Plot Twist

Vorasi made a mistake trying to take more than she was entitled to. What happens now?

Chapter 4

Plot Twist

 

It only takes a moment to realize you have done something terribly wrong.  Here I was, staring in the eyes of a soldier that was staring back at me in surprise.  A thousands thoughts flew threw my head, each one getting more ridiculous than the last.  Running wouldn’t be a good idea, these soldiers could easily catch me.  I didn’t know how to use my magic, so that wouldn’t be of much use.  And screaming for help would only be stupid.  Another thought occurred to me, in this split second, and it was the only sensible one I had, so I went with it.

I grabbed the shield I was holding in both hands, dropping everything else, and smashed it into the soldiers face before he uttered a sound.  He didn’t have his helmet on, so the impact wasn’t blocked by anything except his face.  A couple of clangs rang out across the camp.  One was caused by my shield smashing into the soldier, and the other was from the junk I dropped on the ground. 

I hop off of the soldier, who was completely still, and snatched up my new belongings.  I didn’t bother to look around, and instead started sprinting toward where I had come from, hoping Alistar would be ready to run when he saw me. 

I had taken only three steps when I hear a cry of alarm come from behind me, and I knew the others were waking up.  I jumped over one soldier who was either still asleep, or trying to fully wake up, and skirted around a couple of other soldiers.  After that, I was away from them and close to the nearest house.  My bare feet didn’t feel good on the ground that was covered in ashes, but I didn’t dare stop to find my shoes. 

Alistar jumped out from behind a house, and I gasped from shock.

“What did you do?”  He demands.

“No time, run!”  I say, shoving the shield, sword, and helmet into his arms.  He was holding one of our bags, and I snatched it out of his hands while he was struggling to hold everything I threw at him.  I shoved the food I stole into the bag, and then ran back into our sleeping spot.  Alistar had already put up the blanket, and I picked up the other bag we had.

“Where are we going?”  I ask aloud, not sure where I was anymore.

“There’s only one exit that I know of, and that’s how we got in.”  Alistar pointed out, and then started running in a vaguely familiar direction.  I ran after him, but I was already getting a little winded from running earlier, not to mention he was naturally faster.  It didn’t take long for a gap to form between us, but I was breathing too hard to call out to him. 

He glanced backwards after a few moments and noticed I was falling behind.  He shoved the helmet onto his head, and held the shield and sword properly in his hands before he slowed his run down until he was next to me. 

“Don’t look back, but they are already chasing us.”  He said in between heavy breathing.  Those words encouraged me to run a little faster, but my lungs felt like they were going to explode, and my legs were starting to burn already. 

I heard someone scream something from a little ways behind us, but I couldn’t make out what the words were.  Moments later, something hard and heavy slammed into my head.  I screamed as I plunged forward and slid into the ground.  A steady flare of pain pounded through my head, making the world spin and twist.  It took a lot of willpower to get to my knees, but everything was spinning too much for me even attempt moving.  Four different Alistars ran up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Come on, get up!  We have to go!”  He screamed at me, and then picked me up and propped me on my feet.  I clung to his arms, knowing that if I let go I would hit the ground again.  I saw a shield on the ground, and thought it was Alistar’s for a moment, but realized he was still holding his.  They threw a shield at me.  These soldiers threw a shield at me!  I took a step forward, but wasn’t entirely sure where the ground was.  I ended up teetering to my right, or maybe it was my left, I couldn’t tell.

“Alistar, I can’t do it, everything is spinning.”  I said.  Alistar mumbled something, probably swearing, and then he tossed the shield to the ground and scoops me onto his shoulder.  I don’t fight him, and he ends up running with me dangling on his back like a rag doll.  I’m no longer holding the two bags, and I wasn’t entirely sure when I dropped them either.

I tilted my head up so I could see if the soldiers were coming.  I gasped in shock when I saw a whole army behind us, but then I realized my vision hasn’t come into focus yet.  The army of soldiers seems far away, but then again, so do my hands.  I looked at my hands, and they seem too far away to be real, as if I could reach down and touch the ground, even though Alistar was holding me on his shoulder. 

“Hold on tight, I’m going to jump over this gate.”  Alistar says.  His voice is getting a little hoarse, probably because he is carrying me around like dead weight while running for his life.  I shut my eyes and clench my muscles as I feel myself go up in the air.  There is a small drop, which feels like four minutes of freefall for me, and then Alistar crashes back onto the ground.  My neck snaps downward, and his shoulder slams into my stomach, but I don’t really notice these painful jars.  When we aren’t falling anymore, I open my eyes and look at the soldiers again.  There doesn’t seem to be an army anymore, but occasionally I see them split into two and then fall back into one again.  A small throbbing started in my head, and I felt a knot forming where the shield hit me.  The soldiers seemed closer, and I wasn’t sure if it was because they actually were closer or that my eyes were finally focusing. 

One of the soldiers seemed different from the rest.  He seemed to have a light blue glow coming from him.  I blinked a couple of times, wondering how I could be seeing colors, but it wasn’t going away.  He wasn’t dressed different, but the blue glow was persistent.

I was still staring at the glowing soldier, and didn’t notice another soldier threw their shield at us.  It wasn’t until it was in the air that I noticed it.

“Alistar, shield!”  I screamed.  Somehow, he understood what I meant and swerved sharpy to the right.  The shield skims past us, clamoring to the ground as Alistar jumps over it.  My stomach jars again, but it doesn’t compete with the throbbing in my head, which has grown considerably worse.  Why aren’t these soldiers shooting or throwing weapons at us?  Probably because I’m too valuable for that.  I look back up, and this time I’m positive they are a lot closer.

“Alistar, I don’t think we’re going to make it.”  I said.  He says something, but he is breathing too hard for me to understand what he said.  “Listen, they aren’t going to hurt me, I’m too valuable to them.  What we’re going to do is you are going to put me down and keep running.  I’m positive they will stop chasing as soon as they get to me.”  I said calmly.

“No.” Came a shallow response.  He was breathing so hard I’m pretty sure he might pass out at this rate.

“Yes, you will.  If you don’t, I’ll throw myself off.  I’ll be fine, I promise.  I’m a mage, remember?  I’ll find a way to get myself out, you just stay close and help me when I escape.”  He didn’t answer, but I’m pretty sure he would argue if he could.  I wait a moment longer, but he didn’t stop running. “Alistar!  Put me down!”  I said firmly.  He still didn’t answer or comply.  I figured it would end this way.

“I’m sorry Alistar, wish me luck.”  I leaned to my right, and felt myself start to slide off.  He attempted to catch me, but I slid off anyways.  I hit the ground awkwardly on my side, but I hardly felt it.  I saw Alistar screech to a stop and turn around, but I screamed at him to leave, and after a brief pause, he ran off.

Rough hands grabbed me and snatch me up.

“Is she hurt?”  A voice asked.  “Check her head.” The same rough hands grabbed my head and forced me to look a soldier in the eyes.  I tried to stare back defiantly, but I wasn’t sure where he was exactly due to the spinning.  The soldier turned me around, and parted my hair to look at the wound.

“That’s a lot of bleeding.  Too bad this b***h had to run.”  The soldier said.  “Healer!”  He dropped me to the ground, or rather he let go of me and I was too unsteady to stand on my own.  I rolled over to stare at the soldiers that were starting to group around me.  The one that was glowing blue, and still was, marched up and propped me into a sitting position.  He walked behind me and felt around at the wound on my head.  His hand found the wound and pressed in, causing it to flare in pain.  I cried out from the pain and felt my hands fly up to grab at his.

Instantly, as my hands connected to his, I felt a cool shiver run from my hands and into my chest.  The coolness surged upward and into my head, where it numbed the pain.  The soldier cried out and jumped away.  Another soldier kicked me in the side and dragged me away from the healer, and I could only moan from the pain in my side now.  The coldness in my head seemed to evaporate, letting the throbbing in my head return as well, but it didn’t hurt as bad.

“What happened?”  A soldier asks.

“She’s a witch!  She touched me and started sucking the life out of me!”  The healer cried out, his breathing was rapid now.  What was he talking about?  I thought he was healing me.

“Chain her hands, don’t let her touch any of you!  Put gloves on her first!” Someone yelled as the soldiers started to clamor.  I stare at all of them, clearly now that my head wasn’t spinning anymore.  They may have been heartless killers, but they looked pretty terrified of me right now.  A soldier grabbed my arms and forced them behind my back.  He twisted them at an angle that hurt my arms, and I tried to straighten them just a little so it wouldn’t hurt as bad.  Instead, he took it as a sign I was trying to touch him.  He jammed a knee into my back and pushed me to the ground, forcing my arms even tighter.  The pain was excruciating, and I tried to fight even more.  His grip grew so tight that I lost the circulation, and my left arm popped loudly.  Blinding pain shot up my arm and I screamed unintentionally. 

“Someone shut her up.”  The soldier from earlier yelled out again.

“He pulled my arm out of socket!” I screamed to no one in particular.

“Let off of her, we don’t need her dead.”  The grip on my arms loosened a little, but it wasn’t much.  Thankfully, the sharp pain in my arm hurt so bad that I froze, and stopped struggling.  I took care not to let out a sound, for fear of getting knocked out.  Instead, I twist my head around awkwardly, trying to see what is happening.  One soldier has his gloves off, and they are debating on how to get them on me.  He waves the gloves in the face of another soldier, but they speak too quietly for me to hear them.  I turn my head the other way, but all I find is soldiers staring back at me.

“Look, if I put the gloves on myself, will you heal my arm?”  I proposed aloud when nothing happens.  At first, nobody answered me, and I started to think they would ignore me. 

“If-“

“We heard you, witch. But the last time I tried to heal you, you did something to me.”  The blue soldier said.  I couldn’t look at him, because he was directly behind me, but I twisted my head around when I spoke to him.

“I’m sorry… I’m not experienced with my abilities.”  I said honestly, whatever abilities I seemed to have.  “Once the gloves are on, you shouldn’t have a problem with me doing it again.”

“Fine, put them on.  If you try anything, the second arm is going to be broken, understand?”

“I understand.”  Gloves dropped onto the ground beside me.  I stared at them as the soldier holding me down jumped away from me.  I sat up uncertainly, and started to shake my hands a little to get the blood flowing again.  I grabbed the gloves with my good hand, and pondered how to put them on.  My arm hurt whenever I tried to move my shoulder, making it difficult to put on the gloves.

I managed to get one onto my bad arm, but I struggled with the other one.  The longer it took me, the more I moved my injured arm, which made pain radiate outward.  I groaned in frustration, the glove sitting on two fingers, and my other arm hurting too much to even try to maneuver it onto the rest of the hand.

“Give me a moment, I’m trying.”  I said when the silence dragged on.  I rested for a minute, to let the pain die down, and then worked slowly to put the glove on.  It took a lot of finger twisting, but I got it on, for the most part.

“Okay, they’re on.  Will you help me now?” I asked, turning to look at the blue soldier.

“Chain her, I won’t touch her until she is chained.”  He said when all eyes turned to him.  I clutched my injured arm and wait patiently for them to chain me up.  They wrapped my gloved arms behind my back, for good measure, and only then did the blue soldier come close to me. 

“It’d be best if you didn’t make skin contact.”  I muttered when he stood next to me.  He placed his hand on my shoulder, and I expected the cool, soothing feeling.  Instead, I’m met with a shocking pain in my shoulder, as if my arm was being ripped out of the socket, again.  It took me by such surprise that I crumble to the ground.  The soldier dropped to his knees in surprise, but keeps his hand on my shoulder.  The pain shifts from my arm, which was now flailing wildly, to my head, wrists, and sore feet.  The pain wasn’t as bad, and I stopped squirming.  Eventually, all the pain faded away, and I was left staring at the soldier, who was no longer glowing.  There wasn’t a hint of blue left on him, and it made me doubt it was ever there.

“Thank you.”  I said.  He didn’t answer me, and wiped he his brow as he walked away.  That was the first time I was ever healed, and it made me feel connected to that man.  I don’t understand why, but I felt a sense of debt to him. 

 

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Later, they had me sitting on a horse in front of a soldier who kept me balanced.  We were headed straight for the king’s palace, now that they had precious money to earn.  I had hopes of making it farther than this, but I guess the heroic stories weren’t very accurate with reality.  To make things worse, I was sitting in front of the soldier that healed me earlier.  None of the other soldiers would even think of spending the whole ride to the palace with a witch on the same horse as them. 

“So, you’re a healer.”  I asked, simply to break the silence.  Soldiers are remarkably quiet.

“And you’re a witch.  Be quiet, witch.”  He answered.

“What is a witch exactly?  I’ve never been called that before.”  I asked, getting tired of the new title.

“A witch uses black magic; of course you know what a witch is.”  Came his short explanation.

“Forget it, I suppose I’m supposed to know what I am, aren’t I?”  I sigh, I’d have to figure out what a witch is later.  “Anyways, what’s it like to be a healer?  It must be nice to have such a gift.” 

“I use this ‘gift’ to serve the king. I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”  He said.  It was hard to get a conversation going with this guy.

“Why serve the king with it?  I mean, the mage brings oppression and pain, and you do the opposite.  Instead, you could have stuck with a healer’s infirmary or something.”

“What’s a healer’s infirmary?”

“You don’t know what a healer’s infirmary is?  Where master healers train young ones?  There’s one just down the road to Karongar.” I said, dumbstruck that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“I’ve never been to Karongar, and I don’t plan on going.”  He answered, shutting down the conversation again.

“Then where did you go?  Did you head straight for the king when you knew you could heal?  Did you just decide that you would serve him for a good cause?”  I was getting a little angry with him.  It didn’t help when he refused to answer.  I waited, hoping he was just thinking on how to answer, but the silence drew on.  “Why did you do it?”

“Why wouldn’t I?  It was join willingly or be forced to later.”

“What do you mean?  I’ve not once saw the soldiers take away one of our healers, they all went to the healers infirmary, learned how to heal, and came home.”

“Then you must have been so lucky to have an infirmary.”  He gave the vibe out that he didn’t believe me.

“You seem like you could have been a nice guy.  Anybody who could help others with healing can’t be a bad guy.  So why serve a bad guy?”

“I said why a moment ago, witch.  Join willingly or be forced to later.”  He said again.  I decided to give up, I wasn’t making any progress. 

I always thought mages were evil, and healers were good.  Healers could do no wrong, and here, we have a healer, trained to use his good gift on evil people.  Was that a good gift used for a bad purpose, A good gift gone evil, or still just a good gift?  My head started to hurt when I thought about it. 

“Maybe sometime soon you’ll have the option to not serve the king.”  I say encouragingly.

“Stop dreaming, kid.”

“I’m not dreaming.  It could happen.”  I stare at him, but he makes it clear he isn’t going to answer me.  I huffed audibly, trying to make him look back at me, but it didn’t work.

The soldier’s silence made any further attempt at conversation impossible, so my thoughts naturally drifted toward other things.  Where was Alistar right now?  This morning I was with him, and due to my stupid actions, we were separated.  If I make it out of this, I’ll follow his decisions from now on.

 

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“We’ll stop here.”  A voice said suddenly.  My eyes fluttered open.  Somehow I drifted off to sleep on a horse.  My forehead was pressed awkwardly into the back of the soldier in front of me, and the mesh left an odd pattern on my face.

The sun was gone, leaving the area around us meagerly lit.  Large walls blotted out even more light, but from what I could see, we were inside another destroyed village.  Unlike the other village, this one was mostly intact, and several of the houses looked untouched.  Apparently, soldiers loved spending the night inside these particular places. 

The soldier climbed off the horse, and helped me down after him, mostly because I didn’t have any hands to do it alone, not because he was being kind.  To prove my point, once we were inside, they tied me onto a bed upstairs immediately.  The bed wasn’t uncomfortable, but it would be impossible to sleep with my hands above my head the entire night. 

Two soldiers stayed upstairs with me, sitting next to the door with a table they dragged up.  It didn’t take them long to pull out alcohol and to drink on that while they played cards.  I didn’t know what the other soldiers were doing, but I assumed it would be similar to these two.  One of the two soldiers happened to be the blue glowing guy, and it didn’t shock me that much.  None of the other soldiers wanted to even be in the same room as me.

“I have to pee.”  I said, staring at them.  The once blue soldier glanced up at me, but looked back at his cards a moment later, as if he didn’t hear me.  “Look, I’m not planning some great escape, or plotting how to bewitch all of you with my black magic.  I haven’t peed since this morning, and I haven’t eaten since this morning.  If you have any human feelings under that bulky armor, please, let me at least use the bathroom.”  Again, the blue soldier looked at me, and this time he sighed audibly at me, as if I were making his day really hard.

“Alright, witch, I’ll let you use the bathroom.”  He climbed out of the chair, and walked over to the bed.  I looked away from him as he reached up to my hands and untied them from the bed, and then tied them behind my back again.

“Are you serious?”  I huffed, but he didn’t answer.  This was becoming a bad habit of his.  He led me downstairs, where I saw only a few soldiers were, but I could hear the rest outside attempting to sing some song or another.  They were badly out of tune, and probably drunk.  I was then led into a small bathroom, where the soldier shut the door behind me and promptly told me I had two minutes before he was coming in.

I contemplated how I would do this, what with me hands tied behind my back.  I twisted my hand around awkwardly and grabbed the top of my pants and tugged at them a little.  It didn’t do anything to help me.  I changed tactics and stretched both of my hands to my hips and pushed down on both sides.  This, coupled with awkward scooting against a bathroom basin, managed to get my pants down.

I used the bathroom, and struggled to get my pants back on before the soldier came in, two minutes later.

“Back to the bed.”  He said.

“You know that other guy you’re playing cards with is cheating, right?”  I said, trying to start another conversation.

“Is this some sad attempt at turning soldiers against each other?”  He asked as he guided me toward the stairs.

“I’ve been stuck to a bed with nothing to do, and the only interesting thing that was happening was the card game happening less than five feet away from me.  I thought I would be nice and tell you that after he shuffles, he slips a card just under the top card and then deals.”

“I don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish here.”  He said, avoiding the subject.

“I’m being nice.  Is that so hard to believe?  Offer to cut the deck next time, it’ll throw him off his game.”  We were halfway up the stairs, so I didn’t blame him for not answering, since the other soldier might hear.  “So what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“If I tell you, will you be quiet?”

“Talking is the only thing I can really do right now, unless you prefer me to be quiet and plot my escape?”

“My name is Shiloh.”  He said with an exasperated tone.  We reached the bed and I crawled on it, looking something like a caterpillar as I wormed my way into the middle of the bed.  He untied my hands and promptly tied them back to the bed.

“And my name is Vorasi, so you can call me that instead of witch.”

“I’ll call you whatever I like.”  He said, returning to his table, where the other soldier waited.

“Well, I’m not a witch, so don’t call me one.” 

“Then what are you?  Normal people don’t suck the life out of others.”

“I don’t know what I am, and that was the first time that it ever happened.  You touched me, and I just felt this cold feeling come out of your hands.  I just thought you were healing me until you freaked out.”

“You mean to tell me that you have no idea what you are, or what you were doing?  I’m pretty sure you’re lying through your teeth.”

“I’m not.  It’s the absolute truth.”  I said.  Shiloh went silent, which probably meant he didn’t believe me still.  He continued his game, this time offering to cut the deck.  I smiled to myself at that.  I watched for a little longer before I turned as far as I could to my side and tried to sleep.  It was long before the other soldier complained about losing, and went downstairs.  I turned back, and saw Shiloh sitting by himself, drinking.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to run him off.”  I said.

“Don’t worry about it, I was getting tired of losing anyways.  It was nice to win for once.”  He said.

“What are you going to do now?  I imagine you have to stay up here and make sure I don’t do anything.”

“That’s true, but they didn’t say anything about me going to sleep.”

“Would you really risk falling asleep in the same room as a witch?  What if I free myself and turn you into a frog or something?”

“I thought you weren’t a witch?”

“I’m not, and if I were, I don’t think I would need my hands to turn you into a frog.”

“Witch or not, I’m going to sleep.”  

“Do you even care if I managed to get away?”  I asked suddenly.

“Of course I would care.  The other soldiers would beat me until I died.”

“I mean, do you even want to take me all the way to the king?  Something about your attitude makes me think you consider me more trouble than I’m worth.”

“If it makes you happy, I think this will be a long trip for nothing.  I won’t be seeing any of the gold either way.”

“You’re a sensible man, surely you could convince them that you deserve some of the gold.”

“The thing is, I doubt the king will give us any money.  He has a habit of doing that if soldier turn in a bounty.”  He laid his head down on the table, and I assumed the conversation was over.  I rolled back on my side, and considered how I would get out.  When we returned from the bathroom, I noticed my hands weren’t tied as tightly as earlier, which was a good thing.

I waited an entire hour before I decided it was time to act.  I immediately twisted my hands around wildly until I got worked them in position to feel the knot.  I tugged at it with my fingers, but the angle made it a slow process.  It was almost twenty minutes before I finally freed my hands.  I pulled the gloves off, and slowly climbed off the bed.  Shiloh was completely asleep at the table.  I walked past him and to the stairs, where everything was silent. 

I started to walk down when a thought suddenly occurred to me.  If I left, Shiloh would be put in a lot of trouble for letting me get away while he chose to sleep.  Our last bit of conversation almost made me think he went to sleep on purpose, to let me get away.  On the other hand, he said he would be beaten if I got away.  If he was letting me get away, I owed him yet another favor, and letting him take the blame for my escape would not be helping him at all.

I crept down the stairs, peeking into the room to see that all the soldiers were asleep.  I scurried to the fireplace, which was ablaze, and grabbed a block of wood from the stockpile beside it.  I placed one side one side into the fire and waited patiently.  If I were caught now, what harm would happen?  I had nothing to lose at the moment.

When the wood was sufficiently aflame, I grabbed it and crept back upstairs.  To my surprise, Shiloh was awake and standing by the bed, scratching his head.  He turned and stared at me, clearly just as startled as I was.

“What are you doing back here?”

“What are you doing awake?”

“I was letting you get away!  You weren’t supposed to come back.”

“I knew you were helping me!  That’s why I’m going to burn the house down.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!  Get out of here before you lose your chance.”

“If I leave without a sound, you’ll be beaten.  I’m going to start a fire, that way it looks like I used my witch magic to start it, and then you couldn’t possibly be blamed for what happened.”

“Since when did you care about what happens to the people that held you captive?”

“Since when did you let your captive get away?”

“Stop doing that!”

“I’m going to start the fire now, and then I’m running.  Then you can wake the other soldiers up, and save them.  We all win here, just about.”  I tossed the flaming wood onto my bed, and watched it burst into flames.  “Thank you, I’ll find a way to repay you one day.  Why are you doing this, exactly?”

“You’re not a witch, and the kind wants you for whatever power you have.  I can’t resist the king from my position, but I can do my part to help you resist him.  Is that not what you were preaching about earlier?  Besides, it was either let you go, or watch bad things happen to you on the trip.  A lot of the soldiers were mentioning how pretty you looked.”  He stepped away from the bed, which was now completely on fire, and started shooing me away. 

“Come with me.”  I said.

“I can’t, I have too much to lose.  I have a family.”

“I understand.  I’ll find a way to help you, I promise.”

I smiled at him, completely grateful, before I fled down the stairs and out the door, not bothering to be quiet anymore.  Soldiers were everywhere outside, but all of them were asleep.  I sprinted away from them, heading toward the entrance of the village.  I didn’t make it far when I heard Shiloh shouting to the other soldiers.  I hoped that my plan would work, and that he would be spared.  It filled my heart with joy to know that he hated the king as well.  He was a healer, and even though he used his gift on bad people, he was still a good person.  I would find him one day, and I would fr

Author's Note

All feedback is welcome. I'm particularly interested in what I could do to make the dialog more realistic, and if I properly hinted that Shiloh really wanted to help her.