The Long Fall

At first you're disoriented, and you begin to panic, but then you start to remember the events of the past few days. You lean forward as far as the chains will allow you to move and whisper, "Aaron?"

"Yes," comes a whisper from the darkness.

"Can you feel that?" you ask.

"Yes," Aaron answers. "I think we're moving."

You sit back. "So what will happen to us now?"

"Who knows," Aaron says, sighing. "We could be taken to a prison somewhere... we could be sold into servitude at the hands of some wealthy merchant in another nation... <font size=2>we could be executed...</font>"

You slump farther back. "I knew I should never have followed you."

"Which time?"

"All of them."

"Why did you follow me, anyway? You really had no reason to, considering the way I treated you."

You shrug, more to yourself than to him, considering that he can't see you in the darkness. "I felt like I had to save you. The pass was guarded, and if I didn't tell you you would have gotten yourself killed."

"And why did you continue to follow me after you'd warned me?"

"Well, I didn't want to stay cooped up in that abbey. Too quiet. Too calm. Too oppressive."

"And you're sure that was the only reason?"

You start to say something, but you realize that you don't know how to respond. You're not really sure why you followed him. For some reason you feel an odd sort of attachment to Aaron. It's nothing romantic, you're sure; you don't really know what it is. It's almost... almost as if you've met him before, somewhere, somehow.

The two of you sit, silent, for several minutes, thinking. Your life seems so... complicated. There's too much going on. You don't know what to do about anything anymore.

After a silence that seems to last an eternity, Aaron says, "Karen, I..."

Suddenly, you hear shouting outside, and the wagon stops. You hear the clash of steel against steel, and you know that a battle is ensuing outside.

"We've been attacked," you say.

"Yes," Aaron says, his voice suspicious, "but who would be foolish enough to attack the king's army? Something's up here."

"Do you have any idea what?" you ask.

"No," comes the reply from the darkness. "It could be enemies of me or my father, it could be someone coming to free us, or it could just be desperate raiders who saw a wagon and assumed that it carried valuable property."

The fighting goes on, and you start to get uncomfortable. Your life is already uncertain enough without a battle outside that's out of your control. You want to do something, but you're trapped. Having nothing better to do, you set your mind to thinking of a way to escape.

Okay. You're chained to a wall by your arms, but only your arms are chained. You tug on the chains, but unfortunately both the chains and the wooden walls are made of sturdy material. There's no way you can break either. A quick glance around what you can see of the room reveals that there's nothing laying around, at least within your reach, that could help you escape. You sigh and sit back as you realize that for now you're truly trapped.

Just then you feel the wagon start to move again, this time faster than before.

"I think our captors are trying to escape from our attackers," Aaron says.

The wagon continuees on, seeming to weave back and forth, for a few moments. You still hear shouting, and from time to time you can hear the crasah of steel or the snap of a crossbow arrow being fired, so you know you're being pursued.

Then you feel the weight drop from under you, and you feel yourself being pulled toward the front of the wagon. The wagon soon starts shaking uncontrollably, and you feel yourself being jerked and bounced around from side to side. The world spins, and the walls of the cabin start cracking and tearing apart.

Then it stops.

You sit and try to figure out what's just happened. You're sitting in the wagon, still chained to the wall, but you realize that instead of sitting on the floor, you seem to be sitting on the wall that you're chained to, with the other wall above you and the floor behind you. The walls of the cabin are cracked and, in some places, broken, allowing odd shafts of light to shine in. You can make out Aaron in the light. He sits chained to the wall as well, looking just as confused as you.

"Wh-what happened?" you ask.

"I... I don't know," Aaron says weakly. "I... I think the wagon fell down... a hill, or a cliff, or... something."

You both sit there for a few moments, rattled. Then Aaron says, "The good thing about all of this is that we might be able to get free." He investigates his chains and the wood beneath them. "The walls are probably weakened from the impact." He starts tugging on his chains, and you do the same. After some effort you finally pull yourselves free. Though your chains still hang from your wrists, at least they're no longer attached to the walls.

You hear a groan outside, then low talking.

"So they're still alive," you say.

The talking suddenly explodes into shouting, and again you hear the ominous sounds of fighting.

"We should be cautious," Aaron says. He walks slowly to the front of the overturned wagon and peeks out of a crack caused by the fall. A look of surprise crosses his face, and he says, "I know who our attackers are!"

"Who are they?" you ask.

Aaron motions to you to come. You walk to the crack and look out at the battle.

Aaron says,

1. "It's the New Amazons! There must have been a few more of them who survived the battle than we thought."

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