Even though in that moment, as he braved the stony halls of the dungeon, he might’ve given out the impression of somebody who did heroic acts before breakfast, Victor was probably just as scared as the pair of girls he escorted. His heart was rampant, his palms showered with the same cold sweat that seemed to creep over every square inch of his skin, his train of thought running on circular tracks that kept reminding him that death could be lurking around the next corner. It was easy to be courageous and believe that death was ‘just a beginning’ (as one of his favorite sayings claimed) when you weren’t neck-deep in crap that could be the end of you. It was easy to punch somebody in the face when you had a ref that would stop the fight before the worst happened. But when your life dangled on a thin thread and you risked losing it every moment, it turned made the insides of even the boldest men into a queasy mush.
But courage wasn’t the lack of this sensation; Arslan the Ever-complaining Trainer of boxing told him that before his first bout. Courage was feeling like a sissy, but reaching into the maw of the beast anyways and ripping its guts out. That was what Victor was doing now. Not so much for his own sake, but for the sake of the two that followed him. Knowing that a terrible fate awaited both Lehana and Cadee should he fail or give up was like a slap that woke you from a drunken tantrum. It set his eyes on the goal; getting them out alive.
Achieving that wasn’t a walk in the park, but more like a walk through a forest, where you never quite knew what expected you on the next step, but you still didn’t have a hard time doing it. It was this ease with which the boxer dealt with the inattentive brutes that lazed in the shadowed hallways that made him believe that they were actually going to make it. Through the benighted passages they went, as silent as a trio of people with absolutely no knowledge in the art of stealth could be, up the stairs, reaching the halls where the air was less damp and more energizing. They even ran across a room with their possessions. The man in charge of the equipment unsurprisingly objected against the pair’s claim, but with the combined efforts of Vic’s mitts and Hana’s feet they made their case and got their stuff back. The prizefighter even decided to liberate a big fat pouch filled with shinnies which he stuffed into his pack. Shouldering his sack o’ stuff and donning a pair of his fingerless, iron-plated gloves, Victor led the way towards the door that led out into the night.
Opening door ajar just enough for one of his eyes to check out the surroundings, Vic waited and watched, watched and waited until he was certain that there was nothing underneath the silvery film that the moonlight cast over the courtyard. It appeared to him that they were in something that once used to be a fort, but the lack of upkeep made the entire complex look decrepit and rundown. The fortified walls were neither fortified nor walls presently, just continuous knee-high heap of rubble that separated them from the hollow darkness of Concordia.
“I think the way is clear,” he whispered to his two companions that looked just as antsy to get out of here as he was. He looked Cadee in her wide, innocent eyes and couldn’t stifle a reassuring smile even though he was currently as unsure as a city slicker in the middle of the Fallien desert. When his eyes moved to the blackness of Lehana’s irises, sought for some sort of reassurance that wasn’t there, then returned to Cadee’s as he continued speaking. “When I open this door, we run for the forest as fast as we can, alright? Will you be able to do that or do you want me to carry you?”
The mousy girl wanted to be carried away, not just out of this prison but somewhere far away, somewhere where the bad men wouldn’t be after her and where Victor and Hana could take care of her. She wanted to close her eyes and keep them shut until she finally found that which she lacked her whole life; safety. But regardless of how she looked like, Cadee wasn’t a child anymore. If all the hardships of life taught her anything, it was that she had to fight for what she desired. She needed to run and win her freedom. Her grimy face nodded skittishly before she said: “I will run.”
And run they did. With nothing left to say or do, Victor shoved the door out of their path and led the sprint through the grassy yard. He could hear some voices from within, distorted and agitated, probably cursing the gods and fighting the fires that Cadee started, but they wouldn’t be able to catch them now. His eyes were everywhere and nowhere, their motion driven by panic, making them notice nothing. Luckily, there was nothing to be noticed. It seemed that most of the bastards that entrapped them were either sleeping or dealing with the commotion the trio left in their wake. “Amateurs,” the boxer allowed a cocky thought as he closed in on the degenerating outer wall. They are going to make it. The forest was right there, within their grasp.
And then it was gone.
A wall made of spikes shot out of the ground as if the ground was the back of a porcupine, making Victor collide with it. Its texture was as smooth as glass and as cold as... Ice? Yes, it was a wall made of ice, conjured out of nowhere to murder their hopes of liberty. Before they even tried to go around it, two more were erected, trapping the three escapees in a blind alley made of ice. It was then, when he looked towards the only route that they could take, that Vic saw the man responsible for thwarting their prison break. Standing on the ledge of one of the crumbling watchtowers, a man in monkish white robes stood, his white hair dyed silver by the full moon. There was an aura around him, a mist both vague and tangible, and it seemed to pulsate as if it was in sync with his heartbeat. He stepped forward from his perched position, looking as if he was about to take a leap of faith into nothingness, but even as he did so, a platform made of ice appeared beneath his foot, serving him as a step, then another, and another, until he stood on the ground. The grass bended before his aura, first succumbing to frost before it was completely petrified.
“You didn’t actually think you’d get away that easily?” he asked, his voice emotionless and bland, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. His eyes spoke a different story, blue flames raging within them chaotically. “Oh, you did? Isn’t that absolutely marvelous!” he added, chuckling at first, but then breaking into a maniacal laughter that seemed to echo despite the fact that the sound had nothing to ricochet of.
“I don’t know who you are, magician, but if you don’t let us leave, I’ll...” the prizefighter threatened him, standing before the pair of girls and feeling his heart jumping into his throat.
“Oh shush,” the mage retorted coolly, barely sparing a glance on Victor and his chest-beating. Instead, his eyes peered at the girl that latched onto Hana as if the brown-skinned girl was her ticket to salvation. “You’ll do what? Punch me? Your brutish kind disgusts me! So ungainly.” Still looking at Cadee, the wizard’s fingers snapped and a wardrobe-sized segment of the surrounding wall snapped off and came at Victor from his right. It knocked the pugilist off his feet and slammed him against the opposite wall, nearly crushing him to death. With the brawn dazed and temporarily out of the picture, the malicious wizard was left with the brains and the sheer magical talent.