After that we were on the road again the next morning. It may not seem like much time to stay in that kind of situation but for us every second dragged slowly, every breath taken filled with fear that it would be our last.I stared at the boy"s back that entire night.
The rattling of the carriage, the stomping of the horses, the chains, any high sound would make us jump, especially if there were voices in the mix.
All kids had watched what happened yesterday. All avoided me like the plague.
Could not blame them.
I look beside me to the almost invisible dark elf boy thrown in the corner, his face covered not only by the darkness but for the total lack of expression on his face, his breathing steady and calm, but since my eyes did not leave him for a second I still saw the sweat that coated his body beforehand, and I knew he wasn"t doing as well as he wanted to portray.
"How can you do that?" How can you be so calm? I want to ask but caught myself before doing so, covering my mouth soon after as he only glances at me with his white eyes.
I wait for a reaction, but to be fair I guess he could do nothing more than stare at me now … I sulk even more with that line of thought.
I couldn"t even apologize properly…no, how could I ever apologized properly for…for having him hurt and permanently mute? Nothing in the world to be enough to make up for that, even if it wasn"t totally my fault… Plus now I was scared that if I went any further with my words I would only make things worse for us both.
At that an idea surges as I go to the edge of the cage and reach out, making him back off further into the darkness, but since my cage was right in the middle and this carriage wasn"t big to begin with I manage to get close enough so my hand was inches away from his face.
At that a golden light starts to emanate from my hand, illuminating his face and the brief surprise expression that manages to move his frozen features.
The light crisscrossed into his mouth, mending the severed wound opened in a painfully hard-to-treat area, and I could feel that it had already started to go bad, the moist area acting against the closing of the wound.
I could only imagine how bad it was, how painful, and how deadly it would become without proper treatment.
"I-I"m sorry…" I whisper, holding the tears in; they would do me no good here, anywhere for that matter, and if he could be brave after what he being though I should at least be able to hold the tears in.
The elf looks at me, his jaw clenching, staring into my purple eyes. He reaches his hand out and I close my eyes, waiting for the hit that was sure to come and letting it come; I deserved it; only that I felt no pain, instead only a light touch on my head.
H-he was patting my head!
I look at him, surprised, watching his face as he turns it away, as if to hide it, and moves his hand stiffly on my hair, somewhat unable to meet my eyes.
W-was he trying to comfort me?
That makes me blush, and when I finish mending his wound I go back to my place at the back of the small cage, my eyes still on his figure.
Pity that I could not regrow limbs… or a tongue. I could only heal what was there, I could not create matter…
But soon after my mind goes back to the situation at hand as there were too many things to worry about at the same time, for example, where we were going, when we would finally reach there, what would be of us once we finally get there.
Not like I could ask these men, one kid cried for her parents and got a kick on the face.
No, not going to push my luck, they even gave me clean clothes to wear and let me clean up my face and arms; to sell better, for a higher price they said.
Who was I going to be sold to? If it was because of my power it would be better because I could only tremble with the possibility of being for my body.
But…For good or bad, in the end I did not need to worry about such details... because we never reached the end of the line.
"Watch out!"
There was no time to react when something hits the side of the carriage while we were still moving and flips it over, the horses crying out loud as they were dragged along when another hit comes, a huge horn sticking in, piercing the wood and one of the kids, then backing off again, moving and stomping, making the carriage flip over again two, three times, until all seemed to stop, screams and blood everywhere.
I cough a couple of times as smoke rises and the wood cracks, the chaos surrounding us as we stayed upside-down, the roof breaking under our weight.
I finally manage to see when the debris finally starts to settle, watching the chaos unfold and a whip slash in the air.
I look around me, seeing most kids badly hurt or dead, and something makes me stop and gasp.
The cage… it, it had broken open!
I could not celebrate too much since all that shaking that had freed me gave me lots of wounds too, but I don"t waste my time and push my way out of the cage.
I look around and back, as if that mere step would send high pitch alarms for all to hear, but before I could do anything I quickly find a problem with my escape plan… and that was around the elf boy"s neck.
Of course I would not be leaving him there, none of than for that matter.
The boy looks at me, hurt but stubborn, and brushes the air in front of him, a scowl on his face as he points for me to leave.
"No" I say, making him angry, but I was, for the first time in my life, dead serious about saving him.
So once I go out the first thing I do is search for the creepy man, the key holder, taking in the many flipped carriages, bloodstains, corpses of horses and man alike, all goods thrown around, the pure chaos this palce was in.
In the middle of all that was the one I had been searching for, a whip at hand as he fought with something, and soon all pieces fit in my mind like a jigsaw as I discovered what had happened and why we were attacked.
Because I had seen, amongst the good and cages, magical creatures being held captive too, and one of them looked exactly like the small version of the one attacking us right now.
A horned horse-lion!
As the name implies the creature had a huge horn on its forehead, the face a mix of the snout of a horse and the ferocity of a lion, a huge mane that went down from the neck to its back, and long strong legs that ended in sharp hooves sinking on the ground as it attacked the creepy man.
I take my time watching the situation unfold as the whip manages to prevent the creature from closing in on this side, but I soon found out that something was lacking …
The muddle of keys to be precise.
I could clearly see the creepy man moving about, but did not see any keys on his waist like they usually are, so in a panic I start to look around only to find them, minutes later, in the soil close to the normal-looking carriage that he must have being ridding when all this started.
Sneaking my way around I could only count that the creature would stay here long enough to cover my tracks, but I did not count that, in a fit of anger, it throws a wooden box away, right on top of my former carriage!
In a panic I quickly dash forward, bending down to enter the crushed upsidedown carriage, worry for the boy"s well-being, but soon finding out that my cage had protected him by staying in between the hit, denting deep on the floor and taking the other kids with the hit.
I did not have time to pity their lack of luck.
Because we did not have such thing either.
"The kids! They are escaping, grab them!" The creepy man manages to say in the middle of the fight as the other low brain bandits finally look in our direction, all pair of eyes focus on us and making me s.h.i.+ver.
At that we do not think and only react by holding each other hands, turning around, and running deeper into the forest without looking back!