Chapter Text
There was only one command in his mind:
Run.
And he ran, his feet had grown wings and he ran, pushed himself through the streets laden with merchants and customers, deaf to their angered outcries. He ran, bumping into people and stands and people, his breaths too torn away from his lungs for him and his feet too fast for him to choke out an apology.
He could only hear his ragged breathing and--there it was, behind him, the sound of feet stomping on the hardened ground like death knells, yells, how many men? One? Two? Three? Ten? Twenty?
Ah, it didn't matter.
All that mattered was he that he ran--
He felt a white hot pain lash at his ankle. He stumbled, tried to get up, but no, his foot wouldn't listen, and he plummeted to the ground.
A fist slammed into his face as he struggled to get up. Shit. Shit!
His aggressor drew back with a cry when he lashed his dagger, which he had kept sheathed in case he would bump into any civilian, and he quickly got back to his feet, holding it out. It was an extension of his hand now; come to close and the wasp would sting.
How many men? Three only, but he could see the muscles bulging under their skin, their scarred hands that whispered their experience in combat.
Two had swords in their hands.
He put a shaking arm behind his back and, taking a quick breath, lunged.
Metal met metal and their blades screeched in fury. People stopped to stare at the battle, at him as he dodged the blades and swiped back at his attackers, covering them in scratches, and help, help, can't you see that I need help?!
The blunt side of a sword hit his shoulder, and he staggered. That was all they needed. A fist slammed deep into his abdomen, literally punching the breath out of him. He stumbled, trying to remember how to breathe, what he was doing, when two more fists punched him, up the jaw and across the face, and finally a white hot line of pain slashed itself across his back.
He fell. His dagger clattered to the ground besides him.
The pavement, already bleached white by the sun, was blazing hot against his bruised cheek. He struggled to get to his feet, quickly, ignoring the searing heat on his palms, but a heavy, booted foot slammed down on his back and he was forced back down.
A hand roughly grabbed his hair and pulled his head up, forcing him to look up into the slave-catcher’s twisted face, at the coiled whip he held in his free hand.
"You think you can run away from us, rat?" he hissed, a wicked smile curving his lips. His breath smelled like metal and tobacco. "It's futile."
Alibaba spat; blood and saliva splattered on the slave-catcher's cheek. He roughly let go of him and Alibaba's forehead bounced on the pavement.
Alibaba struggled to get up--Go! Go!!!--but something heavy struck to the back of his head, and he spiraled into darkness.
He woke to the sensation of falling.
He landed in reality--or, so to speak, pain. Pain blossomed in his limbs, his face, back, everywhere, and he gasped as he struggled with his consciousness, with the faded black creeping at the edges of his vision. It shouldn't hurt this much. Did they attack him even after he had fallen unconscious?
Alibaba was able to glimpse at a golden rectangle of sunlight that sat, undisturbed, on the dirty, hard ground before the darkness took over.
A drop of water, as cold and harsh as a knife blade on his forehead, woke him again.
The sun had passed and it was dark. Who knew what time it was.
Alibaba found himself staring at the dark, cracked ceiling above him. Water dripped from a crack, weeping lazy, freezing tears onto his forehead. He gingerly touched his damp hair, wincing at the pain that laced through his skull, and carefully tilted his head upward with his mouth open. A drop of water fell into his mouth; he nearly choked at the bitter, rancid taste that permeated his tongue and the back of his throat, causing tears to spring up at the corners of his eyes. He coughed weakly, turning over and twitching at the jolting pain in his limbs.
His movement triggered the sound of metal clacking against stone, and he stopped at it. Slowly, hissing quietly in discomfort, he forced himself to sit up far enough on his elbows so that he could register the rusty metal rings around his ankles and the chain that connected them.
Ah. He stared at them as his eyes grew more adjusted to the dark, at the dark spots on the metal that foretold their age, at how long they held weeping men, women, and children in their grasp.
Something heavy was strewn across his lap. He looked down at the chain there and the tight metal bracelets on his wrists, so tight that he could see the bruising form on the skin around them.
They were heavy. So were the ones on his ankles. Alibaba clawed at them vainly, knowing well that only a key could help him--as if he could rip these chains apart--and slowly looked around.
He was in a dark, dirty cell, with dirt and dark puddles of water (and who knows what else) as his companions. The only window sat high above him, near the ceiling--it must've been around noon when he was last awake if he had seen sunlight on the ground. A wooden door, reinforced with some metal, stood diligently at the corner.
He stared at the chains between his hands and feet. They were long--not long enough to give him much mobility, but not so short that he wouldn't be able to walk or even run a little. They were mainly there as reminders, decorations really.
Alibaba clenched his fists. Yes, decorations. There was no way he was going to be taken in as a slave.
He slowly, haltingly, got up to his feet, clenching his teeth to ignore the pain that shot through his bones. The bastards really had beaten him after he fell unconscious, he could tell with the bruises that coated his arms and the pain that blossomed in his torso. They were kind enough to keep him in his original clothes, but even those were tattered horrendously. There was a sharp, long pain on his back and ankle that told him that he had definitely been whipped, and that if he were not careful it would start bleeding again.
He limped, careful not to cause too much sound with the chains, to the door. Despite the metal, the wooden boards were worn, and he could see a few holes that rot had eaten its way through the years. He gingerly pushed his face toward one of the holes, peeping through it.
His eye struggled with the dark for a moment, and then it registered what was undeniably cloth. Shit. Someone was standing guard outside his door. He wasn't that important. Why was someone guarding him?!
He had been rather quiet, but maybe they knew he was awake. He stood frozen by the door, the gears in his mind whirling and ticking. What to do, what to do?
Alibaba drew back from the door, plan in mind. It wasn't great, really, especially seeing that he had no idea what anything looked like outside his cell, but it was better than just moping around and waiting for himself to turn into a slave. He wasn't a slave yet.
He was never going to be.
He shuffled a few steps away from the door, gliding his feet so that the chain would hardly click, and then, taking a large breath, jumped.
He ignored the screaming of his muscles, for the sound of the chains clanking against the hard stone floor made a much of a louder noise.
He heard a tired, startled noise from the guard outside his door, who must have been dozing beforehand. Alibaba quickly brought himself down to the floor, flailing his limbs to cause as much ruckus as possible.
"What's going on in there?!" the guard hissed through the door.
Alibaba didn't cease his fussing. "... Hurts!" he managed to hiss, which was true, but for better reason. He slammed his wrists and ankles against the ground, making as much noise as possible.
The door opened as the guard stepped in to see what was going on. Alibaba continued to convulse on the ground until the guard stepped to his side.
In an instant he got up, swinging his wrists so that the long chain between them could fling up and hook around the guard's neck. He shoved his foot onto the guard's back, leaning back and pulling with crossed arms, watching the guard claw at the chains at his neck while choking and convulsing. He only stopped when the guard let in a rattling, weak breath and fell to the ground, nearly bringing Alibaba down with him.
Alibaba untangled the chains from the man's neck, staring at them. The guard's weight had put a lot of pressure on the cuffs, and his wrists were almost black with bruises. It didn't matter, he told himself--he'd get them off anyway and the bruises would heal. Bruises are nothing, anyway.
He quickly and quietly searched the man, his experience from living off the streets helping him with knowing where to look. He was rewarded with a bag of coins, a set of keys, a more than useful sword, and some water and bread. Alibaba shoved the crust of bread into his mouth, chewing on it slowly as he cut parts of the guard's sleeve and stuffed the pieces of cloth into the bag of coins to muffle clinking. He vainly attempted to use the keys on his cuffs, but they were clearly meant for prisoner doors and did nothing.
He crept to his open door and peeped out.
Outside his cell was a long hallway. It was too dark to see either end of it.
Alibaba looked down at the chains at his feet. The ones on his hands he could handle, but the ones at his feet can only make noise and restrict him. Run and the clashing chains will wake everyone, slave and guard, and he'd be dead.
So he had to rely on stealth. Okay--he wasn't exactly light-footed, but Alibaba was good at being stealthy.
To go left or right though? Alibaba licked a finger, ignoring the dirty taste, and held it out in the air. He turned it slowly until he felt a chill coming from the left. Even if it didn't guarantee an exit, a window could provide at least an inkling of where he was in the building and even some light.
He held the guard's sword in his right hand as he pressed his back against the wall. He glided down the hall, the chains rattling against the floor with every step, but he made his steps light and rhythmic--it, hopefully, would not disturb any dozing guard.
He reached the end of the hallway, which naturally led to just another hallway. One end, the left, had a window, which he saw through the faint moonlight led to a simple dead end, with a door to the right that undoubtedly led to another save's cell. At least this one had no guard.
Alibaba hesitated. Undoubtedly there were other slaves in the building, facing the same pain and suffering he had already endured, probably worse. Unlike him, though, many had already lost hope.
He wondered how many cried themselves to sleep.
Alibaba shook his head harshly. He couldn't let himself think about it--even if there were others here, he couldn't save them! They'd wake everyone or even alert the guards themselves. As if all the slaves here combined were enough to fight off all the guards. Besides, he left the keys in his cell, since they'd only make more noise.
He clenched his teeth and began creeping to the opposite direction from the window, only stopping to cross the hallway so that he could slide against the wall that made the exterior of the building. This way he could guarantee that any door he would run into would most likely lead him outside.
He turned a corner cautiously. Where in the world were the guards, he wondered when he looked down the empty hallway. Was he the only one with one? He knew well from the structure of the building that he was in only a small slave prison. This lifted Alibaba’s hopes; he actually had a pretty good chance of escaping!
The hand holding the sword was slick with sweat, but he didn't turn himself to let go of the sword to wipe it on his clothes. He didn't encounter a guard or door on this hallway, and he turned the corner again.
He heard the air stir with soft breathing, and he froze where he was, feeling cold sweat erupt onto his forehead and arms. His eyes searched the darkness wildly and finally spotted a guard sitting against a door--a door that connected to the wall Alibaba was leaning against, indicating that it led outside.
Clearly the guard was asleep, or else Alibaba’s chains would have alerted him by now. Alibaba released the breath that he had kept painfully in his chest, not daring to move his arms or legs in fear of waking the guard. Luck was still being kind to him. He was actually almost out of the building now and every man he had wandered upon happened to be almost asleep. Maybe some kind soul had drugged the guards’ food beforehand--something preposterous.
Or maybe they were all just sleepy. One way to really find out.
He took a deep breath and began running. The chains on his feet clanked wildly against the ground, and he heard the guard wake with a startled, confused noise. Alibaba knew that he was taking a huge risk, but he couldn’t rely on stealth when the chains were noisy even with little stimulation.
He reached the guard and, before he could fully wake up, smashed the handle of his sword against the guard’s temple. The guard quickly fell unconscious, and Alibaba grabbed him to prevent him from slamming to the ground.
He didn’t bother looting the guard this time, and instead just fished a set of keys from his belt. He quickly tried them on the door. One particularly rusty key clicked in place, and he opened the door.
A breeze of fresh, cold air greeted him, and for a moment he felt a sense of disillusionment. It couldn't have been this easy, could it? But here he was--the moon, still high in the sky, was the same one he had seen every night before.
He didn't allow the sensation to last. Alibaba quickly looked to his left and right. Not a guard in sight; the area was clear of any sort of vegetation, which was to be expected, and yet it was strangely empty from any other building as well. He could see some, far off in the darkness, but besides that the area was relatively empty.
Something felt wrong with this, but he brushed it off quickly. Who cared. He couldn't sense anyone nearby, no buildings meant less people, and this just meant freedom for him.
He took a tentative step forward.
The chains were less noisy against hard dirt. The more steps he took away from that prison, the more relief Alibaba felt, the more he felt as if he could relax--he didn’t, though, and his hand was still tightly clenched around the sword’s handle.
Even with his eyes constantly glancing at the ground for traps, he didn’t notice the wire until it pressed against his already whipped ankle, causing pain to shoot up his leg.
Crap! He instantly heard dogs barking from the distance--the wire must have set off some noise far away. Despite himself he glanced down to get a closer look at the wire--it had been painted black, obviously meant for nighttime, and it was no wonder that he wasn’t able to see it.
That didn’t matter now, Alibaba thought to himself through the mad beating of his heart. Adrenaline raced through his bloodstream as he quickly hopped over the wire, breaking into an awkward sprint. He tried to ignore the chains as much as possible, but they prevented him from fully extending his legs, and more than once he found himself almost tripping.
He could hear the dogs closer now, and guards too, yelling as they chased after the dogs. Shit, he wasn’t sure if he could fight against that number.
Alibaba felt that he had hardly ran when the first dog got to him. He didn’t hesitate; he lashed his sword at the barking creature, not bothering to even look at it in the darkness, and he heard it yelps quiet as he ran. He had near no idea where he was even going now; the scenery all looked the same, and he realized his location with a small jolt: he was at the outskirts of Qishan, which explained why what he thought was a part of the sky was actually a huge wall.
He could either run to the wilderness, which meant a low chance of survival, or into Qishan itself, which would only lead to capture. Alibaba’s steps faltered, himself confused.
The brief hesitation allowed another dog to lunge at him. Alibaba let out a startled yell as he felt its teeth sink into his left arm, and he vainly attempted to shake it off, taking a few steps back in a panicked frenzy before sense drove him to hit the dog with the hilt of his sword. The dog let go, but it snarled and lunged again.
Alibaba kicked it, hard, but hurried footsteps were approaching too quickly, and he looked around to the guards that had surrounded him.
There were only five of them, but five against one was not in his favor. He only had time to draw in a quick breath before the first guard attacked.
Sword meet sword, and Alibaba's bruised muscles strained underneath the pressure of the guard's blow. He scraped his blade against the other's, moving down toward the guard so that he could knee him in the stomach. He quickly spun around, catching the blade of another guard with his sword, and lunged.
His swordsmanship, mainly skilled with the short, wide daggers that he had been trained with before in his childhood, was clumsy, and yet his experience in fighting was clear. The guards noticeably drew back the force in their blows, evidently confused; Alibaba didn't let this stop him and continued attacking furiously, now keeping both hands on the handle of his sword so that he could strike as hard as he possibly could.
He knocked the sword out of one of the guard’s hands, and he felt their blows lessen. What, were they losing hope? The wild thought was hopeful; he could see the guards stepping back a bit, and he ran forward, yelling, to break through.
Something sharp pricked his neck. Alibaba stumbled wildly, reaching up to grab whatever had poked him and pulling it out. His eyes registered a needle, topped with a colorful feather, in his hand before his knees suddenly gave out, and he felt himself hit the ground.
Dammit... he could only think to himself as he looked at the feet approaching him. His muscles wouldn’t move, no matter how much he told them too.
Darkness enveloped him once more, and he screamed at it in frustration.