The dinner that the guards gave to Rienna and Jen was surprisingly not terrible. There was some corn on the cob, potatoes, and some sort of fish jerky. Nothing was seasoned, but it was better than the blob of grey mush that Rienna was expecting. After dinner, she and Jen had gone to the bench they had sat on at the beginning of the day and brainstormed how they were going to be able to save the cats from the Houndmaster.
“What if we try to find the Houndmaster’s building first?” Jen suggested.
“Yes, that makes sense. Once we know where Xio and Xia are being kept, we can work on a plan to get them out.” Rienna agreed, “Where did Quelti say it was again?”
“Somewhere on the Northeast side of V4.” Jen said, “I think it is somewhere near the outhouses.”
With that, Rienna followed Jen past the cabins, the mess hall, and to the outhouses. Looking around they didn’t see any new buildings. Just the row of five outhouses in front of the fence, and the main building with the bell behind them. “Hmph. All I see are outhouses and the mess hasll.” Rienna said when they got there.
“Me too. Maybe it is outside the camp?” Jen said doubtfully.
“I don’t know. Let’s try to look though.” Rienna said, walking to the fence while trying not to breathe in through her nose while next to the outhouses. There was nothing. There was not anything beyond the fence besides mountains. Sighing, Rienna turned around to face Jen, “I don’t see anything…. Where could they be!?” she said, rather distressed.
“Rienna? That you?” A small voice piped up from behind the outhouses.
“Xio!?” Rienna said in amazement.
Xio and his mother jumped out from behind the overgrown grass in between the fence and the outhouses, “Rienna! We were just about to go looking for you! It is much easier to finds you when you just comes to us!”
“Where did they keep you? How did you escape?!” Rienna asked.
“Many of the soldiers come to watch the Houndmaster’s show, but they get angry and distracted, we run here and hid for many hours! We came from that building there.” Xio explained, pointing to the mess hall. Xia mewed something to Xio. “She says we’ve only beens here for half of one hour. I feel like it was more, but whatevers.”
“How about you tell us more once we get out of here. I want to know as much as I can about this place so I can help my people rescue the children that have been stolen.” Jen said, “We have got to hurry though, the sooner we are out of this place the better.”
“Yes,” Xio said. “Here is our plan, we go to the entrance, sneak out, and warn Jen’s people.” he explained proudly.
“Uh, how exactly are we going to sneak out the entrance?” Rienna asked reasonably.
“Well, we won’t do the actual entrance, just nears that area so we cans get to the place called Rufdand.” Xio added to his previous statement, “It should be easy enough, mosts of the guards are probably still on break in that giant building.”
“Then we should go now, while we still might have a chance.” Jen said urgently, “Come on. Let us go!” she was already running back to the break area by the time Rienna had processed what she had said enough to run after her. Fortunately she had Xia by her side and was able to quickly catch up with Jen. It wasn’t long before the four of them were able to get to the southern fence.
“Wait here, my mother will levitate you over the fence so you’re less likely to cause commotions,” Xio said quickly, right as Jen was about to try and climb over the fence.
“Oh. Okay…” Jen said, stopping awkwardly.
It took a few minutes but eventually, all four of them were on the other side of the fence. They didn’t see anyone around who might have seen them, and they were all a little relieved at how easy it had been to escape. Now that they were given a chance, they could tell that they were a little ways up the base of the mountains, making it easy for them to see Rufdand. They were exactly where they expected they were in comparison to Rufdand, almost immediately North. Which was perfect since the only official entrance into Rufdand was on the Northern side of their vine wall. When Rienna thought about it, she realized that the location of the entrance was probably also good for the fairyeld guards who wanted to steal the children from Rufdand.
“They probably never even had to go back to the Crystal Sorceress every time they came to Rufdand,” Jen said sadly, voicing Rienna’s thoughts.
“Yes. Probably. However, we musts hurry, we never know when guard might show up. Quickly! Go down the hill!” Xio said, perhaps a little more dramatically than he needed to be. Yet he was right, they weren’t necessarily out of danger.
“Okay. Let’s go.” Rienna said.
The journey down the hill was tougher than they had expected. They were making good pace due to the slope, but there were a fair amount of boulders in their way and the sun from the day hadn’t dried out all of the puddles of mud.
Only ten minutes into their journey, they heard a voice above yell at them. “Hey! Get back here!” A guard had noticed them.
Stumbling, Rienna, Jen, and the cats, ran down the slope to a pile of boulders and attempted to hide behind them. They knew that the guard had seen them though, and when they peeked over the rocks they saw him running down the slope after them.
“He knows we are behind these rocks.” Jen said, “We need to change our hiding place without him seeing us so that he can hopefully lose track of us.” She reasoned.
Rienna agreed and Xia used her powers to make the four of them lighter so they could move across the grass stealthier. They crawled to the side and somewhat up the hill so they could get behind another set of boulders. It seemed to work, and they were able to quietly move to the other side of the rocks as the guard passed.
They waited behind the rock anxiously as the soldier looked behind the set of boulders they were originally behind. Rienna felt her heart beat wildly against her chest as the soldier started searching the boulders around their first hiding place.
Rienna wanted to scream as he started towards the rocks that they were hiding behind. Surprisingly, she was not the one to scream when the guard peeked over their boulder and saw them with a smile. Instead, it was Jen, but it was not a scream of fear like Rienna’s would have been. It was a scream of pure anger and loathing as she jumped up from behind the boulder and punched the man as hard as she could in the face.
Startled and hurt, the guard stumbled backward. Slipping on the damp slope he fell onto the hill, hitting his head on the ground with a thud. Jen gasped and Rienna stood up from behind the rock to see what had happened. The man lay on the ground, blood coming from his nose, his eyes shut and his body still on the ground.
“Å, nei…” Jen muttered, “Nei…. Se… is… is he dead?” she stuttered, switching between her language and Rienna’s.
Xia walked up to the body and sniffed. She shook her head and mewed, causing Jen to gasp again in dismay.
“Do not worry. She is saying that no. No, he is not dead.” Xio told Jen reassuringly, “He will just be knocked outs for some of while.” Xio elaborated.
“Å tres Qua,” Jen said, relieved. “How long will he be out?” She said, no longer worried about the safety of the man, but rather her own.
“I don’t know. We must hurry, another guard could show up, or he could wake up any moment now.” Xio said.
Jen nodded and Rienna glanced at the soldier only once before starting back down the hill.
They were fortunately able to get the rest of the way down the hill without any guard noticing them. When they finally reached the bottom of the hill they all sat down and Rienna looked up at the sky and sighed. They were no longer in harm's way. She watched as light puffy clouds raced by above her. She liked clouds, they were one of the few things that she had been taught weren’t evil, that they were just water beings whose thoughts and imaginations had caused them to float high above the ground. Rienna knew that this likely wasn’t true, but she liked the stories she had been taught about water beings.
After maybe five minutes, one by one, the four of them stood up and started towards the giant vine hedge. It took them much less time to get to the wall than it had taken to get down the hill, and it only took them another couple of minutes to find the large wooden doorway into Rufdand.
Rienna looked up at the doorway. It was beautiful carved wood that had a glossy polish over it. She saw engravings of many different creatures, plants, and mountains on the doors. She wondered if they told a story. The one that stood out the most was a large engraving of a flower that Rienna recognized as the type of flower that bloomed all over the top of the hedge.
“How do we get in?” She asked. “Do we just open the gates or do we knock? Are there guards at the other side of the gate?”
“I believe we are supposed to knock. There should be people on the other side of the gate.” Jen answered.
“Okay then. Here goes nothing.” Rienna said, approaching the gate. She let out a breath and raised her hand to the door and knocked. She waited a moment and was about to try again when the doors creaked and began to slowly open.