Swords, Dungeons, And Lots Of Running

“Well, this is new -”

“Shut up.”

“I can see him commin’. Through the window -”

“I say SHUT UP!” The guard roared this time. His absolute unit of a mustache blew in the wind of his words. Spit flew. It seems Philip was right - everyone does have a breaking point. This chub of a man was much sooner to crack than the others of course. Elric froze, smiling in a thinly drawn line. He descended his perch from the top of his bed, craning to see out the window. It was his first time in a cell with a window, and it certainly did help with that musty wretched dungeon smell.

“Well, I just thought you would like a warning sir,” Elric smiled, boyishly. Approaching the bars where the man was fuming. The vein on his forehead was about near bursting point.

“You been yapping for a good hour and now you want to warn me? ‘Bout what boy?” The guard threw his hands in the air. “Is the forsaken sun about to fall from the sky -”

He didn't finish. The pour bloke didn't even get the chance. Right as he stepped back a shadow appeared from the door frame, tall as a knight and coated in armor. He raised something high above his head - it gleamed in the sunlight - and fast as lighting, he thrust it down. Right smack onto the top of the guard's head. An echoing clang rang throughout the cell, and the assailant bowed deeply.

“Philip!” Elric cheered, a delighted smile crossing his cheeks. It always filled him with a sort of excitement seeing his best friend make his entrances - which were always different. Each week. Each with its own flare. “Took yeh long enough!” Elric laughed.

“I don't want to hear it my friend.” Philip lifted the shimmering helmet from his head as he approached the cell. Seemingly glowing with pride. “And I will have you know, I believe I did that in record time.”

Elric mockingly looked up and down, squinting. “My that is a mighty high horse you've got there -”

“Hey now,” Philip laughed, glaring at his friend. He eyed the unconscious guard - peeling the keys from his clenched fist. “I could leave you here you know.” He wrinkled his nose. “There is something about this smell -”

“Alright Alright! I'm sorry okay now get me out,” Elric pressed his face between the bars, hands wrapping around them tightly. What a familiar sight. Third time this week he was pretty sure. The thing was, Philip went through all that trouble to break him out, and they would make it, just not very far. Not far at all. They had almost lost track of why he was even arrested the first time - not that it mattered. It was probably something along the lines of throwing tomatoes at someone important. Perhaps that one time Elric kissed the Lady Of -

“Now I’ve got some bad news.” Philip heaved the latch and the door slid free. He tossed the keys to the floor. Elric stepped out, snapping back to reality. He could hear the metal clank of footsteps approaching from above.

“Let me guess,” Elric unsheaths the sword from the guard lying at their feet. Testing its weight. Slicing it through the air with a satisfying swish. “A hundred - no - a thousand guards are on their way right this very second and we are going to have to run for it across the courtyard but -” He raised his fingers into air quotes, “‘we will need a diversion so I’ll have to run nake-”

“No no of course not that was last month's diversion.” Philip chuckled at the memory. Something he would never forget.

“Well then what?” They turned to make their way toward the door. Taking their sweet time, just about to discuss the plan when they came. Flooded into the dungeon as though they simply materialized out of thin air. Guards by the handful, bearing every kind of weapon the two boys had ever seen.

“Oh, this is the bad news -”

“Now? You make sarcastic comments now?” Philip brandished his own sword, stolen no doubt, and turned around just as the first move was made. He dodged, some spiky ball contraption on a chain sailing above his head. The boy could fight, Elric never doubted it. Every time his moves and cunning seemed to get better and better.

He took the first two out by merely tripping them. Smashing their heads together like they were pumpkins. Armor clattering to the ground.

Fellow prisoners cheered like they were at a jousting match.

It took the two no time at all really. Bursting from the dungeon to the tower stairs in a matter of minutes. Wiping blood and sweat from their tired faces, they began the journey. Philip cursed the designer who felt the need to make dungeon corridors longer than life itself. Elric wondered why they were running.

Before long, when they submerged into the interior of the corridor, Elric remembered. “What was that bad news anyway?”

“Oh.” Philip breathed hard, leaning against the thick stone wall, coated in rich tapestry. “No use telling you now.”