Chapter 8

"How do you plan on doing that?" Ryla asked Ash after they had left the arena dn were heading towards the nursery.

"How hard can it be? We'll sneak in the night and break her out. There is just one problem," he said, striding alongside her. Breaking and entering was an old habit and specialty of his.

"I'm glad you see one," Ryla commented, worried.

"We don't know where they keep them."

"That shouldn't be difficult; the place would be heavily guarded by the Raskans" Ryla answered helpfully.

When they reached the nursery, it was almost sundown. Drax had woken up, and was lying on his bed solemnly staring up at the ceiling.

"I heard they took her away," Drax said as soon as they reached beside him.

"Well we didn't see her there but that's what it looks like" Ash started "Would you care to tell us why my ship and the crew were blown into pieces by your sweet friends".

"Those Raskan are a bunch of criminals, especially that Sakarr, their leader, every good for something elf has a problem with him, Raeya messed up a few of his operations back in the day, when he was trying to get a few elves for that sick game of his".

"Hmmm, what would they do to her," Ryla asked.

"I don't know, won't kill her, that's for sure, that would be too easy in Sakarr's books, he'll have her reveal all the secrets about the elves, but Raeya would never speak and then soon his patience will break and then he might kill her. We don't have enough time, we'll have to get her out of there. It's really important" Drax seemed to realize it himself as he was saying it.

"Calm down, we are working on it, is there anything else that might help us, seeing your condition you won't be helpful at all, so I'll have to do this alone," said Ash.

"Sakarr is a very clever man, he has spies all around the town, so you must be really careful and don't get caught, or we'll be stuck here for the rest of our lives, and I am not good at the sneaky escape kind of thing"

"Yeah, you aren't, so while I am gone, take care of the ship and get it up and running," said Ash and left.

"I am coming along, you know," Ryla said again, following him.

"you don't have to"

They gathered information the whole night, since the game had just happened, everyone was pretty chatty about the topic and they only had to listen in on a few conversations to know which direction they should be heading.

The building in which the players were was a little away from the arena. It only had one entrance, and it was heavily guarded all the time. There was one other entrance they soon found out, there was a window on the eastern side of the building which was not under the gaze of any guard but it was really high, and getting to it was going to be a real problem.

"The closest we can get is from the terrace of the adjacent building, but there is still about thirty feet of distance between them and a fifty feet drop to our deaths" they noted.

"Do you have any ideas?" he asked Ryla after they had come back from their scouting.

"I saw this circus trick once, they had ropes between two high poles and walked across it," she said.

"How are we going to get a rope on the window ledge?" he said annoyed.

"Let's take a break, we'll think of something in the morning" They went to their rooms on the ship, fortunately, most of the quarters were still intact.

Ash didn't sleep immediately though, he had a lot to think about, it was probably the longest day of his life, so much had happened in a few hours and he had yet to process it all. Remembering his expensive purchase of the day, he took out the blade. Its blood-red edges shined under the low light of the lamp. He moved his thumb over the cool blade and suddenly the blood itself melted off the blade and started going into his skin and Ash felt a jolt in his body. Somehow he knew what abilities the blade was giving him, he could see it clearly now, the image of the high and faraway window seemed much less intimidating now. He felt like he could jump that far easily and throwing a hooked rope on the edge seemed child's play. He didn't know whether it was the confidence of an assassin or the agility of a cat burglar that had just flowed in him. He took his hand away from the blade, it was smaller now. He had to save it, hopefully, there was still enough left for tomorrow night.

Ash was still very shaken up by the experience, he couldn't sleep so he decided to tell Ryla about the progress he had made. He contemplated not disturbing her and but soon he was knocking at the door. She opened it wearing a loose shirt only, that came up to her upper thighs. She looked much younger and innocent now. She looked up at him with big eyes and Ash moved forward and kissed her. Her lips soft and cool tangled with his own and soon she was matching his own speed. The kiss went on for a few minutes when Ash tried to move further however Ryla stopped him.

"We had a long day, I am really tired right, now," she said not looking at him.

Ash left with mixed emotions, he was happy about the kiss and her part in it. He felt his eyes with exhaustion as soon as he hit the sack and he realised what she meant.