Chapter 2: Escape

 The wizard took the lead. “We are just passing through. We have nothing of value.”

They didn’t look happy to see us. On the other side of the fire, something glinted in the darkness. Looking closer, I could just make out a sleeve of chainmail hanging over a branch. Beyond that was a dark patch, probably where more mail laid. I wondered why soldiers would be discarding their arms and clothing.

Their leader cocked his head at the distant sound of baying. “Seems like someone is being pursued.”

The man standing to his left added, “Might even be a reward for turning them in.” He had a crooked nose and a dirty face. The boy stepped back toward the fire, but the other two men took the sides of the two talking to us. They effectively blocked our path. And our escape.

“You are one of the king’s wizards!” He stepped up to the wizard and punched him in the gut and the wizard doubled over, his arms yanked out of my grasp. “That’s for losing us the battle!” He pulled his foot back to kick him.

I jumped between them, pulling out the sword and holding it between us, “For fuck’s sake! Just let us go! What’s it to you?”

“He got us all killed, boy. I watched my friends die because of that,” he spat on the ground, “wizard.”

None of them seemed bothered by me holding a blade to them. “You think the other army – the enemy! You think they’re interested in giving you money? They’ll just kill you and take him.”

“They can have him.”

“But,” I raised my voice, “you’ll get a hefty reward for returning him to, uh, our army.”

“How big a reward?”

The wizard straightened himself up, still holding his stomach, said, “Any man who brings me and my servant to safety will be given five years wages.”

One in the back mumbled, “Wages won’t do shit for us when we’re dead.”

“Dead?” I stupidly asked, “Why would you be dead?”

The wizard said, “Because they’re deserters.”

The main one lifted his sword, using it to gesture, “That’s right. Nothin’ but hanging for us back there. But you might be worth something here.”

“He’s a wizard!” their youngest shouted, “He’ll kill us all!”

“Nah, he would have done already. He ain’t with those irons on him. He’s just like you and me right now.”

I was doing my best to keep the sword steady and pointed it at the main speaker. “Just let us leave! They won’t give you anything. They’ll kill you and just take us.”

“Boy, put the sword down before you get hurt.”

I couldn’t hold it steady in my small hands. Shaking at the tip. I was too cold maybe and did as he suggested, lowering the point to the ground. Still in hand, though, for what good it would do me.

“Look,” I said, “we all have to go. You’re in just as much danger as we are. They’ve been,” my mind racing, grasping at anything, “killing prisoners. Anyone they find.”

“Yeah, and how did you escape?”

“Salec!” Said the boy, finally speaking, “let’s get out of here. Five years wages! Let’s go.”

“Nah, they ain’t going to pay us shit. Hanging or crucifixion for losing, that’s our lot.”

“I’ll arrange pardons for all of you,” boomed out the wizard. “Full pardons, five years wages. Get us to our camp!” He and I edged a little further along the path. Little by little as the men argued. “The hounds are coming this way. They won’t find deserters, they’ll see you as scouts.”

“Shit,” said a different man. “You’ve gone and put us all in danger.” The baying was louder, closer. “Come on, we have to get out of here!” He went back to the fire, picking up some gear. A couple of the other men joined him, leaving only the boy and their leader confronting us.

Sheathing my sword, I grabbed the wizard by the arm, saying, “Worse. They’re coming through here whether you like it or not and if you’re here, they’ll kill you.” Then I paused, smiled, and couldn’t help myself. “Come with us if you want to live.” Of course, it was exactly the opposite. We needed them behind us to slow down whoever was chasing us. Meat shields. I steered the wizard down the path away from the fire and into darkness, leaving those guys to argue, follow or die. I pulled him along as fast as I could.

“Well done, Your Hi-”

“Don’t say it!” I hissed. “How close are we to this river of yours? The hounds are getting closer and whoever is with them.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know what good it’ll do to get to the river.”

“Can you swim?”

“It’s a deep and fast river. And it’s nighttime. We’ll freeze and drown. Swimming isn’t an option.”

“Well, option two sucks!”

“Option two? Sucks?”

“Getting torn apart by dogs!”

The baying was closer again. Then a scream. Long, long and full of terror, ending in pain. Lots of shouting back the way we’d come. Our stalkers had run into our meat shield. I shuddered.

“Come on! Faster old man!” We picked up the pace.

“I’m not that old! Merely thirty-two.”

“You want to extend that?” I tugged on him harder. The light getting brighter, the trees breaking, moonlight over a fast flowing, wide river. We’d made it! But now I could see how impassable it was. Fast moving and so wide I couldn’t see the other side. Maybe it was the darkness, but it looked more like a lake. I could probably try swimming, but with his heavy robe and manacles, he’d probably drown.

It didn’t matter. I stepped into the clearing, dragging him along. Something, anything, from a log to a boat, I’d take it.

Someone burst out from behind us, stumbled, caught himself and ran past us. “Monsters! They tore him apart!” It was the young boy. Back in the forest, barking and growling, screams of men. The fight was still on.

As the river became more visible, the path bent and, coming out from behind a clump of trees, light from a fire. More deserters most likely. Those stood up as the boy raced toward them, shouting.

More importantly, they were camped beside a boathouse. We could escape! I tugged at his arm, speeding up our pace even more. The ground was steadier here, the path hard and trampled.

The men at the campfire stood up, drawing their weapons. Unlike the others, these still had their codified armor on, the insignias the same as the discarded ones of the deserters. I guess that meant they were on our side.

“Grand Magister!” One of them said.

“Boats, we must get away from this place!” He shouted back.

Loud barking, growling at the forest’s edge. Just before the fire, I stopped, turned, looked, and froze in horror. It was no dog that emerged, but an enormous beast, a canine standing four feet at the shoulder, bulging with muscle, teeth as long as a man’s fingers. Growling, opening its massive jaws, it leapt toward one of the last deserters who was racing toward us in a panic. It caught up to him easily, landing on his back and crushing him into the sand. The beast tore at the back of his neck. Blood was black at night. It wasn’t too long before the struggling stopped.

I broke out of my fear, took hold of the wizard’s chains, and dragged him toward the boathouse. The boy ran back, taking the wizard’s right arm to help me pull him along. Two rowboats were tied up, fishing boats. “Get in!” I yelled as I started cutting through the ropes keeping the boat berthed. The younger deserter did the same, cutting as fast as his quaking hands would allow.

“Come with us!” I shouted at the soldiers, but they had taken up formation. Two of their group had bows in hand and were firing at the massive dog. The others set their spears against the beast. It growled and raced forward into the formation, leaping high. The soldiers adjusted, ramming their spears deep into it, but it struggled on, snapping one with its huge jaw. The archers fired into it over and over until it slumped, bit weakly at a spear, and stopped moving.

Four more of the beasts emerged from the forest and a few seconds later, a contingent of soldiers.

That was enough for me, I launched the fishing boat, jumped between the oars and started rowing as hard as my little body could. Given my size, I seemed stronger than I should be, and the boat lurched into the river. Hell, I felt stronger than when I was a man. I mean, stronger than I was. Had been. Would be again! It was odd to compare bodies. Were they both mine? Or was I borrowing them, one at a time?

No time to reflect on this, and I tried to focus on rowing as one of the monstrous canines jumped into the water, driving a wake toward us. I couldn’t row fast enough. I steered into the current, giving us a boost. Stroke, stroke, stroke! Even still, it was catching up.

“It’s coming!” I shouted.

The wizard turned, drawing his sword and thrusting it two handed into the water when the dog’s head popped up. The beast lunged up and took hold of his chains in its maw. Our boat tipped up slightly with the wizard’s weight, and the dog’s, dragging on the end.

“Hold it under! Push your arms into the water!” The boy we had with us was staring numbly at the entire situation. No wonder he’d been a deserter. I yelled at him, giving him a push with my foot, “draw your sword and stab it while it’s under water, you moron!”

Open mouthed and trembling, he did that thing. Stabbing and stabbing once he got the courage. I kept rowing, thinking to smack it with the big, wooden oars if it tried the side, but the wizard soon slumped down into the boat. He’d lost his sword, he was bleeding where the iron shackles dug into his wrists, but the beast was nowhere to be seen. The boy likewise fell in as much as sat down, he seemed exhausted.

I steered us out further. This was a wide river, flowing swiftly, and I could no longer see where we’d come from.

No one spoke. I rowed and rowed, feeling tireless. The wizard stared at his wrists for a time as if not understanding why he was cut, then let them drop into his lap. Shortly, his head nodded, fell to his chest and he slept.

“Hey,” I said to the kid, “what’s your name?”

“Tread.”

“Ha! You’re serious?”

He looked shy, but answered, “Yeah. Why?”

“We were going to use ‘Tread’ as my cover name. The wizard and I.”

“Oh.”

“Is it a common name?”

A look of disgust passed on his face quickly, “A commoner’s name, sure.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Awkward silence. I rowed. “Look, how old are you?”

“Almost sixteen.”

“And you joined the army?”

A look of annoyance. This kid basically had no filter, he advertised emotions.

“Ok, you were . . . forced to join?”

“’Course I was!”

“Ah, sorry. Uhm, what did you do before?”

“Farming. I’m needed on the farm . . .” he looked away, into the water. I kept rowing across, the current pushing us downstream so quickly it made me queasy, but I tried to ignore that and just row. We needed to reach the other side, but I was happy to add any kind of distance from the enemy.

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“My brothers are dead.” He shook his head, staring into his lap, “That battle . . .”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Who are you?”

“Uh, I’m nobody.”

He peered intently at me. “You’re a girl!”

My turn to be uncomfortable. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Are you a wizard? Like him?”

“No, nope. I sort of, well, just arrived. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Ha! Me either. I don’t know why they do it. As if war ever helped a farmer.”

“You don’t know why?”

“Nope.”

“Damn.”

“What’s that?”

“I was hoping someone would tell me just what the hell is going on.”

“So, you’re not with him?” He jacked his thumb at the sleeping wizard.

“I mean, I guess. He was just sort of beside me when I escaped their camp.”

“Wow, are you ever lucky!”

“Lucky?” It didn’t feel that way to me. It felt instead like the cold water was making my hands numb. Still, my shoulders weren’t tired, and they would be in real life. That thought made me wonder again. I had some ideas to test out, see if this was a game or simulation or whatever.

“Yeah. You said they were killing everyone. Here you are, not dead.”

“Uh, I, uh-”

“They were gonna sell you into slavery. Don’t know if men have it worse. They get beaten, killed. But girls like you . . .”

“Yeah, I take your meaning. Damn.”

“How’d you escape?”

“Well, I just smashed this guy and took his knife.”

“Why didn’t you free anyone else? My sister . . .”

“Oh shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t, I mean, I was tied up away from the others. Only the wizard was near me.”

He stared off to the side, “Yeah.”

“Maybe they didn’t get your sister. Maybe she’s safe on the farm.”

“Could be.”

So, my guest didn’t have any information for me other than the stunning revelation that wars suck. We agreed on that. I wanted to know why it was happening, who the opposing armies were, what they each wanted. And why I was here.

But I had to make friends. Maybe this boy had some knowledge, something small that would help. “Were those guys your friends?” I wanted to ask him why he was a deserter, but that wouldn’t likely go over well.

“No. Just some guys.”

“What happened?”

He didn’t answer for a while, staring at the water. Then, “I don’ know. All these spears, arrows falling everywhere and then horsemen ran into us. A soldier . . . a man in front of me, he, a spear went through him and then a horse ran him over.” He covered his face.

“It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not! They’ll hang me.”

“For what? Losing a battle?”

“Runnin’. For running.”

“Well, the wizard said he’d pardon you. I expect he’s a man of his word.”

The boy leaned forward, “You don’t know wizards then. Or nobles. They all lie.”

“I won’t let them hang you.”

“Ha! We can, I don’t know, drop the wizard off at the shore and just keep heading downstream.”

“God, where even is the other shore?”

He didn’t answer. I watched him for a bit, thinking. This world was, from his way of talking, a class-based system. Likely feudal. I wondered if that meant royalty extorted taxes in terms of money or land production from these people. If taxes, then it would be closer to the medieval era. If production, we’d be earlier than that. At least, that’s what I thought, and felt smarter for having made that deduction. But really, I wasn’t a historian and got all my history from YouTube, so what did I know?

“Hey,” I said, but the boy had fallen asleep. So much for asking more questions. Yet that gave me time to consider without a panic, for the first time since I’d, I don’t know, woken up in this body, how I got here and what this place was.

I came up with four possibilities. First, I died and this was some sort of hell or heaven afterlife. Hell if I was to be continually tormented like I had been so far. Heaven if I loved adventure. Yay. Adventure. Second, I was sleeping and I’d wake up. This one was easily dismissed for the intense and realistic quality of the experience. It didn’t seem dreamlike at all. No obvious physics violations, for example. I couldn’t fly by trying really, just really hard. Zombies weren’t chasing me, and I wasn’t naked, searching for a bathroom.

Third, I was somehow transported into a video game. Say what you will, but in MMOs, all my characters were girls. Why, you ask? Because I like looking at girls. I’m straight, why would I want to watch a male character’s behind the whole time I’m playing? So, maybe that explained my current gender. Only now, I couldn’t see myself from the outside, making this choice a bad one. It was too visceral an experience. I only wanted to watch, not be, a cute videogame girl!

I decided to give the video game idea a try. “Computer, end simulation.” Nothing. The boat continued through the waters, little waves hitting every so often. It was peaceful. Now. Now it was peaceful.

“Computer, pause game.” The river carried us on, even though I was no longer rowing.

“Save and exit.” No luck. I had to think for a bit, then tried, “Computer, arch. Computer, menu.” Nothing. Time to try different instructions. “Quest log. Inventory. Character sheet.” Nothing. Damnit. Either I wasn’t in a game, or it was unresponsive, or I’d set the language to something other than English. If that were the case, I had to play this out or die and see if I could access the menu some other way.

The problem was the fourth possibility. This was real. I’d somehow become bodily a young girl in another universe where wizards exist. Unless this robed dude was full of bull fertilizer, then magic was also real. That might mean the laws of physics could be bent or broken. After all, what is magic?

Yet, I’d already decided physics violations were indicative of a simulation. Ugh.

Anyways, if fourth was correct, if this were not a simulation, death wouldn’t give me any game options. Though it did mean the possibility of reversing this situation. If I could be magically given a new body, I could get my old one back. Logically, I had to play this out without dying regardless of what scenario this was. Killing myself could be killing myself.

God damnit!

I wanted – needed - to get back into my body, my life. I had to figure out how to make that happen. But had no idea how to go about that. How far could I trust this wizard? Maybe he’d have some idea. Whatever it was, I needed to find out. Yet what would he do if he believed me? Then I wouldn’t be his princess. I’d be a body thief.

As much as I hated it, I had to play along until I got more information. Be the . . . role. But by god, if they try to force me into middle school, I am going to become a serial killer.