choose your own adventure, episode 6a
KNIGHT SWORD, EPISODE 6A
“Wait,” you whisper, grabbing Caius’s arm. “The secret passage! We can hide in there until the orcs leave!”
Caius blinks, frowning, and for a moment looks chagrined. Then he gives a shop nod. “Hurry!”
You crawl across the weed-choked floor of the church and make for the entrance to the secret passage. Fortunately, Vlacht’s orcs and their torches haven’t made it this far yet, and you slither back into the narrow stone passage, Caius behind you, and close the door silently behind you.
“Go back a distance,” whispers Caius. “Otherwise they might hear us.”
You follow his lead, and Caius picks up his lantern, hooding it so only a tiny beam of light slithers out. After a moment you stop in the middle of the passage, halfway between your father’s house and the ruined church.
Or, rather, what’s left of your father’s house, now that it’s burned to the ground.
“Wait a moment,” mutters Caius, leaning against the stone wall. “Let me think for a moment.” You turn the sheathed longsword over in your hands, wondering why it’s worth killing for. Why Ulmoch killed your father for it.
It doesn’t even look like all that much, no different from a hundred other swords you’ve seen.
“If we wait a while, we could go back to the church,” says Caius. He’s thinking aloud, you realize. “Odds are the orcs won’t stay, once they see we’re not there. And that bloody damned Night Raven can’t set foot there.” He grunts. “But that clever orc might be clever enough to leave a guard there.”
You say nothing.
“Or,” says Caius. “We could go back to Jerome’s house. If we wait a few hours, the fire will burn out. And I doubt that Ulmoch would have lingered there, not after he killed…”
You give him a sharp look, and do your very best not to start crying.
“Not after he found the sword was missing,” says Caius. He scratches his jaw. “But if we hide here until dawn…the Ravens can’t go out during the day. The Blood Queen’s pet orcs can, but not her precious Ravens. If we wait until daylight, we might have a better chance of getting out of Moridun and making our way to Curtwall’s farm.”
Or, you think, Ulmoch and Vlacht might be clever enough to find the secret passage. Then you’ll be caught like rats in a trap.
Caius hesitates, and you realize that he doesn’t know what to do.
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