Distinctly Defiant

Chapter 17 ~ Rescue

Chapter 17 ~ Rescue

The voices of three men in an argument were easily heard. There was a note of worry evident in their tone. Worry and confusion mixed together. From the sound of it this was a conversation that had been going on for a while.

From what could be heard, their argument and worry were sourced from a missing comrade. One who had ridden off to visit a local tavern and had never returned, he was well past the time set for him to be here. Where was he? What had happened to him?

When one of the other men had checked in on the tavern there was no sign of him. The drunken state of the customers at the tavern made their memory unreliable and useless. The patrons of the tavern were busy and so had no time to keep track of the whereabouts of their friend who enjoyed the local taverns too much.

So while they partly felt all was and would be alright, that their friend would show up next morning this was unusual. This had never happened before. All members of their group were always back at a certain time, well before dawn. Yet the sky showed traces of lightening. Sunrise was not far away. It was way past the time he should be back by.

The fat balding man sported one black eye and a still bleeding gash on the side of his head. The gash was courtesy of the newest prisoner. The black eye was from when the leader of the group found out he'd messed up and leaving two gone free and another dead.

The man posted in the forest in case anything like this did happen had a similar bruise. A bruise that would take forever to heal. He had the misfortune of failed planning and so had only taken mostly lethal forms of stopping a runaway. Had he brought more non-lethal forms of detainment they would have one less dead body on their hands. Or two...

His eyes slid over to the prone form of the golden blonde girl. Her still, stiff body lay in the cage, she hadn't moved since he shot her. What a waste. How had this happened? Blood marred her features. The fat balding man hadn't been able to contain his rage at seeing the girl responsible for all escaping their cages that he had punched her. Not that she had been able to feel it. But it had made his comrade feel better.

The horses neighed uneasy for some reason but the men paid no attention to the warning. Stupid horse, they were always getting spooked by simple things.

"What do we do?" the fat man asked. "How do we find him?"

The leader of the group shrugged. His muscles bunching up threateningly as he crossed his arms. "We do nothing about him. We move on, for the escaped girls might draw the attention of the authorities onto us. And we don't need the trouble."

"But what about him?" the fat man protested not getting it.

The leader growled and stepped forward, invading the fat man's personal space as he peered down at the man whose height paled in comparison. "What about him? He's not here. I'm not wasting any more time on him. Either something happened to him, he's lying somewhere drunk, or he ran away. Either way I don't care," the man said enunciating each syllable clearly and distinctly.

The archer shrugged over to the body of the girl. "Are we bringing that along?"

The leader considered before nodding. "It would take too much time to get rid of her. Time we don't have. We need to get going. That mean's bring her body along in the cage."

"Right away boss," the archer murmured concealing his disagreement. He thought they should leave everything behind. Body of the remaining girl included. They needed to go quickly, not worry about dragging along the weight of the cage with them but no one argued with the leader, not if they wanted to live. Originally there group contained one more man, but he became the example of what would happen if any of the crossed the leader.