03-escape(part two)

The pits were a place of punishment. If you got into a whole lot of trouble with the guards then you were sent here. The Pits were a whole lot of holes in the ground most were only wide enough for you to sit down in with a spider colony, they were about 5 meters deep and the walls were coated with stone so flat that you couldn’t climb. No guards were about so our window was about 10 minutes to get the weapons and go. Luckily Hammond had thought of everything and had brought a rope; which he tied to me and sent me down into the green darkness. I saw shapes of weapons at the bottom of the pit as I was slowly lowered down. My heart started pounding again I really hoped none of these went off. I recognised Some swords one was a black rapier thin and lightweight deadly fast but no good for blocking the other was a broadsword it was also black but big and heavy, I wrapped them both in cloths Hammond passed down to me, to stop them from rattling and put them into sheaths. There were four more weapons in the ground and two other shapes I couldn’t quite make out. I picked up one weapon and realised straightaway that it was a crossbow.

“Put the swords into a knot at the end of the rope and pass them to me.” Hammond whispered I did as he asked and called out softly to raise the rope.  The other four weapons were two crossbows and two other bows. The two bows weren’t stringed and I realised with a start that the other two shapes must be the quivers to hold the bolts for the crossbows and the arrows for the bows.

“Hurry,” Hammond whispered to me urgently. I picked up the crossbows and put them in the knot for the rope told Hammond to pull it up. We loaded the bows and quivers in the same way.   

 “Raise me up now ham,” I called softly up to him. We’d been there too long already.

“Let’s go,” Hammond untied the rope for me while I grabbed the weapons I put the sword on my belt and the crossbow quiver and bow on my back Hammond passed me a sack and told me to put it on, I took the crossbow off my back and did as he asked he then handed me another strap and showed me his crossbow gesturing to strap around it. I copied what he’d done. The strap went around my neck, once I had got it in position we each loaded a bolt into our crossbows and ran towards a small ditch that held storm water, nobody ever went near because it stunk. We were running through a small patch of trees when I saw a guard walking on patrol out in the open and I dropped down immediately Hammond who had done the same crawled up to me,

“Do you want me to get him?” he asked softly I shook my head,

“No need to kill when we don’t have to, plus I don’t know how good a shot you are.” Hammond chuckled quietly. We waited for him to pass, his torchlight disappeared around a corner, and that was when a gravely voice chuckled in the quiet,

“I got you now boys.”

03-escape(part one)

It was a crisp night as the regiments started to turn out the lights one by one behind all of us prisoners. I walked into the long, gloomy and cold dorms with all the others. They were not very wide, only enough room to have two bunks on either side of the walls and still have room for someone to walk in the middle the walls were a grey stone and really cold, a breeze blew in from the one window at the end of the dorm chilling everything down another few degree’s. Tonight was the night I knew it there was a sort of electricity in the air or maybe that was just between Hammond and I. We were going to escape. I looked over to Hammond his green eyes sparkled with excitement as he brushed his messy jet black hair away from his eyes with a scarred hand that had been doing work all his life. Muscles rippled under his ripped grey child issue shirt. The shirt he wore was the same as everyone else but help for visibility we had bright reflective orange sleeveless vest with black rugged pants a pendant hung around his neck from a small silver chain. Somebody had given him the necklace when he was a baby nobody was sure who. The pendant was an oval sapphire and it shimmered no matter what the weather. He smiled at me and nodded his way of saying, “Let’s do it!” I gave him the same nod, walked slowly to my bunk and got in not only bothering to take off my vest so they wouldn’t see me when we left, and then  waited for all the moving to stop. It seemed to take forever but it was probably only five minutes altogether. I felt excitement rise in me, as well as a little fear. Finally everyone’s breathing turned rhythmic and calm…it was time. Silent as a whisper I got up and reached under the mattress to find the night-vision goggles and sweatshirt I’d stolen from the Regiments store room when I was made to clean it for punishment. I put the goggles on the mattress and slipped into the sweatshirt a smile broke out on my face as I realised the sweatshirt was blocking the breeze. Hammond I guessed was putting on another sweatshirt exactly the same as the one I had on only bigger. I stole both of them from the Regiments store room on punishment. I picked up the goggles and slid them over my eyes. Everything went green; everybody was asleep in their beds, all but one. Hammond was doing exactly what I was once he finished I waved him over and whispered,

“Let’s go get the weapons you stashed. You lead ‘cause I don’t know where they are.” He nodded and tiptoed quietly out of the dorms with me right behind him. As we left the dorms we kept to the shadows watching for the Regiments on night shift. My heart banged against my chest every second and I was afraid that it might give me away more than my breathing. Finally we reached the place in the camp that we were wanting, the pits.

02-Leadership

Where are we?

I thought again and looked around figuring things out. What I saw sent a small shiver of fear in my mind. We were in a dark forest and it was by the look of the moon about midnight. The tree trunks were hiding everything apart from the sky so for all I knew that one bunch of them could be hiding a whole bunch of Regiments. I shivered again as my mind started to turn to thinking about the supernatural. My imagination was running wild so to stop it I walked closer to Aldis.
"Let’s get Guido to lead us to the old camp," I said trying to lead everyone again, "I'll take the front and you take the back okay? Use the walkie-talkies if anyone starts to lag behind so we can slow down." She nodded with that out of the way I walked up to Guido and whispered to him softly,
"Can you get us back?"
"I...I think so" He said unsure I nodded,
"Do your best," He nodded at me. Aldis called out a loudish voice that made me wince,
"Everyone follow Guido I'll take the back, Akantha you are staying with me. And don't think that just because I like your hair that I wont hit you if you annoy me again. Nobody do anything stupid. Use the walkie-talkies only if you have to we need to save the batteries." Guido started to look up at the trees and the sky, and then at the ground find who knows what to lead us back to our camp. I had no idea how he did it, but he did.
"Make a line, single file." Aldis called out.  Guido then found what he was looking for and walked off in a certain direction. We all followed. I found myself thinking about when I escaped from the regiments.