Escape

"Quickly, put the shackles back on and act like they're locked! Hurry!" said Ashur softly, before also started doing the same with his.

After managing to get their shackles back on, they got into place and started waiting.

After a grueling few minutes, which felt like hours to the both of them, the tarp on the cage was lifted up and one of the traders peered inside.

Looking inside, the trader quickly spotted Ashur grimacing in pain curled up on the cage floor.

Seemingly enjoying Ashur's pain, a small smile spread on his face as he looked at the scene.

He then slowly turned his head to look over towards Riveria.

She was still curled up in a ball in the corner like last time they checked, so it was of no surprise to him.

Looking at the two, The Trader held no suspicions, as he knew that Ashur would probably be in pain from the beating they gave him, while Riveria has been in that corner since they put her in the cage.

After the trader finished inspecting them, he let go of the cloth tarp, letting it fall, before turning and leaving.

Both Ashur and Riveria had a mental sigh of relief seeing that he left.

Taking his shackles back off, Ashur slowly got up from the floor and sat up against the metal bars.

What Ashur did on the floor was actually not acting, but was letting himself go and not pushing through the pain as he usually did, like when he acted perfectly fine when was fine in front of Riveria and Ene.

Ashur had gained a huge pain tolerance after the many spars they did and he can naturally ignore the pain coming easily. But just because you can ignore pain, doesn't mean that it's not there.

After quietly whispering and waiting for the carriage to start up again, Ashur noticed that the carriage has stopped in place for more than ten minutes. The most probable scenario was that they must have been stopped to let the horses rest, and also get something to eat or do their business as he heard from Riveria that they have been traveling for quite a while as he was unconscious.

He knew that this would be the best chance for them to escape, as if they left the forest, it would be much harder to evade pursuit in an open plain.

Bringing his finger up to his lips, he motioned for Riveria to be quiet, before then motioning to remove the shackles she had on.

After a few seconds, Ashur and Riveria removed their shackles quietly as they can and got up.

Ashur walked over to the door with Riveria, before then raising his hand and using the force to unlock the cage door with a 'Click'.

After that was done, he then laid on the floor and used the force to slowly pull up the fabric covering the cage to let a small crack appear enough for him to look through.

Looking through the crack, he noticed that there were only two slave traders near the cage, and the rest of them were off doing something. With one of them being the one that he broke the leg of.

This was good, as he had better chances escaping with Riveria than with all of them there.

"Stay close to me," whispered Ashur as he grabbed Riveria's hand before he casting his illusion magic over the door so that it appeared normal as they opened it.

Ashur slowly opened the cage door slowly as he did not want to make a sound and alert the two slave traders and blow their chances of escaping.

Slowly Ashur opened the door, and when it was about 2/3 of it was open, it suddenly made a loud creak, but Ashur, fortunately, stopped in time and did not alert the traders.

As he did not want to Alert the traders, he stopped opening the door and instead grabbed Riveria and slowly slid through the door with her in his arms.

Riveria did not know why, but as Ashur held her in his arms, she felt warm and safe, like there was nothing to worry about, even though they were in the middle of escaping and could be discovered any second.

She found this illogical, as how could she feel safe as any second could break out into a battle if they were found out?

Ashur finished lowering them out of the cage and both of their feet were now on the ground.

Ashur looked around from inside his illusion and both of the traders were still distracted talking to each other and he did a mental sigh of relief.

But his relief was short-lived, as he still had to close the cage door before he ran out of mana to support his illusion before they were caught.

Carefully closing the cage door, Ashur thought that all was going good, but when he was just about to fully close it, it suddenly let out a loud creak which suddenly caught the attention of the two traders.

'Fuck!' he mentally cursed.

Trader1: "Hey, did you hear that?"

Trader2: "Yeah, I think I did hear that."

Trader2: "It sounded like the creak of metal."

Trader1: "Why don't you go over and check on the merchandise?"

Trader2: "Fine, I'll check it, because that kid seems dangerous."

Trader1: "Hahaha, What can he do? Did you see the condition he was in? I'm surprised he's still breathing with such injuries on a body like his!"

"Anyways, I'll go and check it." said the trader.

Walking over to the cage, before calmly lifting the cloth tarp, but was suddenly shocked.

"Hun? It's empty!" screamed the trader.

"WHAT!" the other trader was shocked before he said, "Gather everyone, we checked on them a few minutes ago, they could not have gotten far!"

Meanwhile, Ashur was running while he held Riveria's hand and pulled her through the forest not far from the slave trader's carriage and suddenly, they heard a loud "WHAT!" from behind them.

"Hurry, faster!" Ashur shouted to Riveria as he pulled her along.

"Master, don't push yourself!" said the quiet Ene, she did not want to disturb him in such a dangerous situation so she chose to be quiet, but she noticed that he was pushing himself again.

"Can't help it, let's just get out of here!" shouted Ashur as he pulled Riveria along.

After running for a while, Ashur noticed that Riveria was getting tired out, so he slowed down a bit to let her catch her breath.

Seeing her catch her breath, they started speeding up again.

After running a few more minutes, Ashur looked back and noticed that Riveria started to slow down, but they still pushed through and kept running.

But as they were running, Riveria suddenly tripped on a root sticking out of the ground and fell to the ground.

"OWW!"

"You okay?" asked Ashur, as he looked at her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Riveria as she went to stand up, but when she tried, she shrieked before falling down again.

Ashur looked at Riveria's knee and saw it was a bit bloody and he looked at the ground and saw that she seemed to fall on a rock.

"Shit"

Ashur cursed his luck as he noticed in the distance that one of the slave traders in the distance coming in their direction.

Ashur went over to Riveria and unceremoniously scooped her up in a princess carry and started running with her in his arms.

Ashur knew that he would not be able to evade capture at this rate and looked around for anything to quickly hide Riveria.

He soon found a small ditch in the ground enough to fit her inside before covering her with some fallen branches and other things to make her not be found immediately.

"Where are you going?" asked Riveria as she saw Ashur walking away, and was scared of him abandoning her.

"To get a weapon," replied Ashur without looking back and ran off somewhere.

As they were running, Ashur took notice that there was a slave trader in the distance coming in the direction they were running, and knew at this rate, they would be recaptured if he didn't do something about him. So he started to create a plan.

First, he took off his shirt and noted the direction the slave trader was walking, before he put it in a bush to make it look like someone was inside.

It was not totally visible, but someone would clearly see it if their attention was attracted to it and looked closely at it.

But what Ashur did next made the quiet Ene suddenly speak up.

"Master...Why do you have to do something so painful..."

She looked at Ashur as she seemed to be on the verge of tears as she stared at what he did.

"It's necessary," said Ashur with a grunt of pain.

What he did, was gathering some small stones and one giant rock and used some vines to affix it onto his bare back.

Unfortunately, the only vines he could find were ones that had plenty of thorns on them, and Ashur used them to tie the giant rock to his back. It was like thousands of tiny knives digging into his skin and made him bleed as he tied it tightly around his body so the giant rock would not fall out.