By the next day they'd arrived at the border. Both of them felt truly helpless. Neither had received a kind of message from the Primals and there was no way they could cross this border without their help.
The forest surrounding it had been clear cut; all the trees were gone and in their place were stumps and dead branches. The trees were still being felled and Bastian could see why. They were creating a wall.
In the forest that was remaining they sat, watching as soldiers and workers hauled the logs up to form a wall. The monstrosity already spanned for miles.
Bastian took a few steps back and punched one of the trees in his reach, "Damn it!"
"Sovereign…" She began behind him and he turned to look at her.
He took a step towards her, his fists balled, "Look at it, Hydrangea." He splayed one of his hands in the direction, "Look at it! We're not getting to Viskogorny."
"There has to be a way." She said, not meeting his eyes.
He sighed exasperatedly, "How? There is no way that we could possibly get through, or over, or under that wall!"
"Calm yourself." She snapped, "We're getting to Viskogorny. Somehow…"
He sighed but sat down behind a log where she began to look for any weaknesses she could find. He simply worked on sharpening his blade with a stone while she sat there, her eyes focused.
Night fell and Bastian felt increasingly frustrated and angry. He wanted to curse at everyone. They'd come all of this way, traversed all of Cadarama and what do they get? A wall. A wall that they cannot breach.
"Alright," She began, "So I've been watching the guards that walk along the top, and along the bottom. They move staggeredly so that when one is gone from the area, another is there. But, then the guard on the bottom is unprotected."
He looked over at her to see what she meant, "So, you want me to kill him?" He asked with a raised brow.
She shook her head quickly, "No, no I was thinking maybe you could knock him out?"
He hid a smile, there was something rather cute about her behaviour. After yesterday morning's incident he would never have thought her able to speak to him, but he was glad she did. He still desired to know exactly what she'd dreamed of, her face and movements had been quite curious and amusing.
He shook his head to bring his mind back to the present, "When should we move?" He whispered as they stood near the guard's position.
Hydrangea was next to him and after a few short moments she nodded.
Bastian sprinted forward and threw his knife at the guard's leg, he was rather surprised when he'd succeeded in pinning the man's pant leg to the wall. He sprinted and once he'd reached the man he punched his nose then his temple. He'd taken him down all in a matter of seconds, luckily the man hadn't screamed or uttered a cry for help.
Shaking his fist from the pain he hoped that it was enough to keep the guard down.
He turned to call Hydrangea but she was already near him.
"Now what do we do?" He asked as she continued walking. Her hands reached down and, with much effort, she pulled the knife from its place in the wall.
She held it in her hand warily, "We climb." She answered, a hint of playfulness in her eyes.
"We what?"
"Yes." Was all she answered with an air of superiority.
She pulled out something from her belt and revealed a knife. He sighed when he saw that it was the knife Hadok had attempted to gift to her, and she'd turned him down.
"Fine." He pulled out two daggers from his boots and stabbed them into the wood. Hydrangea did the same and they began to climb, very slowly.
When they neared the top he could see that Hydrangea was struggling, even he had to admit that it was a strain on his muscles.
"Come on, you can make it." He muttered under his breath.
After a few more painful movements he found himself at the top of the wall. He peeked his head over and found no one in sight.
He sighed and after waiting a few more seconds he risked climbing over. After landing and placing his feet steadily on the rough hewn wood he tucked the daggers into his boots and then bent over to reach for Hydrangea.
Successfully wrapping his hand around her wrist, while using his other hand to keep from falling, he hoisted her up and she sat on the ground, seeming spent.
"Come on, Hydrangea, we must keep going." He looked down and saw a set of stairs leading down from the wall, which he could now see was double sided.
Another wall of the same height and span sat across them by just a few metres, and in the distance he could see the mountains of Viskogorny.
His shoulders sagged as he still held Hydrangea's hands.
"Bastian." He heard her whisper and he turned to see what was the matter when he suddenly felt cold steel below his ear. Hydrangea had a sword at her throat, both soldiers had somehow snuck up on them.
"Don't move, or we kill her."
Bastian immediately froze. He would not risk her dying.
"Get down on your knees."
Bastian ground his teeth at how humiliating this was, at how degrading it was. But he did it, for her. He lowered himself slowly, the blade still at his back. Once his knees had rested on the wood he felt rope being tied around his wrists, tightly.
He felt one of his daggers in his boot and thought of grabbing it out and slicing the bonds then escaping.
"Search him for weapons." The one next to Hydrangea said. Which reminded him of the sword to her throat. He met her eyes as the two daggers were retrieved from his boots and two others were found on his belt. Her eyes were apologetic.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly to tell her that it wasn't her fault. It was his. But her eyes remained the same and he felt pain for it. Why would she blame herself?
The guard that had bound his wrists moved and tied both of Hydrangea's. After that they were both led by the sword down the stairs and then into a small, roughly made room inside of the wall.
Once the guards had stopped pointing their swords at them Bastian lunged to strike them down. But they knocked him down and threatened to hurt Hydrangea. He calmed himself and they were both locked in the dark room together.