Ch. 60: Splitting Up

Once Kraz decided no one was eavesdropping, he made his way back to where I was chained.

"Well well, except for these two twerps, we're alone now."

I gave a look of fear and he chuckled pervertedly before turning to threaten Iren and Kovin, "If you two interrupt my lesson over here, I might have to inflict some real pain on yer little lady friend. If everybody plays nice and keeps quiet, this can be quite a pleasant experience. I don't mind you boys watchin my work - it's kind of a turn on."

I barely held in a retch from his implication as he turned back around raising a calloused hand to caress my face, "So soft. I ain't never had a woman as good lookin as you."

I'd believe it - the man's breath smelled of rotten fish and I had to suppress myself from gagging in his face as I tried to maintain a look of innocent fear. I know what this man wanted, and he was in for a rude awakening.

Once he lifted his other hand to grope my chest, I realized this man didn't mess around. I quickly cut the helpless woman act and tilted my head to meet his lecherous gaze, "Who's your boss Kraz?"

His hand stopped as he looked cautiously into my eyes, "Little tart, let's not talk about him while I'm touching ya, kay? This is our time."

I held back a grimace as I sighed, "So much for making this pleasant."

Kraz tilted his head in confusion so I took the opportunity to twist my boots and click the heel blades open. With lightning quick reflexes I pulled him forward with my legs and embedded both of the sharp weapons into the back of his kneecaps. Yelling in anger, he tried to wrench away but I swiftly pulled out the blades and let him fall to the floor. Before he had a chance to react, I wrapped my knees around his head and twisted as hard as possible. As his burly hands fumbled to wrench my legs free, his neck snapped with a resounding CRACK. Limp and lifeless, he fell to the floor soundlessly.

Looking up, I noticed a visibly surprised Iren while Kovin was getting his other hand free from the shackles.

"Hey when'd you do that?" I asked Kovin.

"While you were seducing the wretch."

He showed off a small pin that he'd apparently concealed, then went back to releasing his other hand. Once Kovin was free, he got us both unchained easily.

It should be noted that my wrists were killing me since I put all my weight on them during the Kraz attack so while I rubbed them gingerly, Iren asked in awe, "How did you get knives to pop out of your boots?"

I lowered my hands and pulled my dress up a little to show off my handy footwear, "Richie's the best, isn't he?"

Iren nodded eagerly then started babbling, "That was awesome Ezzie! For a second there, I thought you were actually worried about your, well you know, but you've gotta be one of the greatest actor -"

I cut him off, "Thanks Iren, but I figure we've got about ten to thirty minutes before one of Kraz's friends decide to check up on him." We turned our attention to the grate in the middle of the room.

"Sorry sorry, you're right. That's not a lot of time to navigate through the sewers to the bridge . . . Perhaps one of us should go try and protect the royals in the meantime?" Iren asked as he eyed the narrow fixture.

"Good point." I replied.

"I'll look for the royals. You two head to the bridge." Kovin decided.

"You sure you'll be okay by yourself?" I asked worriedly. We weren't really sure how many of those thugs were out there, so it could be a suicide mission.

Before Kovin could reply, Iren answered for him, "Oh totally. Kovin is the mastermind of stealth. He will definitely be okay!"

Kovin didn't oppose, so I just nodded in agreeance. It looked like we would be splitting up. The guys grabbed their weapons off the torture table and we pried open the gate with a large torture looking rod.

It wasn't easy to navigate the sewers, and the stench was horrendous, but somehow we made our way to the courtyard. We wished Kovin luck and watched him carry on through the passage until he made a turn out of sight.

Iren and I turned our attention back to the sewer opening and easily lifted the grate. Apparently these things were pretty easy to open out here in the courtyard. Through the downpour I noticed some lantern holding thugs manning the streets with no locals in sight. It was clear that they had taken over this whole fortress easily once taking the royals hostage.

Since it was dark, Iren and I stuck to the edges and stealthily made our way to the mechanism for lowering the drawbridge.

Suddenly shouting erupted, "The woman escaped! Quick - Find her! Look everywhere! Kill the other two on sight!"

Great, that didn't last long. We ran up the wall-walk behind the parapet of the outer wall. The rain was pouring down making it rather difficult to keep steady footing on the slick stone steps. Up ahead were a few thugs in our path, so we let our knives fly. You could only hear thunder as their throats were impaled and they tumbled to a heap on the walkway. We kept running when more shouts could be heard as thugs pointed up at our direction from the courtyard.

"They've spotted us." Iren grumbled as we picked up our speed, no longer hindered to remain stealthy.

Luckily we made it to the end of the wall-walk where the drawbridge/iron gate mechanism was located under a small stone roof. There was a lantern dangling haphazardly in the wind giving us sufficient light to see the mechanism.

"Do you know how to work one of these things?" I asked worriedly. I wasn't familiar with castle architecture or whatever this was classified as.

"Sure. Yeah. Maybe . . . I'll figure it out. Just keep the thugs off my back - They don't seem to want YOU dead."

"Okay," I agreed, then prepared myself for the onslaught. There were about fifteen men heading up the stone wall-walk so I ran to one of the dead guys we dropped, grabbing his bow and arrows. It definitely wasn't my preferred weapon, but I'm sure I could hit a few before they made their way to us.

I raised the bow and let the arrows fly one by one as I backed up to get near Iren again. I got about five guys, so all-in-all I'd call it a success. A few of them even toppled off the wall and gruesomely landed on the stone path below.

I heard a few grunts and metal churning behind me as Iren worked on raising the iron gate. With an excited, "YES!" I figure he got the gate up and began working on lowering the drawbridge.