We struggled along, and it occurred to me, as it had with each step since we had breached the outer walls of the prison, that I could have left him behind. He was nothing to me, and was barely coherent enough to muster his name, when I had asked if he could walk. "Gram-" was what I had understood. I assumed it to be short for "gramps" or "grandpa", in that he must have been nearing seventy years, if not more.
We struggled along, or should I say, I struggled along for both of us, half-carrying, half-dragging his filthy, ragged robed frame. He was the only still obviously still living thing that I'd run across in my flight from the cell. He had been in the second cell from the outer door, slumped against the bars, and I would have slipped out (quite a lot easier I might add) had he not moaned, and had I not been too damned sentimental to not help.
We struggled along. I made good use of the darkness, and the cool rain and the sweltering heat, which made for a low lying fog. Utterly unconcerned with direction, I wanted distance. That was the only currency that I could deal in at the moment. I managed about three hours, slogging, still barefoot, through the ever-deepening mud of the undergrowth. Broken blade in one hand, the other gripping Gram's waist, I finally let myself sink among the roots of a what appeared to be a tree, slowing attempting to pull itself from the mire it was stuck in. The muddy ground was putting up a good fight, but the tree's roots were still a good four feet out of the ground. We settled in between them, both of us too wet to notice whether we were indeed safe in our newly found root-walled fortress. If I were honest, I would say that technically, my feet were so tired that I couldn't free them from the roots. Honesty, while a valued commodity, no doubt, is not, as I said, what I'm dealing in at the moment.
We struggled on, past consciousness, and into oblivion.
