Sorcery - 13

It drew the attention of quite a few pedestrians, and it drew the attention of a pair of patrolman that were passing the end of the street. They paused, turned to investigate the source of the commotion, and upon spotting the pair, immediately drew whistles and sounded an alarm.

Nancey moved ahead of Nicole, pulling her by the wrist down an alleyway adjacent to the street they had been on. As they turned down another, she suddenly stopped, spun around, wrapped her arms around Nicole and stepped backwards toward the alley wall. The temperature suddenly dropped several degrees, the only colors from the sources that Nicole could see were now black and white. She could also no longer breath.

She watched the three patrolman rush into the alleyway and past where they were standing. A moment later the three came back looking left and right for other exits. The two newcomers turned to the first patrolman and asked, "Why didn't you blow your whistle?" Their voices sounded muted, but otherwise Nicole could hear them.

The other replied, "No one has ever reacted that way when I've stopped them."

"Rank and serial, now!" one of the other two demanded. He suddenly stabbed forward with his hands, grabbed each of them hard enough that they winced in pain, and then Nicole wasn't sure what happened. There was a flash of light and then they were ash and scorch marks on the cobblestones. Claxons suddenly sounded in the distance. Then the remaining patrolman was gone.

Nancey shoved Nicole forward. She stumbled, took three heaving breaths, and then colors returned, the temperature was back to normal, and the sirens were insanely loud. She hadn't realized that sound had muted to that degree when Nancey did whatever it was she had done.

"We would have had 20 minutes to get out of the city without being noticed when they started blowing those whistles," Nancey explained.

"And now?" Nicole asked.

Nancey shook her head, "It's too late to go unnoticed even if we could have reached one of the gates," she explained as they started running again.

When they reached the street they had started on, Nicole noticed that people were clearing the streets, anything that was outside was simply left where it was as people retreated to nearby buildings.

"At least we're not the only one's running," Nicole pointed out. They stopped talking and ran hard for a solid five minutes. The sirens died out after a few minutes, people were mostly under cover and Nicole spotted troops running down the street they were on. The troops likely hadn't spotted them yet, but they were directly in their path.

Nancey grabbed Nicole's arm and dragged her towards a wall, she heard her shout "Sorry about this!" and then Nancey shoved Nicole against the wall hard enough that her body slammed into the stone, pinning one arm between her body and the stone. Her cheek and elbow were scraped along the wall before Nancey slammed into her, bouncing her back into the wall briefly before the world went gray again.

Nicole found herself shoved forward with color returning long enough for her to slam into another wall. Somehow she had been spun around, Nancey was nowhere to be seen. Then Nancey was suddenly there, her face grim with determination, she slammed into Nicole again, the world went gray, and then she felt Nancey shoving her forwards again. She bounced once rather unceremoniously before coming to a stop lying outside the city wall.

A moment later, Nancey materialized like a phantom out of thin air. This time, Nancey was the one that was out of breath. Her lips were purple and she was gasping for air for a full thirty seconds before her color started to return to normal. Nicole would have protested the suddenly rough handling, but she felt a moment of concern for Nancey's safety.

Nancey fell to her hands and knees and continued panting for a little while longer. Her breaths were starting to even out, so Nicole used the time to look up and down along the wall. Nancey was getting to her feet when Nicole grabbed her arm and started running. There was a space of about ten yards surrounding the wall that was completely open, with no cover. She dragged Nancey across that distance and then continued moving away from the wall while hugging large rocks, the few clumps of trees, bushes, farming equipment, anything to provide cover from the wall while moving them away from the city.

The same distance had taken them an hour to traverse on their way into the city, only took them fifteen minutes on their way out. They eventually found their way back to a road and resumed walking away from the capital. They had found their way onto a road that went due north and south and continued following it until the city was no longer visible, then they moved off the road and into the forest.

After a few minutes of hiking, Nicole confessed, "If I don't eat something soon, I'm not going to be able to keep moving.".

"Yeah, I'm feeling rather peckish, myself," replied Nancey. "Give me a moment, I think I have some smoked and dried venison in here," and then she started digging through the pocket in her cloak. She pulled out a small pouch of some sort of jerky and handed some to Nicole.

"You're going to want to chew that slowly. It's fairly tough," she explained.

Nicole bit off a piece. It was salty and savory, and considering how long it had been since they had eaten, she found it to be delicious. They resumed their hike.

"I have so many questions," Nicole started.

"Save them for later. I'm a little wiped out from our escape." Nicole eyed her as she went back to chewing on her jerky. She did look pale, and she still seemed to be having trouble catching her breath. "I think I may need to sleep." Nancey then proceeded to slump over, lose her footing, and then fall to the ground.