Cabin Fever Leads to a Long Walk

Characters: Will, Amethyst

Location: Various

It has been a few days since the otters, stoats and Kluner left on their trip east. Will, Amy and Racky had kept the tunnel in order and tended the garden for the last few days without any trouble. After lunch Will and Amy decided to take a walk. They had become restless staying in Moledeep. Will had packed some food and a change of clothes just in case before leaving a note for Racky should he wake up before they returned.

The rats left Moledeep and explored the woods most of the day and when the sky began to darken they started to head for home.

They were unaware that they were being watched and soon found themselves surrounded by a larger band of unpleasant looking rats. From the look of them they had likely been part of a hoard and they all wore the look of beasts that had been in battle and lost.

Will was armed and fought back but while most of the former hoard rats were none too bright they made up for it in being well trained. Will was unable to hold his own against them and soon he and Amy were stripped of their possessions and tied up as captives.

The troop headed east much to Will's delight, not that they were going east but that if they got free they may be able to find the others. It was a small comfort though. After days of almost non-stop walking they made it to the eastern coast and set up camp along the cliffs. All in all the trip hadn't been that bad Will and Amy had been treated better than they'd expected with their captors claimed was because they were rats the same as them. They had been fed and for the most part the hadn't been beaten much except whenever they slowed the group down. However since the former hoard rats had taken Amy's staff she often slowed things down and would have been whipped had Will not moved between her and the rat with the whip so often that their leader had stop ordering Amy to be whipped when she slowed them down but to have Will whipped instead since he was 'so eager'.

Will and Amy had been sleeping on the ground each tied to a separate rock while the hoard slept around them with blankets and got proper rations. The leader of course had a tent set in the middle of the camp. Some time during the night Amy was ordered to be lead to the leader's tent.

Amethyst had been dragged still half asleep to the tent and pushed inside. Will had described the leader as a large black rat who was missing his left ear and had many scars all over his face. A rough voice called her to come to it, when she tried to leave instead she was grabbed and drop in front of whom she assumed was the leader. He spoke kindly to her and complimented her on her beauty explaining that he and his men hadn't seen a maid in many seasons and were very lucky to have found her.

Will had been awoken during the night by the screams of rage and yelling coming from the leaders tent. He looked around in the darkness for Amy and quickly realized she wasn't there. He yelled at the nearest guard ordering him to tell him where she was. The guard kicked at him and laughed as he told him. Enraged Will loudly challenged the leader for his position. Said leader had emerged from his tent at the uproar in the camp. The one eared black rat stepped out into the fire light showing his face to be freshly bruised and a little bloodied from being scratched recently as he grinned maliciously at the bound dibbun. He laughed and order Will untied saying he could choose any weapon he liked since there was no chance he'd win.

Once untied Will gathered his belt and unsheathed his short sword ready to fight the hoard leader. The black rat drew his own long sword and smirked knowingly at the youngster as the fight began. Unbeknownest to Will the leader was the only one among their captors that could read, true he wasn't that good at it but he could still make out the simple engraving on the small rat's sword in the firelight quite plainly and had no intention of killing him while he proved useful. The fight was close for a short while but the black rat was not only much larger then Will but far more skilled. Will in a last effort threw his sword at the hoard leader and switched to his sling as best he could.

The sword glanced off the larger rat hardly cutting him before falling to the ground. The rocks from the sling did little to hurt him but he was forced to dodge them by moving backward and to the side to try and get behind Will. The larger rat was not only taller than his foe but much heavier and fatter so when he stepped too close to the edge he lost his footing and fell from the cliff to the shore below.

Will recovered his sword as soon as the leader fell and he turned to face the other rats who had been ordered by their late leader not to interfere in the fight. Will stared the others down and walked over to retrieve his pack while the hoard was still in shock.

It didn't last long though and as soon as he'd grabbed his pack and found Amy the now leaderless fighting rats were on their tails. Will and Amy were outnumbered and it was only by luck that their leader had fallen at all so Will grabbed Amy's paw and ran. Having no were to go the pair of runaways lowered themselves down over the edge of the cliff and began to climb down very slowly. As they neared the bottom Amy lost her footing and fell. Will watched in horror as he climbed faster down to see what had become of her. Since the climbing was taking too long and he was /almost/ at the bottom already he jumped the rest of the way down.

The rats on top of the cliff had not thought to throw anything at the escapees nor had any of them wanted to go after them, only their now dead leader it seemed had understood what was written on Will's sword. When they had seen their former captives fall they counted them as good as dead and when morning came they moved on, under a new leader.

The drop had not been enough to kill either Will or Amy but it did knock them both out for a long while and Will woke to an arm broken in three places as well as numerous small cuts and bruises. Once awake and sure he wasn't dead or dreaming Will dragged himself to the cliff side to pull himself up to a sitting position and then to his feet. Now up he ran over to Amy's still form and was greatly relived to find she was still alive though her legs were twisted under her at odd angles. He nudged her gently and stupidly tried to get her on her feet which didn't work too well.

Amethyst woke to somebeasts poking her and pain, much pain. Her legs, which hadn't been very strong for seasons, would no longer hold her up at all though she didn't remember standing up. She felt some beast holding her as her mind cleared from the tumble she'd taken. "Will?" she croaked out as though it had been a long time since she'd last spoke, "Will is that you? Whatever you're doing stop! It hurts!"

Will had let the maid back down when she had spoken leaning her against a rock so she could sit up. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't ... I didn't .... I'm sorry. I think your legs are broke. They're twisted around. And my arm's broken. We need a healer," he sighs setting his pack down by her.

Amethyst starts to rummage around in Will's pack, "If you can find some sticks. Straight sticks or better yet straight flat pieces of wood we might be able to make some splints for our broken bones til we can find a real healer ... or we die ,whichever comes first."

Will nods then says, "I'll look around, but first ... " he draws his sword and plants it into the ground a little over half way up right next to the cliff side and using his good arm he throws all his weight against the sword pushing it against the cliff until after much trying and piling rocks on the other side of it he just manages to break it in half, more or less. He pulls the broken sword out of the dirt and looks it over bitterly, the writing now reads: 'William Redfang son of A-'. He sheathes the sword muttering to his self, "It's safer this way. ..." before going to look for wood for making splints.

Amy had found the spare set of clothes Will had packed for himself at the bottom of his pack and changes out of her dress and into a green shirt and with great pain a pair of brown trousers. "This is more practical she tells herself through gritted fangs, "And I can use my dress for bandages now." Will pretends not to see what Amy's doing and drops a small armful of drift wood next to her. "Tell me how and I'll try t bandage your legs up for you," he offers.

Amethyst smirks and carefully rolls her pant legs up so he can splint her legs as she instructs him though she only has a very vague idea of how to do it. Will with a little help from Amy Will splints his left arm chuckling at the fact that it's the same arm Aikuen currently has in a sling.

Amy grins, "It would have been awful if it had been your right arm then you would be able to do anything."

Will smirks though she can't see it, "I could still do this," he says as he kisses her check and nuzzles her a little.

Amethyst shoves him a little, "Seriously though it could have been worse. Now we just need to finish patching ourselves up and money would help, hell a town anywhere around would help." She shakes her head not seeing of course what Will can.

Will smiles and give Amy a one arm hug, "I can just see a town over to th north of us, maybe a fishing town or something and I'll see if that rat that fell over before us has anything we can use. ... like a belt," he chuckles as his spare pants, cast offs from the Abbey, are very loose on Amy's small frame.

Amy rolls her eyes, "Look for money first. ... and if you see it I'd like my lute back. Don't get paid as good when I sing without it."

Will nods and walks over to search the dead rat taking anything of value off him, it won't do him any good now. "He had some gold on him. ... might be enough for a healer," Will says sitting down next to the maid again. "Maybe even a room at an inn if we're lucky." he adds.

Amy smiles, "Good. Now since we don't want our 'friends' to find out we aren't dead I'll be using my old name til we get back home again. Wilth that sword of yours you might not be able to do the same but 'Will' is a less uncommon name than 'Amethyst' is."

Will shrugs, "I could go back t using 'Orph' while we're here. It fits with th way things are now. Though I'm not sure if 'William Redfang' is being hunted as much as you know who's son is. Th worse that'll happen is we get stuck here and at best maybe we'll see th others ... well, maybe that's not such a good thing." He chews on his lip a little, "I know it could be much worse than I just said but let's pretend being stuck here is th worst thing for now."

Amy nods, "So this town north of us? How do we get there? How do /I/ get there?"

Will kneels down in front of Amy, "Like this. Put your arms around me and hold on tight and I'll carry you over there and we'll get a healer t fix us up better. Ok?"

Amy does as he asks. "I don't think this will work," she sighs.

The rats head off with difficultly toward the town. Once inside they find a healer to patch them up. The healer feeds them and and resets Will's arm but when he inspects Amy's legs he doesn't reset them right away. Instead he has her bite down on a piece of leather as he breaks them more before resetting them. He explains to a very upset William that Amethyst's legs had been broken before and had been reset improperly and he is now correcting them so that that when her legs heal again they will be straight as they should have been all along. The rats thank the healer and pay him for his services, the food, the clean clothes he gotten them to replace the rags they'd been wearing that he'd had to throw out after patching them up and the wheeled chair he'd suggested for Amy to use until her legs healed completely.

Feeling better the duo rent a room at the local inn to rest in as the healer had insisted they do.

Will had signed them in as 'Mr. and Mrs. Potter' since they could only afford one room and some of the beasts seemed to be whispering about them thinking he was her brother. He had chuckled all the way to their room at his joke. Amy or Bramble as she was being called now was also amused by the joke once Will told her about it as he helped her out of her chair and onto the bed so she wouldn't have to sleep sitting up. He soon joined her on the bed and they talked a while about the beast in the town and what they'd do in the morning before drifting off to sleep.