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I’d barely learned to like. But I had learned to survive.
“Come on!”
“Where are we going?”
My time in the mountain with my aunt had certainly prepared me for some aspects of my current situation, but not for facing it with an elderly and disoriented relative in tow. I did my best, trying to hurry Uther without rushing him (which is a fine line to walk). On my own I could comfortably have outrun, jumped, and possibly fought any of my pursuers, but that all became more difficult when I was dragging Uther behind me.
“Could we stop for a moment?” suggested my father.
I was about to explain that now was not really the time when another man caught up to us with his sword drawn.
“Actually, yes,” I replied to Uther. “You take a seat there, get your breath back. I’ll be back in a moment.”
As Uther gratefully took the weight off his feet, I spun around to face my attacker, who pointed the sword threateningly.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Works for me,” I shot back.
“Put that sword away, Vorst!” yelled another man, running towards us. “I want them both alive!”
On the one hand, that was good news because I wanted us both alive as well. But it was also very bad news; if they were robbers, they wouldn’t care if we were alive or dead; if they had ungentlemanly intentions towards me, then they wouldn’t care if Uther was harmed. If they wantedbothof us alive then they were collecting us for someone else. There were a couple of options as to who that someone else might be, but none of those options were happy ones.
The man called ‘Vorst’ went to put his sword away, and I took the opportunity to grab half a brick up off the ground and throw it at his head. It was a perfect shot, knocking the man to the mud.
“Stop!” yelled the upcoming man, who had long, dirty, blonde hair straggled about his hatchet face.
I grabbed Uther. “Time to go.”
“Are you sure? Those men seem to want us.”
Not stopping to answer, I dragged Uther on, pausing to knock over a stack of barrels to block our pursuers’ path.
“Someone go around to cut them off!” I heard the blonde yelling. “Where’s Devon?”
How many of these men were there?
Nervous of someone trying to cut us off, I took another side alley with no idea where it led.
“It’s a maze, isn’t it?” observed Uther.
We ran as fast as we could—or at least as fast as Uther could—and I began to think we would make it. At the edge of town there was a hitching post, and while I strongly disapproved of stealing horses, it was another area where I’d been schooled by my aunt, and it felt justified right now. If we could get on horseback and out of town, then we had a chance.
That little light of optimism led my way, right up until I tripped on something and went tumbling head over heels to the muddy ground.
“Oops,” commented Uther.
I started to get up but in the next instant there was someone on my back, forcing me back down and pinning my arms behind me.
“Sorry about that. Not exactly fair, tripping you like that, especially when you were doing so well. But there’s no rules in life.”
Around me, I could hear people running up and I forced my head out of the mud to see the other chasers all arriving, glad to see me caught but a little irritated that they hadn’t been the ones to do it.
“Well done, Devon,” said the blonde man.
Devon?
The weight on my back was lifted and then so was I, by my bound arms, and put back on my feet by my unseen assailant, the man named Devon. As I was turned around, I got my first look at him.
