Chapter Ten: Break Your Surly Bonds
Iris was not exactly sure what she was experiencing when she regained consciousness.
Her entire field of vision was filled with a thousand little bright white lights shaped like small grains of rice. The white lights reminded her of the stars she could see clearly during a cloudless and moonless night. She could not tell if the low whistle-like ring filling her ears was coming from outside or inside her head. Something warm and smelled like copper trickled down across her cheek and onto her jaw, where it gathered to drip large droplets onto the moving ground she was lying on. A painful throb pulsed on the left side of her head, just above her ear and on the edge of her scalp. The throb died down slowly after a few seconds, but the pain was enough to cause her to moan weakly before she realized what she was doing.
"Ermpth?"
What was that?
"Ermpth!"
There it was again. Where was it coming from? She could not tell. She couldn't see anything through the stars filling her eyesight.
"Ermpth! Wunh unph!"
Was someone speaking to her? She could not tell, but the sounds increased slightly in volume…tone… pleading?
"Ermpth! Plmf gmmpth unph!"
Ermpth…
What was "ermpth"? She heard that…word, she supposed, for the fourth time. "Ermpth" had to be important for the voice to have said it so many times. Was it a greeting?
"Wunh unph! Plmf! Onrr paf omfth!"
Her head throbbed with another pulse, drawing out another, somewhat longer moan from her dry lips.
Why did it feel like her legs were higher than her head?
Suddenly, without her permission, they moved. Something soft had struck the back of her knees, causing her mind to become aware that she was lying down awkwardly. Her hips were titled up in an angle, and her legs were resting on something warm and soft, but sturdy, that was stirring. The sound of something solid hitting wood repeatedly cut through the whistle-like ring as clearly as the voice had, and was continually doing.
"Ermpth! Ermpth!"
There was that word again. What did it mean?
Better yet, what was her age? Where was she born? What was her favorite food? Favorite color? Animal? What was her name?
Her age: Eleven.
Birthplace: Sera Village.
Food: Apples.
Color: Blue.
Animal: Cat.
Name:
What was her name?
"Ermpth!"
"Ermpth"? Was her name Ermpth?
…no.
"Ermpth!"
Ermpth…? Ermpth…? Ermpth…?
"Wunh UNPH!"
Ermpth…Ermpth…Iris…
Now where did that word come from?
Iris…
Iris…
Iris?
Ermph?
"ERMPTH!"
Ermph…Iris…
"Ermph" meant Iris.
Her name was Iris!
As if her name was a key to door, her memory returned and the situation along with it.
Her eyes shot open.
When he saw Iris lose both her balance and her grip when the carriage bucked, Marth felt his stomach clench in fear and concern for her. He could only watch as her head, shoulders, arms and upper body slide/fall down onto the floor of the carriage. The side of her head hit the floor with a loud bump. Her legs and feet rapidly slide through the window opening and landed onto the prince's body, limply but still hard enough to cause the prince to moan at the sudden pressure on his hurting limbs.
With his arms and legs trussed up as they were, he could not move to catch her; nor could he even attempt to stop or slow her fall. The ropes once again made him both helpless and useless. The only thing he could do was become her handhold when she first pulled herself up and through the only opening to the carriage she could reach without alerting his abductors of her presence. But even that had been of little use. As soon as she was able to, she reached for another handhold without the fear of anything getting in her way.
Marth clenched his eyes shut and he made his head fall forward, burying his face into the soft cushions of the bench-like seat, bitter tears of frustration and rage burning behind his eyelids.
He was so weak!
He was supposed to be a protector! Wasn't that what he was trained nearly all his life to be? Where was all his training during all this since the moment he woke up staring right into the blade of a knife?
What had he done when he saw poor, frighten-to-near-death Norne? Nothing! Just as he began to struggle, he went limp in alarm when he felt that knife against his throat. He couldn't help her…couldn't even comfort her…
Now Iris had gotten hurt, maybe seriously so, in trying to rescue him, and he couldn't help her either! He just laid there!
Why were his friends the ones who suffered? He should be the one suffering!
Behind his cloth and sponge gag, he growled, low and dangerous in the back of his throat. His legs tensed and, in his fury, he shoved the sharp protestations of cramp muscles aside. He sent a sharp kick to the side of the carriage in rage. He didn't care that his sock covered feet protested or that the rope that bound his ankles to his biceps tensed up sharply, and pulled his shoulders back, making his back bend into a painful arch.
He didn't care. His pain was nothing compared to theirs.
A low moan came from the floor.
The sound cut through his rage and self-loathing, causing him to pause in sending another kick to the carriage's wall under his feet. He opened his eyes and lifted his head, looking down at his friend lying on the floor. Her head rolled limply to one side, revealing a small but bleeding bruised lump. He couldn't be sure it was a trick of the light due to the dimness of the inside of the carriage, but he was sure he saw the lump throb.
But Iris had made a sound, signaling that she was coming back to awareness. Did that mean she had only been unconscious for a few seconds, or did the sound of his kick hitting the wall bring her back to consciousness?
Despite the fact that his gag had effectively taken away his ability to speak, Marth tried to say her name. But it came out sounding like "Ermph?"
A barely noticeable twitch in her eyebrow.
"Ermph!"
He could hear a breath of air blow out past her lips.
She had to get up! Every moment they wasted here was a moment they were getting farther and farther away from the village, and closer to whatever destination these kidnappers were taking them.
"Ermpth! Plmf gmmpth unph!" he shouted and pleaded as best he could through his almost smother-some gag, trying to encourage her to move or at least open her eyes. "Wunh unph! Plmf! Onrr paf omfth!"
Another moan, this one louder.
Okay, he thought, just using his nearly inaudible voice was not enough to bring her back to full consciousness. She needed motion. The rocking of the carriage wasn't helping because it was no longer bouncing over rocks and rough road. Instead it was rocking rather pleasantly, almost like a swing. It was this kind of rocking Marth knew that had the ability to soothe him to sleep when he was exhausted.
It also meant that the carriage was disengaging its speed.
Wherever they were now, they were definitely getting closer to the dreaded destination. Time was running out!
Marth looked down his body where Iris's legs had fallen onto him. Even when he sent that wild rage-filled kick at the wall, they had not fallen off him. The angles they were both in had hooked her legs well onto him. They couldn't be pushed off by his meager wiggling.
Not only that, if hitting the wall with his feet had startled her awake in the first place, he could continue to do so.
Maybe he was not so useless after all.
He took in as much breath as he could through his nose and sent his feet flying at the wall.
Despite the roaring of the wind in his ears, Shane smiled to himself when he heard loud and continuous thumps coming from inside the carriage. It would seem the little prince had finally lost it, and was now struggling to try and free himself from those bindings he and his partner, Joel, had bounded him up with.
But the two bounty hunters knew that he would not get out. They made sure to make that it would impossible for him to break free without any help. The little prince was trapped and safely secured only a few feet away from him and his partner.
Even if the little prince did somehow managed to break himself out of the bindings, where would he go?
By now that disgusting little trading village was miles away behind them. And any other settlement was far beyond his reach. He would fundamentally be trapped in the middle of nowhere.
They had planned this done pacifically:
Infiltrate one of the Altean Knight squadrons under the Legendary Paladin Knight Jagen's command, and get close to him. Getting close to the Paladin meant getting close to the Royal Family. Once they were close enough they would wait for the opportunity to snatch away one or both of Altea's royal heirs, right out from under the Paladin and the King's noses.
They were hoping to get an opportunity to snatch away the princess, but instead they got her little brother. It was not a big loss, however, as both targets were worth the same amount of money. But still, it would have been nice to get double the money had they caught both the prince and the princess.
But in this line of work, sometimes the good hunter had to take what he could get. No matter how disappointing it was not to capture both targets.
Shane felt his smile widen when he heard the poundings cease.
The little prince was giving up.
That was good. That meant he would not give them any trouble when they met up with their employer.
The bounty the prince had on him would feed him and Joel well for about a year.
Iris groaned as she fought the dizziness of her head. She did her best to sit up with her legs still bent upwards and over Marth. Her vision swam and those annoying little lights tried to flood her eyesight again. But she would not allow it.
She shook her head, feeling that bump throb in protest. She groaned, but focused on getting her legs off Marth.
She wrapped her arms around both of her thighs and pulled them to her chest. Scooting the best she could on her bottom, she raised her legs up a bit and moved them over the prince, trying to avoid hitting him in the face with her boots. It was awkward and not comfortable for the both of them with Iris's boot dragging across him, but somehow they managed.
Still fighting her throbbing head, Iris carefully raised herself up onto her feet and leaned down over Marth, helping him to sit back up in a somewhat comfortable sitting position on the cushioned bench seat. Now that he could see her blue sparkling eyes, Marth saw the grim concern twinkling in those depts.
Iris gave Marth a small, comforting smile. "You okay?" she asked softly, giving his shoulder a warm, gentle, worried squeeze.
"Uhm-hmmh…" he nodded, trying to reassure her in return "Mmph?"
"I'll be fine," she said keeping her voice down to a whisper, "I may be seeing stars for a while, but I'm okay. Right now, let's work on getting you loose."
Marth nodded his agreement and turned his head around as best as he could to allow Iris to reach the knot of the gag. Iris started working on the gag, for which Marth was grateful. His jaw was hurting from being forced to keep it open wide for so long. He felt her small but determined, nimble fingers move beneath the fall of his hair for the cruelly-tight knot and beginning to work at it.
All the while, Marth could feel himself somewhat smiling in relieved happiness, despite the discomfort the sponge forced his jaws open, made smiling difficult. But that relief was deeply under-tinged with restless apprehension. His ears, like Iris's, kept straining to hear any noises or sounds other than the thundering of the horses' hooves against the ground. Even though the carriage was still in motion, the both of them were more than half-expecting the abductors would eventually discover them both at any moment, and turn their shared joy into two streaks of terror.
When Iris managed to pull the cloth gag's knot loose and undone, she quickly unwrap the strip from around Marth's lips. She stuck her thumb and forefinger into his dry mouth to grab ahold of the sponge and gently removed it. Marth let out a relieved sigh as he could finally breathe comfortably and properly through his mouth, drawing in deep, even breaths. He worked his jaw around and tried to get some moisture back into his mouth, which had been sucked almost dry during most of this unpleasant journey by that annoying sponge.
Iris reached down to slide her hand into her boot. Somehow, during all this, she had forgotten she had stashed a small dagger into her long work boot. She only just remembered it when she tugged on the rope connecting Marth's legs and biceps painfully.
When Iris went out for a nightly stroll, she never left the cottage without some sort of weapon. In the darkness of night, one would never know where danger could lurk, even inside the safety of village.
Grabbing ahold of the dagger's handle, Iris slowly pulled the weapon out of her boot and held it up for Marth to see.
Marth watched her grab a fistful of the rope connecting his arms and legs. She made a loop and slipped the dagger's blade into it. She then started to saw through the tough rope fibers.
She had to work fast.
She could feel that the carriage was slowing down.
A/N: So the confident kidnappers now have names of their own. I wonder who their mysterious employer is.