Prologue II

Bang! Bam! Thud! "Damn it all, the blasted door is stuck!"

"Here let me try."

"Th-that's really not necessary I'm sure one of these is the key to this room."

"Well you'd better find it and quick after all we wouldn't want anything to happen to your family now would we?" Someone on the other side of the of the door snarled.

"Ow w, my head." I moaned pitifully as my eyes slowly creaked open and immediately shut themselves again on account of the pain inducing light and that I felt like I had the common cold or the flu or both.

"Well this is a hell of a wake up call isn't it?" A man judging by the voice said.

"Look I don't really care who you are so could you please go away or come back later or something, I'm really not in the mood right now." I told the intruder irritably.

"Well I could do that but then there's a very good chance that those men out in the hall will murder you. And I can't have that." The intruder replied as if expecting this kind of response.

"And why would they do that?" I asked through gritted teeth, with as much caution as I could given my now panicked state of mind.

"Well, if I had to guess I'd say it's because they think there's a noble in here." The man answered "And before you ask a stupid question, it should be obvious that I'm referring to you. Now come on we've got to get out of here that door won't hold forever." The man whose name I still didn't know moved toward the window.

"Right, but what about my clothes?" I asked as got out of bed.

"You slept in them, now come on we don't have much time left before that door breaks." The man said as he practically shoved me toward the open window.

"Right, so how are we going to do this?" I asked only now realizing just how high up we were as looked out the window.

"Jump."

"Excuse me?" I asked hoping I had misheard him.

"And be sure to do a swimmers tuck and roll a bit as you land." The man continued.

"Oh god, your serious aren't you?!"

"Oh and be sure you aim for something soft like water, water is great at breaking your fall without killing you." The man finished.

"Well I suppose I have my answer to the are you serious question. But can't we just scale our way down?"

"Nope, this is more fun, besides we'll need to be on the roof of building before we can actually make our jump."

"Oh and why is that?" I asked nervously.

"Because we're not facing the right way, we need to be facing a large enough body of water to break our fall, not cobblestone. Now come on we really need to get going, unless you'd rather try your luck with a gauntlet of angry bandits."

"No that's alright I'd rather keep my body in one piece, thank you very much." I replied.

"Well than follow me, and try to keep up while your at it." The man said as he deftly climbed out the window and began a rather short ascent to the roof.

"Well, I guess that means it's my turn." I said after seeing that he'd made it to our first destination.

"And why does this have to be so god damn hard?" I muttered dryly to myself as I began my own ascent.

"Pull yourself over to the window to your right the roof is lower there!" My companion called out to me from above.

"Hey boss, you here that? Sounds like there's some blokes above us."

"Well than we'll just have to set an example for these Ylissean types won't we now?" The apparent bandit leader spoke.

"Yeah but how are we gonna do that?"

"Simple Butch, take everything of value and put the rest to the torch. And if there are any women you want, well you'll know what to do. Oh and kill anyone that resists, unless their women. Got that Butch?" The bandit leader snarled at Butch.

"Y-yeah boss I got it." Butch stuttered fearfully.

"Good now go tell the others." The leader ordered.

"Yes boss." Butch replied sounding rather obedient as he probably scampered off to do what he was told.

Shit I'd better get climbing.

"Uh hey, not sure if you caught all of that down there but they're starting to torch the place, Mister?" I panted having finally caught up to where this stranger was on the roof of the building.

"Martel. Clay Martel." The man spoke softly.

"Uh right, so Clay, is this where we're jumping from?" I asked deciding to let him deal with whatever he was dealing with at the moment at a later time.

"Yeah, but you need a couple things before that, when we get in the water your going to want follow me, I'll take you to an acquaintance of mine who has some weapons for you. The other thing we can take care of now or when we reach my colleague, your choice, totally up to you." Clay explained with a strained sense of urgency.

"Now works." I replied, curious as to what this second thing was that he needed to do.

"I was hoping you'd say that." Clay replied ominously, making me feel really uncomfortable as he began to encroach upon my personal space. I regrettably didn't get a chance to ask about his sudden change in behavior for two reasons first of which was the shoulder tackle that Clay had sent crashing into my ribcage just moments ago, the second was that I was now plummeting towards what would either be cobblestone or a river depending on where that maniac had been aiming.

"Well this is going to hurt, no matter where I end up landing." I said, vocalizing a sudden realization that made me cringe.

Splash!