"What?" I said, in a somewhat of a daze. His words had just blindsided me and sent my mind reeling. The sword, I had been holding in my hand, fell to the ground with a ringing sound.

Tinly's expression hardened, "I said both our brothers are dead or probably going to be dead very soon. The stones weren't the main attack, they were just the diversions. While we were trying to dodge stones others came and grabbed the defenseless and injured, and jumped over the side."A magician who can't use magic and a half-deaf dwarf were easy pickings I suppose," he mumbled bitterly.

I can't explain how I got there, but somehow I was on the ground below the rock ledge, gripping onto the front of Tinly's robe, "We have to go rescue them before it's too late!" I said I could feel my heart beginning to race with inside my ribcage.

My brother and I didn't get along most of the time, but our family stuck together and looked out for each other. I was not going to leave him behind in a place like this.

Tinly shook his head and gave me a look of despair "It's already too late to save them now. Something like this happened the last time we crossed this forsaken place, and we just ended up losing more men during the rescue attempt."

Before I even register the full extent of my anger I had hit him. Tinly stumbled backward, clutching the cheek I had struck. "You mean to tell me that you are just going to let our brothers die without even trying anything?! Why didn't you stop them from taking them in the first place, you've used your magic!? I saw you!"

I began moving towards him, but before I had the chance to hit him again, two arms covered in metal looped themselves under my armpits, and had dragged me backward, "Let me go!" I screamed and began to struggle with all my might to break free.

"I wasn't the one blocking the rocks, it was you!" His words caught my attention and I stopped struggling momentarily. He touched the spot on his face I had hit and frowned.

"It wasn't me it was you, I can't do magic! It's your fault they got taken! You could've stopped the attack with a wave of your pinky finger!" I glared at him.

Tinly began walking towards me, and the arms holding me tightened in anticipation, a wise decision. "I believe you, normally you can't use magic, but I think I have it figured out, it's your blood. Back when you made a binding pack when you shook my hand, I don't think anyone besides me noticed it, but there was a little blood around your ears. "And even now," he reached up and I winced when his fingers grazed the wound on my forehead and came away bloody. He stared down at the blood on his fingertips. "Whenever you're bleeding, you seem to be able to access your magic freely, but you don't know how you're doing it yet, do you?" My silence served as his response.

His eyes focused away from me and onto the only person ensuring his safety right now because if no one was holding me back he would be on the ground, "Get her out of here and wait for us at the exit, we shouldn't be far behind. He looked at me, "I'm sorry," he said sincerely, and I could tell he wasn't sorry for just me but the both of us.

My anger dissolved into despair when I realized that he was truly going to make me leave here without Jasper.

"Wait, if I can use magic as you said, let me try to save them! Please just let me try!" Tinly ignored my plea and turned towards the group of soldiers in the midst of regrouping themselves

"Tinly don't do this!" I yelled. He looked over his shoulder at me, and I had a brief glimmer of hope.

"Rorris you go with them too, this isn't a place for a child," he turned away again. I felt my heart sink.

Rorris materialized from among the soldiers. He looked a little bit shaken, but he was otherwise unharmed. He looked at me with weary brown eyes, and then at the soldier who I presumed was holding me captive.

"Do you want me to ready a sand lizard for you sir?" he asked

The soldier snorted, "No thanks boy, those creatures are so bloody slow that it would be faster if I crawled out of here on my hands and knees. Horses are too bloody stupid to be much help here. If you put a cloth over their head they think they're dead, so we're walking. Got a problem with that boy?"

Rorris shook his head.

"What about you girl... wait I forgot you don't have a say," he laughed, more at himself than me, and hoisted me over his shoulder.

"Hey," I protested and began to kick and punch his back, not caring that each blow was painful because I was essentially beating my hands against a metal plate.

"Put me down!" I demanded and was still demanding it an hour later but with a little less enthusiasm each time.

"You sure don't give up do you?" he asked, his voice made up of two parts annoyance and one part respect

"Never," I said hitting his back again, "Put me down."

Up until now, we had been walking in silence, apart from me yelling put me down every couple minutes or so.

The soldier cleared his throat "You should've given up about fifty minutes ago. You struggling wasn't getting you any closer to being free, nor was it slowing me down. One of the rules of being a good fighter is to know when to give up. There are some situations where you need to save your strength for later opportunities, and other tasks you simply can't accomplish and will die uselessly in attempting them."

He put me down suddenly, and not expecting to be on my feet so soon, I stumbled back and landed on my butt. I looked up at him in confusion.

"Now's your chance to escape, go on, run away!" he said making a shooing motion.

I stared up at the man towering above me and tried to figure out if he was being serious. As I looked on I noticed he was old, maybe fifty summers, with gray hair and gray stubble stretching from cheek to cheek.

"Sir..." Rorris said urgently.

"Shhh," the soldier said, silencing him. "Go on girl, run!"

I gave him one more apprehensive look, and got up and began running back in the direction we had originally come from. I took maybe five running steps before I collapsed, my body refusing to move an inch more.

I didn't even bother looking up when I heard his approaching his footsteps. I felt him standing over me.

"No energy? Wonder where it went?" he said, and I felt tears beginning to pool at my eyes.

"Please, I have to go save him!. "It's my fault that he was even here. Why didn't I listen to mom and stay hidden?!" I said, my words beginning to become hiccups, as I fought the urge to cry.

The soldier was quiet for a moment, "Well I'll tell you, girl, if your brother has half the fight that you have in you, he's not going down quietly, he actually might come back by himself. Now let's rest.... Boy, you must be tired too."

"No sir, I'm fine," Rorris denied, but his heavy breathing gave him away.

"You're lying boy, you're barely standing upright, but I'm also tired and my head hurts. We'll rest for a couple of minutes." He groaned loudly, and I looked up to see that he was sitting beside me on the red rock. Rorris reluctantly sat down too, not exactly next to us but not too far away.

The soldier noticed me looking at him, "My muscles hurt from lugging you around," he said, explaining his involuntary groan.

"I told you to put me down."

He laughed and I pushed myself into a sitting position, wiping the tears away from my eyes and recomposed himself. "Your name is Jan right?" he asked.

"Jade," I corrected him.

"Right," he scratched at his neck. 

We spent the next couple of seconds in silence.  Every once in awhile I would raise my hand to the cut just below my temple and touch it gingerly.  It was still bleeding, but the bleeding was beginning to slow down considerably.

"So Jade, who taught you how to fight? You lack discipline, but you're better than more than half the boys I've seen in the training yard back home. "

I considered whether or not I should tell him about my father, but then I concluded that it could not harm. "My father taught me how to handle a weapon, and I would've been better then all those boys if he hadn't died when I was twelve. His name was Robert Silver, maybe you've heard of him?"

"Robert Silver, as in Robert Silver of the Two Hundred Silver Coins?"

I nodded.

The soldier was silent for a moment, then he leaned in "It's been stalking us for a while now," Still looking at me, he discreetly pointed to a boulder lying in the path in front of us. "Don't let it know you know it's there yet."

"What!?" I said loudly, which earned me a deathly glare from him. I smiled sheepishly, "What?" I whisper and squinted at the spot he was pointing

At first, I didn't see anything besides red rocks, but then it came into sharp focus. A monkey face peeking out from behind the gigantic red boulder, its features filled with loathing.

" I want you to fight it," he said, you've had plenty of rest.

"What!?" I said loudly again, earning me another glare, "What!?" I said more quietly.

"I want to see what you're made of since you've been talking so big.

"But-"

I'll step in if you are having any serious trouble," he reassured me.

I sighed and reluctantly resigned myself to the battle I was too drained to fight."I need five minutes tops," I told him, and he nodded. He then drew his sword from his belt and slowly slide it my way.

Unfortunately, those sweet five minutes of rest were never meant to be.

"The monsters are back!" Rorris yelled and jumped to his feet. He ran and dove behind us.

At the same time, the monkey thing sprang from its hiding place, and I caught a glimpse of a pair of wings on is back. At that moment, I realized it was the same creature that had attacked me when I had been bathing.

Had it followed me all the way here for some sort of grudge rematch? Its nose did look kind of crooked like it was broken. I guess I would be pretty salty too if I thought someone had broken my nose, not that it was me who did the breaking. It was Tinly's water wall spell, so technically it was his fault but I wasn't going to play the blame game...

The thing barreled towards us on two legs, and I noticed it had a crude spear made out of a stick and sharp rock in its hand.

It did not screech during its charge like it had the last time, rather it made a very low hissing sound. Kind of like that sound a snake makes when you poke it with a stick one too many times, or when you throw a bucket of water on your neighbor's cat, or when.... Wow, how did I ever survive childhood?

I was on my feet, with the sword in my hand in a matter of seconds. The monkey thing stopped halfway to us and pointed at me with its spear. I felt a smile begin to spread across my face, "I see, you want a one on one match, that's fair enough.

I said even though I was sure it couldn't understand me.

I ran towards the monkey thing but it danced out of my way and ducked behind me, so I quickly spun around to face it again. And I swear it smiled at me menacingly, before thrusting its spear at my stomach, which I managed to dodge, but just barely. I was still exhausted with my earlier struggle, and my moves were growing sloppier and sloppier by the minute, and with each new move from me the creatures, a smile grew wider, which worried me. It could tell how tired I was, and probably thought it could beat me. Too bad it was wrong.

We circled each other for a bit, two dancers locked in a deadly dance. At one point it made the mistake of getting too close to me, which I quickly corrected with a swipe of my sword. Then I made the mistake of not watching my feet, and it jabbed my toes with the pointy end of its spear, causing me to yelp in pain.

We jabbed and dodged, and jumped and jabbed, for what seemed like hours, before the monkey finally made the mistake of getting too greedy, and tried to take a second jab at me, instead of just backing away like it had been doing previously. I swung my sword around hard and smacked it directly in the chest, with the flat end of my sword. It fell backward onto the ground, the spear flying out of its hands to land far away

.

I moved in quickly, glad it was almost over, I had almost reached the end of my strength. It stared up at me with frightened eyes, when I pinned it to the ground with my foot and I was readying my sword to plug into its chest when it opened its mouth

"Wait for stop!" it shrieked suddenly in a high-pitched voice, and I nearly toppled over in surprise. I froze in my tracks

"Di-did you just talk!?" I asked, giving the creature a sideways look.

It nodded its head vigorously "Yes, and I can take you to your friends if you spare my life!" It said and gave me what I guessed was a nervous smile.

I planted my sword into the ground next to its head and leaned in closer "Alright, do it then," I said.