Author's Notes: What's this? A review! Well, that's glorious! I had started to wonder if this story was a total flop and nobody could bring themselves to tell me so.

I'm very pleased with this chapter, both because I wrote it all in one night, and because I got to write some of my favorite sorts of scenes. Thank you (all?) for readign and enjoying my story thusfar.

Chapter 4: Capture and Escape

He awoke in daze several hours later. For a moment, he could hardly believe that he was alive at all. However, his head was throbbing, and he considered pain to be a very clear sign that he was still in the living world. On the other hand, he was most assuredly not in his bed. The world bounced and jostled all around him. It was cold, and shadows danced on the walls of the dimly lit place. The setting was vaguely familiar. He had been taken to a wagon or carriage after he had been attacked, and only the gods knew where it was headed. Atem took a deep breath, determined to remain calm. This proved very difficult when he tried to stand and found his arms and legs bound tight. Another breath, deeper this time, but shakier. With no arms and no legs, he used the only effective part of his body that had not been bound.

"Someone get in here, now!" he bellowed hoarsely. His throat and mouth were almost painfully dry.

There was hushed mumbling outside the carriage; probably the driver and some guards. He rolled to one side just in time to watch a man stumble into the carriage from up front. He wasn't a tall man, but he was solid and built enough to make up for it. He stomped over to Atem, causing the small carriage to shake and rattle even more.

"Well, lookit who's up!" he said, crouching before Atem. He had an unusually high-pitched voice for such a large man. "You must be one tough little bastard to come out of that so early."

Atem glared and writhed against his bonds. "Who are you? What am I doing here?" he snapped.

The man only smirked and gave Atem a shove, rolling him over onto his back. "I'm Jered, an' you're going on a trip. Now shaddup."

"I gathered that we are going somewhere, you dimwit! Where? What do you plan to gain?"

"I said shaddup!" Jered barked, getting to his feet.

Atem tried and failed to stop himself from crying out in pain as his captor delivered a harsh kick to his side. The pain faded quickly, leaving behind a dull ache in his ribs. He scowled up at the man as his breathing returned to normal.

"You will not get way with this," he said.

Jered smirked and produced a large silver locket from within his baggy jerkin and opened it. "We already have," he said, taking a rag out of his pocket and rubbing the locket down with it. "Now sit still. You talk too much."

Jered kneeled before him again, using one calloused hand to hold the writhing boy in place and holding the rag over his face with the other. He struggled and trtied to bite down on Jered's hand, but the same sickly smell from earlier was quickly clouding his senses and sapping his strength. His struggling slowed, and eventually stopped.

Atem slept soundly, but not without dreams. Mostly unpleasant ones that he would have caused him to bolt upright in bed; dreams that involved Jered and his cohorts torturing and killing him. There was one comforting dream in which the entire kidnapping had been a dream, and Mana woke him up by bouncing up onto his bed and shouting for him to wake up, but it was brief and hazy...

"Wake up, sire," a soft, feminine voice called from beyond the fog of his drug-induced sleep. Had it not been a dream after all?

His eyes opened narrowly and he squinted against the intense light. The pain in his head grew more intense than before. There was a shrill ringing in his ears, as well as the faint sound of his own slow heartbeat. He attempted to sit up, but soon realized that he was already sitting up. He was also still immobilized, tied to a chair. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. He forced his eyes to open fully, cringing at the light. A vaguely familiar sight greeted him. A thin, pale woman with blonde hair and oversized blue eyes. He snapped into wakefulness as the realization hit him. The woman before him was undeniably Delitia. Her wavy blonde hair was tied up on top of her head, but the waves had apparently fallen out. She wore clothes very different from the tent-like dress he had last seen her in, a corset and a long, lace-up skirt. But is was still obvious who she was. 'I snuck in,' he heard a sweet, saucy voice proudly say in the back of his mind. Damn.

"You trecherous harlot," he managed to sneer. His mind was still foggy, and his mouth was as dry as ever.

Delitia grinned in an almost unhinged manner and brought her hand back. "Quiet!" she shrieked, bringing her hand back down to slap Atem across the face. "I've had just about enough of this 'harlot and 'strumpet' talk! First that blathering heretic, and now you! I won't have it!"

More shaken by the sudden upburst than by the slap, Atem raised an eyebrow at the ranting woman. She was... different, now. Her eyes gleamed with a sort of animal cunning instead of the glazed distraction that had seemed to eminate from her before. Had everything been a ploy? Was she, in fact, a cold and calculating criminal? Did Anum know about this? So many questions flooded his mind, but which one would he ask? The most obvious one, of course.

"Why?"

The woman giggled and tossed a stray lock of hair back. "Why not?" she countered. "What have I got to lose?"

Atem examined her again, now that his eyes had adjusted to the light. The pain in his head remained, but he could concentrate now. Her boots were heavy, worn over thick wool stockings. They seemed out of place with her outfit. She had a shortsword fastened to her thin belt, an obviously expensive one with a jewelled hilt and pommel. Probably a heavy bearing sword, meant more for style than for functionality. Atem smiled inwardly. It was an intimidation tactic. She had no idea how to use it, or even that is was not the best weapon she could have chosen for the coin it must have been worth. His confidence was returning, slowly but strongly.

"I think the question is 'what do you have to gain?', actually," he corrected smugly. Delitia twitched. "What could all this be worth, when you are most likely moments from being caught?"

"Really?" Delitia said with an unsettlingly delighted giggle. "Sweet little boy, I don't think you know where you're at."

Atem scowled. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Where are we?"

"You've been sleeping for almost two days," she said, stepping around the chair to stand behind him. "We're on the tippity top of a great, big mountain in Luropa. Your Knights probably think you're dead by now."

Atem's heart sank. The boots made sense, now. She didn't need them in the warmth of the room they were in, but she would have definitely needed them outside in the snowy mountains of Luropa. If what she had told him was true, he had to get out of there, and fast. He wriggled his fingers against the knots in the rope that bound him to the chair. The knots were tight, but far from complex. Perhaps he could distract her, get her talking again long enough to free himself and get that sword away from her. Yes, that could work. That had to work. His foggy mind began clearing faster, the prospect of escape spurring him on.

"I'll ask you again," he said. "What do you have to gain? Are you planning to hold me for ransom?"

"Of course not!" Delitia said as if the answer was terribly obvious. She lightly cupped Atem's chin and walked back around to his front. He immediately seized his chance and began working away at the knots. He reflected that, being as simple as they were, Delitia had probably secured him herself. "Holding you for ransom would jeopardize our position. We're going to kill you. Or rather, I'm going to kill you."

Atem was not intimidated, or even impressed, for that matter. She had proven herself to be a less than adequate assassin up to this point, and he didn't imagine she truly had it within herself to kill him in cold blood. But if she did, he would have to put his plan into action quickly. Just at that moment, that knot in the rope came loose. He held the slack rope in place to prevent it from dropping to the floor and giving him away.

"Why kill me?" he asked simply. "How do you gain more with a dead body than a living hostage?"

The woman giggled again and leaned in close, her nose almost touching Atem's. His entire body tensed, and he prepared to release the rope. He would wait for her to distract herself with the sound of her own voice before making his move.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked sweetly. Her eyes glittered with unbridled avarice as she spoke. "An age of revolution is at hand, boy. And the next king of Terranera has promised me a seat beside him in the throne room." Atem allowed the rope to fall slowly, easing it to the floor, inch by inch. He allowed the shock and revoltion at her plan to show in his expression, more for the benefit of his plan than out of inability to control his emotions. Delitia continued her monologue. "I wasn't bought by Anum, boy, I was a gift. Once Anum is out of the picture, I can take my place as queen. Do you understa-"

Atem's hand darted out, taking hold of the sword's pommel and pulling it free of its sheath. He had been worried, for a moment, that it may have been strapped in for travel. How foolish of him to expect that level of preparedness from a greedy harlot turned assassin. Delitia gave an inhuman snarl and grabbed for the sword. A mere second too slow, she gripped the blade instead of the hilt. She recoiled, howling out in pain as blood ran from her palm. Her prim face contorted in a twisted mask of savage rage.

"Jered! Bartz!" she cried. "He's loose!"

Atem quickly took a proper grip on the sword, falling back on the hours of drills he had endured with Kalim, and shoved Delitia to the side. He had no intention of killing her. However, she had no intention of letting him escape. She grabbed him by the arm as he passed, her well-groomed nails digging in deep. He turned on his heel, bringing his sword to the first vital area he could reach. Her neck. Delitia's hand released him and flew to her sliced throat, grasping at the deep slash. She fell to the floor, gasping desperately for breath that would never come. Atem had no time for honorable silence for the life he had had no choice but to end. More of the assasssins were on the way, and he had eliminate them first. He took a breath to steady himself. It wouldn't be easy fighting off two grown men with just an overweight sword and his nightgown. He stepped to the side of the door and waited, hoping to rely on the element of surprise.

Within moments, the door burst open. Atem sprung back into action, jabbing the man in the stomach. He toppled over, and his associate, in all his chivalry, shoved him aside and rushed in. Atem gave a hoarse shriek as Jered's sword slashed him across the chest. He swung his own sword out of reflex and was lucky enough to strike the man in his arm. Jered's sword clattered to the ground, and Atem delivered the final blow, a single angled stab to the chest, just below the ribcage. Jered fell backward with Atem's sword still protruding from his chest, and Atem fled the room.

He slammed the door behind him and pushed the deadbolt into place. He had to wait, now. He had formulated his plan past this point, but it involved waiting. He needed warmer clothes to survive in the cold mountain snow, but there was only one way for him to get any, now. And the blows he had dealt to Delitia and her comrades had not been the kind that cause instantaneous death. They would suffocate or bleed out, perhaps living for as long as a quarter of an hour. He brought a trembling hand up to his own wound, dreading what sort of damage might have been dealt to him. He looked down. His nightgown was sliced open, the wound exposed. It was painful, yes, but it wasn't deep, and it was far from lethal. He would have to make some attempt at dressing it before leaving.

The rush of battle was leaving Atem. The cold knowledge of what had happened was all that it left in its wake. He was alone on a desolate mountain. He was wounded. He had just fatally wounded three people and locked them in a room to slowly die. And he might yet die in the attempt to escape. He did the only thing a young boy could in such a situation. He sunk down against the door, pulled his knees as close to his chest as he could bear, and softly wept.

It was nearly an hour later that Atem decided to open the door. His eyes were red and puffy from weeping, but the pain in his chest had lessened. He slid the deadbolt out and swung the door open. There was no stench of death that he had heard so much about in stories, but the smell of blood was almost overpowering. It was all over the floor, and even on the walls. Atem was very lucky that only a minute amount of it was his.

The best way to choose which items to take, he figured, was to assess which ones were the least bloodsoaked. The disgust factor aside, wet clothes were terrible in a cold climate. His first choice was the pair of boots he had seen Delitia wearing when he first woke up. They slipped off easily enough, sparing him prolonged physical contact with that particular corpse. Bartz's coat was totally drenched, so he relieved the corpse of its breeches instead. Jered's were in similarly pristine condition, and layers never hurt in the snow. He dressed in his morbid spoils and took Jered's sword as an afterthought. It was a light combat model, far better for defending oneself than the gawdy ornament he had somehow slain them all with.

He left the bodies behind, shuddering as he locked the door. He didn't quite know why he locked the door, just that he felt the need to do so. Jered had not been wearing a coat, so it was obviously somewhere. He had been taken to what appeared to be a small wooden cabin, so he didn't have many rooms to search. He found it rather quickly, draped over a chair in the kitchen. He and Bartz had apparently been playing dice and enjoying a meal of cheese and salted meat when Delitia summoned them. Atem rifled through the cupboards in search of some napkins. He found a thick stack of them, large ones even, and went to work washing his wound in the water left in the basin. Unfortunately, he lacked the supplies to dress the wound, but he would settle for it being dry and clean. He wrapped the remnants of his captors' meal in the remaining napkins and stashed them in his newly acquired coat. There was little other dry and light food worth taking. He was as read as he would ever be.

As Atem stood before the front door of the cabin, it occured to him that, perhaps, he could wait for someone to rescue him. If he ate sparingly, he could remain there for days, maybe a week. But it would be days spent with rotting corpses and no way to let anyone know where he was.

Atem pulled the thick coat close aroudn him, opened the door, and stepped out into the snow.