Chapter 26: Prison Break

The belief that one race is superior to another, or even all others is, unfortunately, one of the most common forms of idiocy that plagues this world.

Those who adhere to this belief suffer from a sort of extreme tunnel vision, thinking that the aspects of their race that stand out (the craftsmanship of the dwarves or the magical prowess of the humans, for example) prove their superiority when in fact every race has similar outstanding qualities.

And even if an individual does not believe in their racial superiority, odds are they will have some sort of racial pride. For instance, if a demon were to hear of a foreign master of traps and mechanisms, they would likely scoff and think of them as an amateur, even if they say nothing.

I would say that this pride has been a major cause of many historical wars, as well as one of the reasons the five kingdoms have never been able to fully cooperate.

-An unknown scholar

“First things first, we should at least try asking at the guard house to see if we can find anything there.” I say, shoving down the suffocating worry that rears its ugly head at the mere thought of a friend’s death.

“Already tried. No such luck.” Jakin says with a pained expression.

Various thoughts flash through my mind, a tinge of panic edging them. I make my decision, and my turbulent thoughts calm as panic changes to determination. “We should go back to the inn, for now.”

They nod, and I lead them to the inn I had booked rooms in. Waving to the innkeeper, we head up the stairs and fishing out a key, I unlock one of the doors and head inside. Beckoning the others inside, I sit down on the bed. The room is far better than the one I had in Ginerbe city, with clean sheets on the bed and a candle on the middle of the sturdy table.

Jakin and Boaz turn the chairs to face me and sit on them, looking seriously at me. “I don’t think there be anything we can do this time.” Sighs Jakin.

“Not inside the law, no.” I admit, taking a deep breath. “But if the law says my friend dies for no reason, then the law can go to hell.” I growl.

“You want to…” starts Boaz in shock.

I nod in affirmation. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to. This is your home country, after all. But I’ll ask all the same.”

I look them straight in the eyes.

“Will you become outlaws with me?”

Their eyes widen slightly. “Aaron.” Jakin speaks slowly and seriously. “We used to be military.” My heart sinks. “And dwarven soldiers never leave a man behind.” He grins fiercely as Boaz nods seriously beside him.

“Alright then,” I smile, “let’s plan a prison break.”

We walk up to the guardhouse, bold as brass. It’s night, so there are no people on the streets apart from the odd guard patrol, which are simple enough to avoid. There are guards on the wall at all hours, of course, but they are mostly focused outwards, so we are in the clear – for now.

I grab the handle and pull slightly, then try pushing. Locked, as we presumed it would be. A soft glow from my hand suffuses the area around us with a bright yellow-white light as I convert pure mana to lava mana, forming and compressing it into a thin blade.

Slipping the molten knife into the crack between the door and door frame, I work it slowly down, the heat melting through whatever lock they had securing the door. I push lightly on the door and it swings open, revealing an empty room behind it. The lava dagger I keep in my hand: I might need it later.

There’s no commotion on the walls - so far, so good. We file through the entrance and start looking through the building for the stairs. As we move into another room, a dwarf looks up from his drink and, eyes widening in surprise, starts to open his mouth.

All that comes out is a pained grunt as my fist ploughs into his stomach, winding him. I grab him round the neck and pull, attempting to knock him out the only way I know how – that doesn’t involve bludgeoning.

I don’t have any experience doing things like this, so I let go as soon as he stops struggling – only to have him splutter and start struggling again. Again putting the pressure on, this time I wait for a few seconds after he stops moving. Just as I’m letting go, he starts to convulse, arms twisting and stiffening unnaturally.

A spurt of vomit ejects from his mouth; but despite all this he breathes not a single puff of air, and he stops moving entirely a short time later as I look on in horror. “…That wasn’t supposed to happen.” I breathe.

“It’s done now, and I never expected to get through this without killing in the first place.” Says Jakin quietly.

Grimacing, I nod, and we move on. Sure, expecting to get through a prison break without killing someone would be more of a fantasy than this world, but not like this.

We find the steps up first. Ignoring them, we move on and find the stairs down in short order. Descending them, we enter the prison. Immediately on our left is a locked door, which should be where the confiscated weapons and such are kept, according to the twins.

My molten knife makes a repeat performance, and I open the door to reveal a room that looks very similar to an armoury. Quite a few of the weapons look expensive, but we aren’t here for them.

…Besides, they’d just weigh us down, an issue that’s already too prominent for me, what with my full iron armour, warhammer, mace, dagger and pack.

After a short moment rooting around, we manage to find Xiltroth’s pack and weapons. Boaz gathers them up, and we exit the room, moving along the rows of cells in search of the familiar demonic face. Various heads turn as we pass, one of them even going so far as to clutch at the bars and beg us to let him out.

…Not to be rude, but they would probably kill you if they caught you escaping. Which is what will happen to us if we’re not careful.

We find Xiltroth in the last cell, chained to the wall by both ankles and hands. He looks up as we approach, the shock on his face clearly visible by the glow of my knife. After melting the cell door’s lock into a misshapen lump, I swing it open to his considerable surprise. “Since when were you able to use lava mana?” he asks.

“Everyone has their secrets,” I state, concentrating on keeping him unharmed as I cut through the manacles. “Mine just happen to be deadly.”

Rubbing his wrists, Xiltroth stands up unsteadily. “Legs are numb. Ow. Ow.” He winces, as Boaz hands him his gear.

I let the knife dissipate; I shouldn’t be needing it from now on. “Alright, now we need to get out of here. Something is undoubtedly going to go wrong, so keep an eye out.” Quickly fetching the longer mithril dagger from my pack, I hand it over to Xiltroth. “Thought you might need a sharp weapon.”

He nods in thanks, and we focus on getting out of here.

Moving as fast as Xiltroth’s recuperating legs allow us, we retrace our steps back through the prison and up the stairs. As we pass the front door, it opens. The eyes of the dwarves behind it widen and their expressions harden instantly, reaching for their weapons.

Reacting almost as fast, I whip out my mace and slam it towards the dwarf in the doorway. With a screech of metal it hits his shield, the dwarf behind it completely protected from my view. Releasing a wisp more mana into my system than usual, I shift my posture and kick the shield, releasing an even louder sound.

The dwarf is pushed back slightly.

I grab the edges of his shield with both hands, muscles straining as I keep him locked in place. “Keep going, I’ll catch up soon.” I say without turning my head, as the dwarf shouts out, “Intruders in the guardhouse!”

Behind me I hear heavy footsteps moving away and up the stairs. Narrowing my eyes, I grip harder and start to twist the shield. Realising what I’m trying to do, the dwarf headbutts my hand… the one with the gauntlet.

He himself is wearing a helmet, so the only result is a clanging sound and a lapse of concentration on his part, allowing me to wrench the shield out of his hands. I bash him with it, sending him stumbling back into his friends.

Closing the door, I use a small blob of lava magic to fuse the broken lock to the doorframe, locking them out. That done, I quickly move through the building and dash up the stairs, climbing staircase after staircase as I move up the levels. Xiltroth is tying a rope around one of the crenellations with another already tied and ready to go, while the twins are struggling to fend off the guards in both directions.

…I feel tall here. All these dwarves, even the crenellations are smaller than usual. I can see over the heads of Jakin and Boaz to the faces of the dwarves in front of them.

The wall itself isn’t wide, only large enough to hold two dwarves standing abreast – excellent for allowing a few defenders to hold of a superior quantity of enemies – which means that Jakin and Boaz are facing two opponents each.

With a gesture I send a burst of fire over the head of Jakin and down onto his opponents. Turning around, I repeat the act, leaving the dwarven guards on both sides retreating and patting frantically at smouldering beards.

Xiltroth finishes his knot and tugs at the rope, testing it. It shows no signs of unravelling, so he grabs the rope and jumps over the side. I move alongside Boaz. “You go first, I should be able to hold them off better with fire magic.”

Boaz nods and takes the other rope.

The dwarven guards in front of me are hesitating to attack. “Perhaps he be out of mana?” One ventures. They grit their teeth and charge towards me, shields tilted upwards to deal with my height.

…Sorry guys, but I still have plenty fuel in the tank.

As the dwarves retreat again, their supply of facial hair rapidly dwindling, I hear a resounding crash coming from downstairs. The dwarves outside must have broken down the door!

“I’m down!” I hear Xiltroth shouting from far below us. “You go! I got this!” I shout over my shoulder as I release yet another spout of flames. Jakin nods and jumps off the wall, rope in hand. Turning, I release a blast at the dwarves over there.

I hear feet pounding up the stairs beside me, so I toss his shield down at him and flame the wall guards again without waiting for the result. Curses and the sound of people falling back down the stairs sound out, and I smile unintentionally.

“Rope’s free!” Boaz bellows from below.

Sending an even larger gush of flame first one way then another, sending the dwarves on both sides scurrying back – It really can be annoying for a magus, not having both hands available – I grab the free rope and jump over the edge.

It creaks dangerously as it takes my weight, and I begin to slide down the rope at a speed that makes me very glad that I’m not doing this bare-handed. After a few seconds I feel a tug on the rope, and it goes limp in my hands.

I begin to plummet.

Parallel to me, the other rope starts to fall as well, no doubt cut by the dwarves on the wall. I am still at a height that will easily mean death, so I begin to panic internally. My mind presents me a possible solution, and I begin to enact it immediately, despite never having tried anything like it before.

Pointing my non-gauntleted palm below me, I start channelling copious quantities of mana, converting it into earth and attempting to use it to lift myself up. It works for a second, but then I feel the mana below me rapidly disappearing. Pumping out more mana, I make it descend. That slows down the rate at which I’m using mana somewhat, but it’s still a frightening rate.

When one moves mana, some of it burns up to provide the energy for that movement. The more mana you want moved, and the faster, the more mana is consumed. Usually, this mana decay is only visible if you are moving very large quantities of mana, or are moving mana very fast. In my case, however, I have the added weight of me, my armour, my weapons and my pack that I am trying to lift, which makes the consumption much greater.

After some ten, twelve meters making a still uncomfortably fast descent, I realise that if I keep draining my mana at this rate, I will drain it all and probably fall unconscious – which will be deadly in the current situation, there still being a significant height to fall.

If only I could somehow hold onto the wall and climb down… ol’ spidey has it easy. My hand goes to my brand spanking new mithril knife, and I sigh. As the last vestiges of mana below me dissipate, I plunge it into the wall at an angle with all my strength, the blade biting a scant few centimetres into the hard stone.

I hang by one arm from the small hilt, perhaps only half-way down the wall. Teeth grinding with effort, veins pulsing equal amounts blood and mana, I wrench myself upwards, slipping the knife free from its rocky sheath in the same motion.

Again I fall. Again I slam the knife back into the wall, my shoulder wrenching painfully and my fingers threatening to loosen their grip. I look up.

The mark from my last position is only an arm’s length above my current one.

A rock whizzes past me. Another scrapes along my armour, and a third bounces off my shoulder.

Pulling myself up again, I repeat the action, creating a third mark on the wall. Then a fourth and fifth, speeding up as I start to become familiar with the motion. A sixth. Eighth, tenth. My arm burns, and my hand screams bloody murder. Rocks continue to pelt down at me, seeming to get more painful as time passes, whether it’s from the height or just my imagination.

I switch hands after one more, unwilling to risk trying to push through the pain only to have my muscles give way. As I continue to descend, my arms get more and more painful, and the frequency at which I switch arms increases until I’m doing it every other time.

After what feels to my arms like an hour, but was probably closer to a minute or two, I reach the bottom. Stones litter the ground around my feet, as well as the two severed coils of rope. Boaz, Jakin and Xiltroth are just to my left, fending off the first few guards that are now trickling out of the gate towards us.

Scooping the rope off the ground, I call out to them, “I’m down, lets go!”

They break away from their fights, and we flee east, away from the guards. Before long they give up the chase, unable to catch us and unwilling to leave the city bereft of guards. With any luck, we should be able to loop around north-west and make ourselves a place to live out in the wilderness somewhere.

Once we get out of sight of the city – a fair distance, since the city is partly in a mountain – we set up camp. Xiltroth hunts down something to eat, but we aren’t able to find any wood to start a fire, so I almost pass out using what little mana I have left to cook it.

“We actually managed it. I can barely believe it.” Marvels Boaz around a mouthful of meat.

“Hmph.” Snorts Jakin. “It was only possible because all the good warriors and magi had already left fer the warfront. Otherwise, we would have been stopped at the entrance to the guardhouse.” Despite saying this, his lips are still curved upwards as he wipes the grease off of them.

Xiltroth says seriously, “Thanks for saving my life.”

“Hey, that’s what being in a party is all about, right? Saving each other from death every other day?” I say, yawning. Man am I tired after all that. I mean, we did quite a bit of walking during the day, never got a good sleep, and then all this kerfuffle happened.

“Aye.” Agrees Jakin, then adding, “But next time we go for a drink, yeh’ll be paying.”

Xiltroth nods, laughing.

A deep howl echoes across the land, coming from the west. The voice is soon joined by another, then one more before the howl slowly quietens to nothing.

“Damn.” Swears Boaz. “That be hill-hounds. They can track a goat through the mountains without breaking a sweat, and it sounds like they’ve been set on us. They’ll be onto us within a day if we loop around north, and south is even more cities. We’ll have to keep heading east.”

Xiltroth frowns. “But surely other cities wouldn’t know about us?”

“Messenger birds. By the time morning comes, every city nearby will have our descriptions.” Jakin says simply, then frowns. “Isn’t the forest of befuddlement to the east?”

Xiltroth pales visibly. “That forest?”

“Damn!” Swears Boaz again. “It is.”

“Will someone tell me what’s going on here?” I ask, annoyed.

All three of them look at me in befuddlement. My eyebrow twitches.

“Yeh know, I thought all along yeh would know about the massive forest right next to Stalia, but no. No yeh don’t.” Sighs Jakin, shaking his head incredulously.

“The one near Ginerbe?” I ask.

“That forest is a patch of grass compared to this monstrosity.” Boaz says grimly.

“They say that it’s impossible to not get lost. People who go in come out near another city, or even another kingdom. Nobody has ever managed to go where they were trying to go.” Explains Xiltroth quietly.

“And that’s if you manage to get out at all.” Continues Jakin. “Entire battalions have gone missing in that forest. No one knows if they got killed by something or just wandered around forever, unable to find a way out.”

Boaz nods. “Woodcutters go missing, even if they don’t go into the forest itself. I hear they tried to burn it down once, but they couldn’t even scorch the tree bark. Eventually people learned their lesson and began to leave the place alone.”

“Not a good place to get backed up against, then. Well,” I say, standing up, “we should get going before they catch up to us.”

Hello sleep deprivation my old friend… I’ve come to talk to you again.

Packing up our unused tents and scooping dirt on the fire to extinguish is, we take our bearings and continue heading east under the moonlight.

Two days later…

“Give it up! Yeh got nowhere left to run, and yeh can’t fight all of us!” Shouts a dwarf angrily, one hand brandishing a sword and the other keeping himself balanced on top of his mount: an oversized dog with shaggy black fur, cloven hooves barely visible under the thick mass. It pants roughly, tired after the long chase.

Nearby is a dwarf with a similar mount, and together with a large group of some twenty dwarves, they have us pinned against the edge of the forest. The other dwarves seem to be much calmer, some even smiling slightly as they edge closer, step by step.

Their armour is much too regular and well maintained for them to be adventurers, but too low quality for them to be guards. Mercenaries then. Figures, the city itself didn’t have the troops to spare but they knew we can easily defeat a few people, so they splashed some money around and hired mercenaries to do the dirty work for them.

“You know… that forest looks mighty inviting right about now.” I say slowly, dark rings around my eyes. We hadn’t gotten much sleep over the last few days. Hard when your pursuers are practically on your tail the whole way.

Jakin yawns. “…Yeah.”

We turn around and run into the forest.

The mounted dwarves hesitate, then spur their mounts towards the forest.

One of the mercenaries behind him calls out, “Hey. Yeh go in there, we ain’t coming with yeh.”

Stopping their mounts, they start to complain to the mercenaries. Meanwhile, the hill-hounds sniff curiously at the air. After a moment they stiffen, then turn around and bolt, throwing their riders off.

“See?” Says the mercenary, taking a surreptitious step away from the forest. “Even the beasts know that place is bad news. Alright lads, let’s head back to the city!”

The group of mercenaries start to jog into the distance, leaving behind the two dwarven trackers. After exchanging a glum look, they too start to walk homeward.