Author's Note: ...Not even gonna say anything. Read on, my lovelies!
Chapter 16
Jane
The triple-braided ropes about her wrists burned, digging angry red ruts into the flesh of her wrists and ankles. Try as she might, she could not manage to free herself from their grasp; no matter which tricks and contortions she attempted, the knots here were too strong, too tight, too intricate.
A muffled oath attempted to escape Jane's lips, but the desolate frustration was muted by the foul excuse of a gag the brutes had shoved into her mouth.
The very thought of them, these so called "men", caused a deep rage to simmer within her, boiling her blood within her veins. They were nothing short of animals. Vile, flea-ridden brutish pigs at that, Jane thought scornfully.
Her gaze perused the confines of her prison for the thousandth time, and lingered on the man. Welts, blood and mud were plastered across his skin…clearly he was no friend of her captors. Which left one resounding question bouncing about her mind…
Who on God's green earth was he?
Jane grimaced, her aggravation of the situation mixed with her curiosity and fear, before she continued her routine and futile task of check, check, and re-checking the pitiful tent floor for something to help her escape. And yet, as always, there was no sign of a sharp stone. No dagger had magically appeared. Solely the cold, gravelly earth stretched out in emptiness.
Think, Jane…think… She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to recall if her knight's training had ever covered a situation quite like this, and if it had ever mentioned the means to extricate oneself. Come, now, Jane…be resourceful. How would Sir Theodore get out of this? She felt a slight twist of shame in her gut; Sir Theodore would never have been so careless as to have landed himself in such a position as this. Let alone, he would never have endangered both himself and a companion.
What had become of Jester? Guilt, shame, and regret squirmed uncomfortably within her. She had failed. She had failed, and been thoughtless and edging on cruel at times. She had promised the king that she would protect him; that was the purpose of her leaving Kippernia with him on this journey. What a miserable excuse of an escort she was proving herself to be…
Sighing, she looped her bound arms about her knees, drawing them close to her chest. Perhaps she deserved such a fate as this; after all, she had failed the Knight's Code, she had failed this mission, she had failed her best human friend and the young man she loved most dearly. But, Jester? He deserved nothing of the misfortunes that Fate had served him. She could only pray that he had survived; that he had not died of wounds or by attack or by starvation would be a miracle in itself.
If Heaven would hear me, I ask only three things, she prayed silently, blinking back the sea of raging emotions within her, Let him be safe. Let him in time come to forgive me. Let him be happy, wherever he is.
A sudden crashing commotion rattled her from her thoughts, and Jane looked up swiftly, eyes wide in alarm.
Three of the six men about the fire had fallen, crumpling into unconscious heaps upon the stony ground when their skulls came into contact with the solid thunk! of Wymund, Godric and Amice's staffs. Tiberinus fended off two men, swiftly dispatching the more-inebriated one with buffet of his sword hilt. His silver hair and blade gleamed majestically in the firelight, and the spirit of a true warrior-of-old sparkled in his wise eyes as his swordsmanship overtook the more sober of the two men.
The sixth man, incoherently drunk, simply sat swaying on the ground at the foot of the cliff where he had been, taking deep swigs from a canteen and hiccoughing as he gazed dreamily at the fray.
From Jester and Ippolito's position at the edge of the wood, they saw two of Jane's four guards split off from their position; one sprinted towards the fireside fray, and the other towards the largest tent near a copse of trees in the northern side of the camp.
"That'll be Cliff's…" Jester breathed, his grip tightening around the throwing daggers. If the man had so much as laid a finger on Jane, he would have Jester to answer to.
They waited for a heartbeat of a moment, as Cliff and the guard— Chaunce, he recognized, from their earlier encounter— went to rouse the rest of their men, and barreled past Jane's tent.
"Now, Jester!" hissed Ippolito, ducking out in between the tents. Taking one last breath to center himself, Jester followed suit, ducking from tree to tent, weaving in and out of sight. The rain muffled the crunch of their footsteps, but Jester was more than certain that his heartbeat, hammering a tattoo against his chest, was loud enough to be heard for miles upon end.
Suddenly, Ippolito swore, twisting and sidestepping the entrance of one tent on their right and slashing downwards with one of his knives. There was a muffled grunt of pain, as one of the brigands, exiting his tent, staggered backwards, and Ippolito kneed the man in the skull.
Looking up to Jane's tent, Jester's veins filled with ice water and his lungs froze over; they had been spotted. The guards let out a cry of alarm, withdrawing their crude clubs. Reacting purely on a hint of fear and a healthy serving of adrenaline, Jester raised one of the throwing knives in the air and, shutting his eyes, threw the blade for all he was worth.
Time seemed to freeze. Jester could practically hear the silver weapon slicing through the air, turning, turning, turning…until it met its mark, embedded in the shoulder of one of the men. Opening his eyes, he saw that Ippolito had done the same, only his blade was followed immediately by another. Had this simply been a practice skirmish in the courts, Jester's jaw would have dropped in astonishment at the speed that the Italian threw the blades. Gunther, who was a very skilled archer, could not have shot his arrows so swiftly. One had scarcely left his grasp, before the next was flying after it, each of his blades embedding themselves into the guards. Silently, one man fell, red liquid bubbling and oozing from his chest. Jester swallowed, ignoring the bile that rose in his throat.
Jane…remember Jane, he thought, focusing on not being ill. Brushing a strand of soaked hair from his eyes, he blinked through the rain enough to throw another blade into the chest of the other sentinel.
Ippolito launched past him, withdrawing his shortsword and clipping the man with it.
"Jester, go!" He called back through the rain; his voice was muffled as he drove the guard back and dodged swings of the man's club.
He needed no second telling; Jester dashed to the entrance of the tent, feeling like singing and dancing and cartwheeling and crying and laughing all at once. Jane Jane Jane Jane Jane! The thrum of his pulse sang, every nerve-ending on his body alive and wired.
His hands fumbled at the entrance flap of the tent, and he almost laughed aloud to see them shaking before he slipped inside.
Green. Beautiful, breathtaking, terrified emerald green was the very first thing to meet his gaze, and Jester's felt his heart stop, break, mend and melt as though he were consumed by dragon fire within the most perfect moment of his life.
"Jane," he whispered.
Author's End Rant That I Would Usually Put In The Beginning But You Know What? Forget That Today!:
WOOOOHOO! Chappie 16 is here for you at LAST, m'dears (I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry for it's stupidity-and-non-appearances. And I'm sorry in advance for anything slow in the future. There. Now I don't have to be a broken record. Teehee). Thank you for the patience, the feedback, the promise of cookies, the veiled threats, the deliberate threats, the pleading, the screaming, the I-HATE-YOUS, and for being overally amazingly supportive.
Man..can I say that the thing about fanfiction is that it really stretches your endurance and skills as a writer (which is the main reason why I write it. Asides from the fact that it is cheaper than therapy and that I love you all and love the characters. ;D)...I can't believe how long it's taken to get HERE. I remember writing this LAST summer at crazy times like 2 AM...4 AM...6 AM...times like it is right now. And here we are again?
Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter. The next one will be up...whenever it decides it wants to get up. Stories of mine really have a mind of their own, you see.
Cheers!
XOXO, Mintermist