had to make our way up and out. The last room we came to was the torture chamber. The prisoners would be brought through this room first to see what their fate was going to be. The thought was that by doing so the prisoners will would weaken or break. If I had seen this on my way down my will would have been in shreds. It wasn’t doing so well right at this moment. The chamber was horrible; there was nobody in here at the moment, nobody alive at least. You could almost taste the pain and despair that the victims went through before their death. The smell alone made me gag. It was the smell of decaying flesh, stale blood, and excrement.

When we first entered the chamber the prisoner became tense and still for a moment. It was then that I took a closer look at him. He was indeed handsome, but he was too skinny, like he had been malnourished. I could also see dried blood on his clothes and bare skin, where visible. Not that I was looking for bare skin. I was sure he had spent some time in this room. After a brief pause he quickly led me to the entrance of the dungeon. I tried not to look at the gore soaked items lying around as we passed them. There were so many tools caked in blood and other things that I couldn’t describe.

It only occurred to me when we reached the door that, besides the Jail Keeper, we hadn’t seen a single guard. This thought must have crossed the mans’ mind as well because he was very cautious when opening the dungeon door. He peeked his head out slowly and saw that the coast was clear. He pulled me after him through the door and we continued down the hallway.

I was absolutely positive when we exited the dungeon that we were inside a castle. The interior was grand, but gloomy. It also looked very old. In a lot of places the walls were crumbling away. It must be some very well kept ruins. It was clear once we entered the main part of the castle that something was going on outside, a battle? Whatever or whoever it was I was thankful. Because of their distraction we were able to make it through most of the castle undetected.

A few times a guard would pass by us and the man would, how should I say it, dispatch them. He was obviously used to killing people and that made me a little nervous. I wondered if releasing him was the right thing to do, but as long as his knife wasn’t pointed towards me, and stayed that way, I was happy. We finally made it to what I would call the main hall, when the giant entrance doors were forced open. A group of warriors charged in wearing very old fashioned armor. The armor itself wasn’t old but the style was. It felt like I had taken a step back in time, or several steps for that matter. When the leader of the group saw us I was sure that we were done for, but the warrior seemed to know the prisoner and they started to talk.

The prisoner, after a quick discussion, dragged me into the center of the group of warriors and we all went outside. We entered a courtyard, a very big courtyard. The place we had been was indeed a castle, one that had seen better days. It was on the verge of collapse. From what I saw people weren’t actually living here, but were using it as some sort of camp. I could see tents scattered everywhere around the courtyard. Huge walls surrounded the castle with only one massive gate as the exit. In front of the gate was a gathering of another group of warriors wearing black armor. I assumed they were the ones that controlled the castle and now they were blocking our only chance of escape.

The prisoner pulled me close and whispered something that I didn’t understand, but I got the feeling that we were going to rush the other group of warriors. Our warriors formed a protective circle around us, or rather around the prisoner. Whoever he was these men were dedicated to protecting him, I was just an add on. The prisoner said something which I thought was, “Ready?”, to which I nodded my head. The leader yelled and we started to run. It was hard for me to keep up with the prisoner, him being a foot taller than me. It took all if my concentration not to fall. I needn’t have worried though, not once did the man let go of my hand. I vaguely recall our warriors mowing down the opposing side. The ones on our side seemed battle hardened and tough. Thankfully that helped us in getting out of the castle. Still it seemed odd, if the prisoner was that important, why was only a small group of warriors guarding his prison. Where were the other people at? The amount of tents I saw in the courtyard greatly outnumbered the amount of soldiers. Such a small group wouldn’t need that many tents, or such a big castle to hide someone in.

We ran for a while, the warriors making sure to kill anyone that came close to our group. After walking up a steep incline we stopped to catch our breath. The leader and the prisoner started to talk again in whispered voices. I caught a few glances thrown at me by the leader. It didn’t seem like he approved of me being here. I didn’t care though, I slipped my hand away from the prisoners’, and he allowed me to. He was too engrossed in his conversation to care what I was doing. The incline we climbed turned out to be a cliff, if I looked over the cliffs edge maybe I could get an idea of where I was at. It was a long shot but I had to try. The warriors who had helped us escape were watching me like a hawk as if I was about to do something shady. I ignored them and went to the edge of the cliff. A tree near the edge helped me keep balance as I looked down. The cliff overlooked a valley and what I saw past the cliff shocked me.

I thought that I had been transported to the past. That at least would have made a little sense, but what I was seeing was beyond crazy. In the valley below there were two armies fighting, that wasn’t what shocked me, I could hear the battle as we were climbing the cliff earlier. What shocked me wasn’t the valley, but what was above it. In the sky were things I could only describe as wyverns, like out of a fantasy novel. They were circling the battle, some even participating; almost all were being ridden by a person. And if I looked closely at the battle field I could see things in the crowd that didn’t have any recognizable human form.

I started to hyperventilate again. Where was I? This didn’t make any sense. There were no such things as wyverns. Was it that light that brought me here? How did I get back? I couldn’t see clearly, the last thing I remember was someone catching me as I fell unconscious.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Who is she?” Colonel Markus asked.

“I don’t know.” Vincent replied as he lifted the girl up into his arms.

“What do you mean, ‘I don’t know.’ Didn’t you ask her any questions?”

“I did. But she speaks in a completely different language than us. And it appears that she doesn’t know our language either.”

“She doesn’t know Alteareon?” Markus pondered for a second. “Is she perhaps from across the sea? She doesn’t look like it though.”

“I don’t think she is either. She is from somewhere we know nothing about. She is a mystery.”

“Don’t go getting attached to her. She will probably want to go home when she wakes up.” Markus warned. “How did you find her anyway?”

“She was brought into the dungeon by Creeper. He was going to assault her in front of me like he did to so many others. He knew how much I hated him for it and myself for not being able to do anything.” Vincent explained.

“So was she………” Markus trailed off.

“No. She was able to get the upper hand in her struggle and got away.”

“How did she manage that?”

“She ripped out his throat with her teeth. I believe that was her first time killing anyone, she almost went into hysterics. She managed to pull herself together and we escaped after she freed me from my chains.”

“She doesn’t seem capable of doing something so gruesome.” Markus remarked looking down at the sleeping girl. “What will you do with her now?”

“I’m bringing her with us.” Vincent proclaimed.

“What? Why?”

“She saved my life; I will repay my debt to her.”

“You already have by getting her out of that dungeon.” Markus exclaimed.

“No I haven’t. You know just as well as I do, that if I leave her here alone she will undoubtedly die. I will not have her death on my conscious. If she desires to return home then I will send her home.” Vincent said. “Call a retreat to those in the valley. We will regroup and Snowpoint Pass and make our way back into Bastion. If Saville hears of my escape he will come with his entire army. We won’t stand a chance if that happens.”

“Yes sir.” Colonel Markus replied as he saluted. When Vincent walked away with the girl he sighed very deeply. “That girl is going to cause problems. I just know it.”