Muffled in the dark, again. The carriage bounces harshly as the horses pull it along the path leading out of my home region. My arms become sore as the gears and springs dig into my flesh waiting for their chance to shoot out. He put so much thought into my demise. I ponder on how far this next region is, I'm unfamiliar with king Solomon or what region he reigns. It would make sense now why he didn't want to send his daughter to marry this king, how much he must hate him to set this elaborate trap up. The carriage bounces hard as I feel it speed up, peculiar. There was no need to go so fast a steady pace makes much more sense unless the horses became spooked. I hear the hoarse sound of breathing on both sides of the carriage followed by a loud thump above me. My heartrate increases rapidly as my imagination runs wild. Next came the shouting, loud and gruff I can't quite make out what is being said before the carriage starts swerving. We're going faster now the carriage swerving out of control, I tightly squeeze my eyes shut fearing what comes next. We tether sideways, the speed and weight too much for the carriage to handle. I bite down on my gag as the carriage rolls over and over again before hitting a tree to make a dead stop. Tears streaming down my face as i realize several spikes and springs have broken many of which have embedded themselves into my body. I'm still securely shackled up when the door creaks open slowly, I force myself to open my eyes to greet the intruder. Temporarily blinded by the bright afternoon sun my eyes slowly adjust from being in the dark.
"wha-?!"
A shocked pair of emerald, green eyes stare back at me.
"Frank, you better come look at this!" She hollers back behind her
I'm not surprised the device failed to go off given how hard the impact was. My whole body is shaking from the blood loss, my vision starts to go blurry just as a large man peers in at me.
"Holy mother of God! Get her out of there!"
Though my vision has left, I feel hands tug at the device holding me. Too tired to scream as they pull at the gears, my sore body has no energy left to help remove the device.
I feel warmth, a fire crackles nearby. Opening my eyes I see millions of stars in a night sky, how long have I been unconscious?
"Ah! there she is!" A petite young woman cheerfully approaches me, "thought you were a goner for sure!"
"Who are you?" I timidly ask trying to prop myself up.
"Easy there speedy! you shouldn't be moving in your condition." worry fills her emerald eyes, "names Iris!"
"I recognize you..." my brow knits in concentration " you opened the door."
"Yup! that was me! Never seen a contraption like that before!"
"Do you normally go around crashing carriages?"
"w-well no not exactly. That didn't go as planned." she nervously folds her hands, "It was my first raid so i messed up a little bit."
"Raid?" I look accusingly at the woman in front of me.
"We raid the noble carriages to help bring relief to the nearby villages. don't look at me like that, were not the bad guys here!"
"Whoa whoa its ok! I didn't' mean to judge I'm just confused on why they would need relief."
"Cause the worlds gone to hell!" A gruff voice loudly remarks as a bowl of soup is dropped in front of me.
I slowly look up and am face to face with a giant of a man, with scars covering half his face, my heart drops as he glares at me.