The blizzard screamed across the mountain's peak, it's icy breath carving through the silence like a whistle, across the icy jagged plan, a plain filed stood.
Zach felt his body being dragged out out and thrown on the snowy floor like a ragged doll.
Zach's blindfold came of and a storm of light flooded his eye.
"Argh.." he groaned as he took in the view.
Amidst the white fury and ash stained snow, Zach knelt as the chains bound him like a serpent.
' What's going on?.., where am I?', questions lingered in Zach's mind as he wiggled, struggling to take in the view.
Snow slashed sideways carried by winds that howled like dying beasts, the world was a frozen waste land, burnt charred trees filled Zach's line of sight.
It was a forest, or what used to look like a forest, the trees were chapped, burned to a crisp and the snow covered the greenery, the most striking thing about the unfamiliar zone is the, waterfall that loomed above in the distance, the water frozen mid motion, like a monument of time.
A few figure in hood patrolled around, Zach couldn't see their faces, his head was too close to the ground.
Zach wiggled trying to survey his surroundings.
"It's no use, a voice echoed from behind", Zach couldn't see who it was, but judging by the horse voice, he could tell tell it was one of the captives.
"What are we doing here?".
If this was the part of the trials Zach had to find a way to escape this place, and the frist step was to find out where he was, and why is he here.
He heard a chuckle behind him, "you don't know why you're here?" The voice taunted, almost surprised.
"The kingdom of the north has fallen, we are peasants meant to serve as mere gifts to the king, as a souvenir", the voice spoke, clearly annoyed.
"Please clarify, I don't actually understand", Zach paused "what do you mean by kingdom of the north, and souvenirs?, who is the emperor"
"Whoa whoa, slow down bumkin", the voice chuckled, 'how can you be so chill in a situation like this', Zach puzzled still tried to wiggled to the side to see who was talking but he couldn't, he could only rest on the snowy floor and listen to the strangers voice.
"Long ago the kingdom of snow was the most wealthy kingdom in all of the astryx, a centre of trade and where husslers came from all over the globe" the voice sighed and continued.
"But there had always been a power struggled between the four kingdoms, almond known as the kingdom of the west, wilt known as the kingdom of the east, valgard known as the kingdom of the west and us creed known as the north".
The power struggled between the four had been nothing short but a friendly competition, bit that was until recent, a heavenly knight has appeared, in valgard, the kingdom of the west and since then things had changed.
***
Zach had heard about heavenly knight from master Cain a while back.
There are seven stages of power, with the strongest able to split worlds.
• Mortal Knight
• Earth Knight
• Sky Knight
• Star Knights
• Heavenly Knight
• Void Knights
• Primordial Knight
Mortal Knight are capable warriors and primordial knights are gods of war, able to shatter concepts, and wield the sword not as a weapon but as a philosophy.
Zach had heard many stories of void knights splitting the void from the old man.
***
Days went by, and Zach had been facing the challenges of simply sleeping in these shackles, who knew such a mundane task would take a toll on him.
Zach had learned that the gentlemen that captured him were knights, like real and experienced mortal Knights.
During the day, the carriage moved and the bounded slaves room turns pushing the carriage forward, some slaves die due to the extreme cold, it was a freaking blizzard after all and most of the slaves wore shallow clothes so the biting wind could easily penetrate into their skin.
It's been 4 days now and the blizzard was still as strong as if once was, he never saw or heard the gentleman's voice that filled him in on the situation, judging from the looks of things he was moved to another carriage, since there were multiple carriages, being pushed through the snowy vile, most slaves don't make it more than ten thousand steps before collapsing. Dead.
***
The cariages parked in a circle as Zach and the remaining slaves that were left, were in a corner, being fed the usual dry bread and water, this was the only time they ate, and the only time he wasn't chained like an animal.
The knight looked him in the eye as he unlocked the chains binding his body aromatically freeing his entire body, he and the other slaves ate in silence as the bonfire in the middle of the camp was lit.
"Dammit I can believe we have to carry this liability along with us".
"Yeah the kings orders were to bring a few residents of the north, besides who are gonna push the carriage for us"
"Yeah right !"
"A total of 12 knights", Zach couldn't tell all their names yet, but there was a skinny guy with gray hair , his name was hennet.
And the one that feeds the slaves was Cedric.
Zach already had devised a strategic to get out of the hell.
Over the four day he's studied the knights habits, the shifts, the terrain and especially the time the slaves were made to drag the colossal vehicles. The moment when all attention shifted to the road, when all knights retreated in their hoods that's when he was at his most free. Chains removed, arm untied, spine aching but mobile.
That was his chance.
He noticed something on his third day, one of the carriages, the second from the front, had a weak axle, every time it hit a bump it shuddered violently, the knights always grumbled about it but never stopped to fit it properly, that was the weak link
Zach's plan had three phases.
The preparation.
While the knight were busy feasting on a bouquet, Zach intentionally dropped his dry bread into the snow and pretended fumbled around, he used that moment to pocket a small sharp splinter from the broken crate the bread came in.
Cedric was the only knight who looked at the slaves with anything less than disdain, if the opportunity to exploit that weakness arises Zach plans to use it to his advantage.
And finally, Zach marked every stop with pieces of bread, the sight of the bread would probably be covered by the raging snowstorm but that won't completely erase the scent of brad from the air, it isn't much but it would help him find the ravine he spotted the day before—a long crack in the earth leading down and east.