Slowly I made my way towards where Brook was secured, walking with a shambling gait as like the deceased guard as I could, as not to raise any alarms from any casual onlookers. From where she was huddled on the ground, Sophie looked up towards me and started whimpering quietly. Large patches of the dog’s fur had been ripped out and she was even missing an ear. I restrained my rage and kept walking towards Brook, slowing only to slice through the rope holding Sophie down with the dagger I’d looted.

Sophie did not instantly stand up but choose to follow me with her glazed eyes as I walked toward Brook. She too started whimpering as I approached, having apparently missed the entire scene where I slayed her captor. As she cringed and pushed her face as far into her shoulder as she could I took stock of her situation as well.

Her clothes had been mostly shorn off, revealing a lot of skin that I hadn’t seen before. Usually, seeing a beautiful girl in little-to-no clothes would excite me a little, but Brook looked so pathetic that I felt no reaction apart from pity. That would be the usual reaction, I would hope. Her arms were both suspended above her head, tied to a large post that had been driven into the ground, and her body was covered in scrapes and small cuts that had clotted. Beneath the later of what I hoped was mud that had been smeared on her, I could see that she had also been heavily bruised.

“Brook. Shh, Brook it’s me. I’m going to get you out of here. Can you walk?” As I spoke, the terrified girl lifted her head to look in my direction. Tears started to fill her eyes and she slowly nodded her head in the affirmative. In order to reach where her hands had been tied off, I was going to have to get on my tippy-toes and lean against the pole to saw away at the knot as it as just out of reach.

“Sorry,” I muttered as I leaned against her. I braced my left hand against the pole, which caused me to be touching the right side of her chest and raised the dagger in my right hand to start sawing away at the thick rope that fastened her to the pole. The angle that I was attempting to cut the rope at, along with its substantial girth, made it very awkward to get through it in a reasonable amount of time. When combined with the fact that I was trying to do this stealthily as to not arouse the attention of the distant guards, it made for a very annoying task

I continued hacking away at the rope while at the same time trying to ignore Brook’s breathy whimpering, caused by my left hand continuously brushing against her in rhythm with the sawing. Logically, I knew I was probably rubbing up against a bruise or cut and she was whimpering in pain, but another part of me told me that the enticing moans were for another reason, one that made literally no sense in the current context. I knew that I wasn’t over Brook, but I didn’t think that I was infatuated to this level.

‘No time for that,’ I shook my head and started sawing more vigorously while I tuned out all external stimuli. I couldn’t afford to be inattentive while inside of enemy territory, I had a prison break to execute. Finally, I managed to slice open the bindings that kept her tethered to the post. In my state of distraction, I didn’t think to catch her as she fell and watched her, and she descended while listening for any shouts of alarm. Instead she landed on her bruised and battered ankles and let out a yelp of pain, one she’d tried and failed to muffle. That one, singular yelp sounded like a million screams in my ears.

“Who!” One of the sentries detoured from his station to investigate the noise. As he slowly approached, I prepared to lash out and kill him before he could raise the alarm even more. I kept my back facing him as his footsteps slowly approached, and slowly rolled my shoulders. In front of me, Brook was trembling and shrinking against the pole behind her, trying to fuse herself into the background and supporting herself at the same time. The terror in her eyes only made me even more motivated to save her

Step by step the sentry slowly exited their campsite to approach the prisoner ground, slowly encroaching into my strike range. I knew that I had to do this as swiftly as possible and had to minimize the time the creature would have to shout for help.

“Ger’rld, why you untie!” It was not a question so much as a demand. Even amongst this scum, the guard that I’d slain seemed to have low standing. That or the one guard close enough to come investigate just happened to hate the poor decrepit creature. Either way I had no intention of answering.

Swiftly, I pivoted on my feet and thrust out with the spear I’d looted from the dead guard, catching the new arrival square in the middle of his throat. The poor guard’s eyes bulged to the point that they looked like they’d burst out as he dropped his weapon and grasped for his throat. ‘Fat luck stemming that blood flow with your greasy fingers’ I thought to myself, lacking all pity for those I’d seen eating humans by their bonfire. The guard collapsed to the ground dead or dying. From him, I took his weapon of a rusted machete like blade which I passed over to Brook. As injured as she was, it was better for her to arm herself.

“Lucas... “She started tearing up as she stared at the blade now resting in her hands, “I…” Somehow I knew the tears welling up in her eyes had nothing to do with the pain or physical condition she was in. No amount of tears was going to mend the problems between us right away though, and we were in a bit of a situation that required all our attention.

“No time, Brook. We need to get out of here right away.” My eyes were anywhere but on her, using the excuse of remaining vigilant to avoid meeting her eyes. What I said wasn't incorrect. Although it was currently silent, that didn’t mean that their sentries didn’t have to periodically check in. Any second now an alarm could go up and as easy as these things were to kill, they could easily overwhelm us just based on their numbers.

“Mm.” she nodded her head before hesitating. “Lucas, they have something nearby. I’m sure you figured it out by now, but I returned to my family when I left you. There was something I had to retrieve, something for you. I thought I could trade your sword for it, but by the time I arrived my fa… the camp had been raided by these mutants. They captured or killed everyone and snatched me up before I could flee.” Beneath her voice I could still here a faint whimpering, either from pain or the sadness caused by talking about her deceased family.

“What could have possibly been so important that you drugged me and left me behind.” I hissed under my breath, far more aggressive than I’d intended but still less aggressive than she deserved. In my anger I brushed over the fact that her family was supposed to have been killed in a bandit attack and even the fact that she’d said they were merchants. Why would merchants have a camp rather than a caravan? “Never mind that, it doesn’t matter. Let’s get out of here with our lives for now. I’m sure you’ve realized what they do with their prisoners by now.”

“It’s a spellbook, Lucas. I don’t know what kind of spell it is because none of us knew magic, but it’s definitely magic. I wanted to help you become a wizard…” She trailed off while staring at my face, silently pleading with me to just look at her again. I could feel her gaze boring holes in the side of my head but couldn’t bring myself to look at her right now. I was afraid, afraid I’d forgive her instantly.

She didn’t deserve forgiveness. After what she’d done to me, I’d almost died, and for what? A book she couldn’t read, a book that may not even exist. Even if she wanted to trade the sword for the book, she could have asked me first, or even brought me along. But the sound of her voice and her pitiful condition continuously tugged at my heartstrings. I was weak when it came to people in need, this was something I was discovering.

“They have your sword too; all of their loot is stored just over there in that tent. You’ve even killed the guard in charge of guarding it.” I looked down at Brook long enough to follow her eyes over to the tent. Truly, it wasn’t too far away, and I couldn’t see any guards in front of the entrance flap. The sword was good but not worth risking my life, but that spellbook…

Spell pages were condensed versions of spells, extremely simple and relatively ‘easy’ to learn if you had the gift for magic. Each of them had a limited ability to teach mage-hopefuls the spell after creation, the naturally generated pages existing afterwards for channeled costs and the mage crafted versions disintegrating. But spellbooks were different.

A spellbook didn’t necessarily contain a spell all the time but was a tome of magical knowledge. From what I’d heard, the mage guilds would be willing to burn down a small village just to obtain another spellbook for their libraries. This was because the spellbook could be read and studied an unlimited number of times. Any mage could learn the spell or knowledge embedded in those pages, limited only by their acumen and talent. A spellbook was worth hundreds of lives, and there was one right there, if Brook was telling the truth that is.

When I didn’t instantly respond, Brook continued.

“You can stay here, Lucas, and I will sneak in and grab it. You’ve already saved my life multiple times, and I owe you this much. It’s the least I can do.” I opened my mouth to tell her not to risk her life, but no words came out. I never thought of myself as a greedy man, but my inner demons were screaming that she was right. She did owe me her life, and she owed me a debt for almost killing me as well. If she didn’t bring back a spellbook for me, how could I ever believe that was the reason she’d left me high and dry?

I closed my mouth and look down her eyes, resolute in my decision. With a slight nod I whispered out what was likely a death sentence for both of us, should she be caught.

“You sneak in, but I won’t stay here. I am going to get close with you, in case something goes wrong.” I knew it was risky. I knew that we should just get out with our lives while we could, and that if anything went wrong there was little-to-no chance of us both making it out alive. But at this point I felt I really didn’t have a choice.

Either she recovered the so-called spellbook and proved to me that she didn’t betray me (maybe), or she came out empty handed and proved she was talking through her teeth. If what she said was within that tent actually existed, I would be willing to spend an entire week out in the wilderness for it in exchange. Everything else that had happened since she left me, as well as her motives, could all be hashed out and dealt with later. This was a windfall that I wasn’t willing to miss, who was I to turn down fortuitous events when they presented themselves on a silver platter? Great gain required great risk

She crouched toward the loot tent with her rusted machete in hand while I slowly crept up behind her, spear at the ready. We were only going to have one chance at this, so we needed to do it right. I wanted what was within that tent and Brook wanted to repay me as her savior. One could even say I was granting her the chance to avenge her family to a certain point, stealing valuables from under the nose of their killers. My thoughts continued along this line, desperately justifying the risk to myself.