Colt and Shelly wandered into the trees cautiously, half expecting something to instantly jump out and attack them. According to Shelly, who'd been so kind as to inform him, there were many stories about the forests of Goldtown and what happened in them. Some of them, Colt thought, were fairly ordinary. People getting abducted and killed and stuff like that. Others were a reach, to say the least. Shelly told him about stories of ghosts, and even about a man who had an army of monkeys at his disposal. This particular story actually helped Colt's mood, because if the townspeople exaggerated some of the stories they probably did the others too. At least that was what he was telling himself.
Before they were fully immersed in the forest, Colt took one last look back at the town. Or more specifically, the sky. Ahead there was a dimness caused by the massive roof of leaves, so he didn't know when he'd be able to get a full glimpse at the bright sky again. It might be a matter of entire days before he made it out of the maze of trees.
"What are you doing?"
Colt turned back and walked fully into the forest. "Nothing," he said. "Just looking at the sky."
Shelly looked between Colt and the sky, then remarked, "Weird."
And with that they trudged out of the daylight and into the forest. They walked quickly but with great attentiveness. Colt analyzed everything in front of him, scanning the area constantly to make sure nothing was moving near them. He'd even look behind them every now and then, just to make sure.
Shelly did the same thing. She tried to hide it more than Colt, but he could tell that she was just as on edge as he was. Despite the face she tried to put on, she was out of her area. This wasn't the center of town anymore and she knew that, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
Colt and Shelly stuck to the dirt path, which the trees seemed to mostly obey. They'd have to swat away a couple of branches now and again, but for the most part the trees stayed to the side of the path.
Colt had his map in hand, and was doing his best to track where they were at all times. The path they were taking went in the direction they needed to go in, thankfully, and Colt hoped it stayed like that. The last thing he needed was to stray off the path and fight trees and whatever else might be lurking just to walk in the direction that he needed to go. Shelly assured him that the path probably led right up to the doorstep of the Authority base, since it was likely formed for the purpose of making that journey. Colt hoped she was right, but wasn't entirely convinced himself.
As they continued to walk, nothing particularly exciting happened. No one jumped out and murdered them, which Colt thought was rather nice, and they didn't even come across anything dangerous. Except for a small tree in the center of the path that would have killed Colt if he hadn't looked up from the map at the exact right time.
But all good things had to come to an end. Eventually they came upon an area that was extremely overgrown, with bushes and branches sometimes completely covering up the path. Colt was searching for a landmark in the forest that he could cross-reference with his map when he noticed something odd on the ground before them. It took him a moment, but when he realized what it was he grabbed Shelly by the arm and pulled her backwards to keep her from running straight into it.
"Hey!" she protested, spinning around to face him. "What're you doing?"
Colt pointed his head in the direction he was looking. "What do you suppose that is?"
Shelly looked down at it and scrunched her eyebrows. "That? Looks like a lump of dirt."
Colt studied the thing. Shelly was right; at first glance it did look like nothing more than a lump of dirt. Unless you focused on it, you might not even notice it was there. It was a slightly raised bit of ground that almost fit in perfectly with its surroundings. But Colt had his suspicions.
"It does, doesn't it?" he said to Shelly, then, "It's a booby trap."
She looked at the mound of dirt, then back at him, not seeming overly convinced. "Are you serious? It's a patch of dirt, Colt."
"That," Colt pointed a finger, "is a man-made trap. I don't know what it does, but I suggest we don't get any closer."
"Okay, how would you even know what a booby trap looks like? Have you ever come across one?"
"Can't say that I have. But maybe it was in my Authority training, have you thought about that?" Colt protested.
Shelly frowned. "Was it in your Authority training?"
Colt hesitated. "No," he replied. "But if that's not a booby trap... well I'll be real surprised."
"So you're freaking out over a slight inclination that this thing might be dangerous?"
"Okay," Colt put his hands up and stepped back. "I'm going to start slowly moving backwards. Once I've reached a safe distance you're more than welcome to step on the booby trap and prove me wrong, sound good?"
Shelly looked as if she was considering it, but she must have ultimately decided that proving Colt wrong wasn't worth the whole life endangerment thing. She stepped around the booby trap and continued moving forward. Colt took a moment to enjoy his victory, then gave the trap a wide berth as he caught up with her.
They continued their trek, and nothing else eventful really happened. Thankfully, they got out of the overgrown area, which made the path much easier to follow. Colt heard an animal noise at one point, but it sounded far away and he didn't hear it again. After a few hours of nothing happening, Colt and Shelly started to relax a little. Colt noticed that, by his calculations, they had made decent progress toward the base already. It wouldn't be a quick trip by any means, but he was optimistic regardless. Things were going better than he'd expected. He'd gone just about his longest time ever without finding trouble. That had to count for something.
Pretty soon it started to get dark. The forest was already extremely dim, even in the daytime, which meant that during the night it would be pretty much pitch black. It wasn't quite at that point yet, but Colt figured they should find some place to settle down for the night.
Shelly was evidently thinking the same thing.
"I've been on the lookout for some place to spend the night," she said, "but there's not too many options."
"Yeah," Colt agreed. "I guess there's not too many bedrooms in the middle of a forest."
After a few minutes of searching they had pretty much resigned to having to just sleep on the side of the path or maybe slumped against the truck of a tree, having to use the bark as a pillow. But then they stumbled upon something that looked almost too good to be true.
To the right of the path the trees parted to form a small alcove. It was a grassy area that had been cleared of everything, even the branches of trees had been cut away. In the center of the area was a neat pile of wood, perfect for starting a fire and keeping warm. There were also several beds of leaves spaced throughout the alcove that formed—well—beds. Colt looked up and noticed that at a certain point the tree branches weren't cut away anymore, which meant that there was even a roof to this place. Not a very good one, of course, but it was a forest and still more than Colt had ever considered to hope for.
"Nope," Shelly said. "Not staying here."
For some reason Colt wasn't surprised. "Really?" he said. "We find the literal perfect place to settle down, and it's still not good enough for you."
"It's too good," she corrected. "There's no way this isn't a trap. It's clearly man-made. Someone's been here."
"Yeah, and they probably left years ago. Either that or died. This..." Colt gestured to the alcove. "...is great. But it's not somewhere you can survive in a place like this forever. Whoever made this is long gone, trust me."
Shelly didn't look overly willing to trust him. "I don't know... I don't like it."
"So you're freaking out over a slight inclination that this place might be dangerous?"
Shelly furrowed her brows, looking extremely angry at having her own words used against her. She set her jaw. "Fine. We'll stay here for the night."
Colt rolled his eyes. He made sure to arch his head so she couldn't see him do it, of course. He didn't understand why she was so opposed to the idea of spending the night in an actually semi-nice place. Sure it could be a trap, but was it really any worse than finding some random place in the middle of the forest to set down? Bottom line was that everything in the forest had a possibility of being dangerous, and this alcove seemed to have the least likelihood of getting them killed. It seemed like a pretty good deal to him.
Colt claimed a leaf bed for himself, the one that just happened to be the closest to the stack of wood that would hopefully soon turn into a fire. Shelly, of course, settled down over by the furthest one from him.
At one point Colt walked over to the fire and, trying to look like he knew what he was doing, tried to rub two of the wood logs together to start a fire. To his dismay, nothing happened. He looked around for something helpful (maybe a fire-starting kit) but found no such thing. Ultimately he stood up, grunted at the wood pile like it was its own fault for not lighting, and went back over to his leaf pile.
It was nearly pitch black now, so he thought it as good a time as any to call it a night. He'd gotten quite used to the arrangement at the fisherman's shack, so the pile of leaves felt a little uncomfortable. Not that he was used to nice conditions, of course. He just had to remember that his time at the fisherman's was a temporary luxury, nothing more.
"Night," he said to Shelly.
There was no response. It had either gotten picked up by the wind, or the girl had already fallen asleep. Or maybe she was just ignoring him. It felt weird, but Colt realized they had just met for the first time earlier that day. It felt like much longer than that. But maybe that was just the scheme of life. Colt contemplated this as he slowly but surely drifted off to sleep.
--
If he thought he was uncomfortable on the leaf bed, he was definitely having a bad time now. When Colt awoke the first thing he noticed was that his back was super stiff. He tried stretching his shoulder blades, but felt something tight around them. That's why he also noticed that he couldn't move his arms. Or legs.
Colt opened his eyes in alarm and saw that his chest and legs were both tied together. He could feel a presence behind him, a pair of rough hands clutching his tunic. It took Colt longer than usual to put this together, probably since he'd just woken up, but he finally came to a conclusion. He had been kidnapped.
Colt looked around and noticed that it was still dark, however there was a slight light leaking through the slim openings between the tree leaves above. It was still night, but morning was close on the way. He couldn't see much, but he could make out several dark figures huddled together, discussing something in hushed tones. Looking around further he spotted Shelly, who looked like she was in a similar predicament as him. She was also tied up in rope, with a man in dark clothes standing close behind her.
"Hey!" Colt protested loudly. "You kidnapped us!"
On second thought Colt figured they were probably already aware of this. This was confirmed when the group of men simply glanced over at him for a moment before going back to their discussion. Then one man broke from the huddle and walked over to him.
The man's face was extremely dirty, as if he hadn't washed in years. This was backed up by his horrendous odor. He wore raggedy, old, dark green clothes that, from what Colt could see, matched the rest of his group. The man had hazel eyes and unkept brown hair, both of which obviously suffered from an eternal tiredness.
The man pointed a finger at Colt. His hand shook as he held it out, sort of like an unconscious tremor.
"We didn't kidnap you," he grunted. "This area is our territory. You trespassed here, on our land."
The man spoked in the same hushed voice as before, making Colt think that it was perhaps his natural tone.
"Oh okay," Colt said reasonably. "Yeah, my bad. Not a kidnapping, just a standard capturing job. My mistake. This is perfectly alright, then. Carry on."
The man dropped his finger and stepped back a little bit. He turned and gestured one of his friends over.
"Is he... joking?" the man asked his friend.
The man and his friend both looked at Colt with a puzzled expression on their faces.
"Nope, not joking," Colt said. He turned his head (with great effort) to the man standing behind him and flashed a smile. Then he turned back to the other two. "I like being a captive and all, don't get me wrong. But I don't suppose there's room enough in this alcove for the two of us?"
The two men just continued to stare at him. Colt wasn't the best at reading people, but they didn't seem too excited about the idea.
"Okay. I don't know what's going on here," Colt said, "so I'm going to phrase this very simply. Can you let me and my friend over there go?"
The man didn't even have to reference his friend this time. He looked over at Shelly, then back at Colt before giving a soft but sure, "No."
Perfect, Colt muttered to himself. After a first day of nearly no danger in the forest, they get kidnapped during the night. The alcove had been too good to be true after all.
"Excuse me?"
The man turned away from Colt as Shelly drew his attention.
"What's your name, mister?" Shelly asked.
The man walked over to where Shelly was being held, and as he did so Shelly shot Colt a look that very plainly said: Let me do the talking.
Colt was fine with this. He was fresh out of ideas anyways.
"I am Barnaby Trowt, and this is my gang," the man said, spreading his hands and gesturing to the other men. "You've met my friend Howard and behind you, girl, is Morton. Oh, and," he turned to Colt, "The large man behind you is Stuart. We call ourselves Trowt's Thieves."
Ah, so a gang of thieves. This keeps getting better and better.
"Trout?" Colt asked, not being able to help himself. "You all name yourselves after a fish?"
The man turned back toward him, a fire gleaming in his eyes. "Trowt, not trout. With a 'w'."
"Oh, I get it," Colt said, nodding.
The fire died down in Trowt's eyes and he started to turn back to Shelly.
"A double 'u' instead of a single 'u', right? So it's Trouut," Colt made sure to elongate the pronunciation.
The man turned back, the fire gleaming again. He started to say something, but was interrupted.
"This is quite the big group you have here," Shelly said, while shooting Colt another disapproving glance. Those were becoming pretty common.
Trowt turned back to Shelly and began talking about his men and how they'd come to be in his gang. It took him a minute, but Colt realized that she was stalling. He wondered what her plan was. What good would more time do her? It wasn't like...
Then it dawned on him. Her silent glances over to him weren't just to tell him to shut up, although that was definitely implied. She was trying to distract the men so that he could escape and take out the thieves. He realized that she still thought he was a highly trained Authority personnel. But if he could get free somehow, he could still possibly make a run for it. And perhaps even save Shelly too, if the stars happened to align just right.
As Shelly continued to chat on with Trowt and the rest of the gang became intent on listening to the conversation, Colt considered his options. He noticed his sword laying on the ground below him and wondered if he'd be able to reach it and use it to cut himself free. It was worth a try.
"So you just go around stealing things from people?" Shelly was saying. "That's how you make your living?"
"You've asked this already!" Trowt sighed but kept talking. "We only steal from the people who have it better than us."
"Which is most people!" added one of the thieves.
Colt leaned to one side, which was difficult with the rope around him so tight. He tilted himself toward his right as far as he could, which wasn't very far since there was a tree right beside him. He pushed in harder until his shoulder scraped against the trunk of the tree.
He then stretched his arm out and wiggled his fingers, trying to get them to go lower, closer to his sword. He felt his fingertips graze the tops of the grass a little, but that was as far as he could go. His sword was just an inch or two lower and to the right more. He just needed a little thrust.
He pushed forward and his fingers felt the hilt of the sword. But a second later he was yanked back up to where he was before.
"Watch it!" yelled the large, burly man behind him. Stuart had obviously noticed what Colt was doing when he thrusted forward, so he pulled him back up.
Trowt and everyone else looked over at him.
"Sorry," he said. "Had an itch."
Shelly cleared her throat and the attention went back to her. "Oh, so you're like that folk tale," she said. "Steal from the rich and give to the poor."
"No!" Trowt cursed in his low, gravely voice. "We don't give it to anyone, we keep it for ourselves."
The rest of the thieves murmured their agreement and slapped each other on the back.
Colt went back to looking for a way out. The sword obviously wouldn't work. It was just too far away for him to be able to reach without suspicion. He'd need something else. Something... closer.
Colt's eye caught on the tree next to him. It was easily reachable without drawing suspicion from the giant man standing behind him. Of course, there was only so much a tree could do to help him out. The ideal situation would be it coming to life and beating up his captors, but he didn't think the likelihood of that happening was too high. He didn't even need something big like that to happen. Something small would do just fine.
Colt smiled as he noticed an oddly angled piece of tree bark. He analyzed it closely and saw that it was sharp too. It would do very nicely indeed. He leaned to his right again, this time a little slower than before. His shoulder hit the tree and his hand grasped the small piece of bark.
Stuart pulled Colt back from the tree but it was too late. Colt had, hidden in his hand, the piece of bark. As Shelly argued with Trowt over the ideology of his gang, Colt got to work. He whittled the rope around his legs using the sharp side of the bark. Eventually the rope gave way, but Colt kept his feet together so no one would noticed. Then he got to work on the shoulder rope, and before long that one was about to give too.
Colt readied himself, then made the final cut on his shoulder rope. The rope fell to the ground and Stuart noticed instantly, crying out. He swung at Colt, who turned and ducked it. He came back up and plunged the sharp side of the bark into Stuart's leg. The man cried out and staggered back, but Colt knew it wouldn't take him down for long. As Trowt and the other thieves processed what was happening Colt grabbed his sword, ran, and quickly cut away Shelly's ropes too. He grabbed her hand and ran away from the trail and into the thick of the forest. The thieves all followed, but were slower due to the spears and weapons they had grabbed. Colt ran until he felt Shelly pull away from him and stop moving.
He turned towards her. "What are you doing? Come on, let's go!"
"They committed a crime by capturing us," she said. "They should be taken to the Authority and punished. That's the law."
Colt breathed heavily, exasperated. "I don't think the law counts for much out here. Look around, okay?"
He tried to grab her arm but she wasn't budging. "You're an officer. You swore an oath to uphold the law," she pointed out.
"You're..." Colt let out a sigh. He couldn't exactly tell her that he wasn't actually an officer of the Authority. Not now. So there seemed to be no other choice. "You're right."
Colt gripped his sword and prepared for a fight.