Luna and Razim on the run

Luna looked down at the dagger in her hand. It was covered in blood, in his blood, and it was the only color she could see. She looked over at the sweaty fat man as a pool of that same blood form underneath him. Suddenly Razim was in front of her and he was shouting something at her, but she could not hear what he was saying. Razim reached his hand up and shook Luna a bit. Luna jumped in shock at the touch and dropped the dagger with a loud clang. She heard the metal hit the floor as tears started to well up in her eyes. They blurred the image of her younger brother as he reached down and grabbed her hand. He turned and pulled her with him, flying through the door that lead into the backroom. Razim lead her to the middle of the room where he let go of her hand and threw open a chest. He rummaged around inside and produced a pair of short swords.

Quickly strapping one to his belt and ran to Luna and said, “Here put this on, we might have need of them, the gods know he wont need them anymore.”

Luna looked down at the sword as if it were a coiled snake.

“Luna,” Razim said, “you will be okay but we need to get out of here. If they find out what happened…”

His voice trailed off as Luna slowly reached out to grab the sword. As soon as she had it on her belt they heard a loud pounding knock at the front door. Razim cursed under his breath and motioned for Luna to follow him. He led her into the kitchen and went to the back door. A shadow could be seen behind the curtain over the sink also heading for the back door. It’s not locked Luna realized as the knob started to twist. Razim froze as the door cracked open. He felt Luna push him and before he knew what was going on they were in a dark pantry. The two held there breath as they heard heavy foot steps stride across the kitchen calling out to anyone in the house. It took only a moment for the foot steps to cross the kitchen and enter the living room, but to Luna and Razim that moment was the moment they realized they could never go back to how things were before. Luna reached down and pulled up a trap door that went into the basement. She hurried Razim inside and quickly followed closing the door behind her. She reached up and secured the latch, double checking that it was in place before joining up with Razim. The basement was full of dust and forgotten things, a small amount of light lazily filled the room from a small window on one side. It went to the front yard and Luna pondered the idea of squeezing through it and making a break for it.

“Luna over here,” Razim whispered, startling Luna out of her thought, “the old bastard may have something we could use in this stuff.”

Razim quickly produced a couple of packs and some heavy blankets. Luna gathered some cheese and dried fruit and meat and some bread and added those to the pack as well.

“What good is that stuff going to do us if we are stuck down here Luna. We don’t have any way of getting out, except that window maybe, but I think we are too big to fit through it.” Razim said has he walked around the basement.

He stopped suddenly looking at a chest with a questioning look. I was not an ordinary chest, instead it was carved with dragons battling knights. Luna noticed Razim and walked over to stand next to him. They both looked at the chest with wonder, it was clearly not made in Coranith.

“What do you think is inside Luna?” Razim said not taking his eyes off the chest.

“I don’t know, why don’t you open and see if it’s something useful?” Luna said in hushed tones looking between her brother and the chest.

Razim walked forward and pulled up on the lid, only to find that it was stuck in place. He pulled on it harder and placed a foot on the bottom of the chest to try and pry it open but with no luck.

“Quiet you idiot, do you want them to find us. Here let me take a look at it.” Luna knelt beside the chest as Razim scowled at her and walked to a group of chairs stacked against the wall.

Luna’s hands felt around the chest but she could not find a lock. She spent a moment trying to find a clue in the design on the chest when she heard a loud crash behind her. She turned around quickly to see a pile of broken chairs on top of Razim. Luna started to laugh at the sight as a shadow fell across the room, someone was looking in the window! They were shouting something and Luna could hear more voices coming. She turned and kicked the chest moving a knights sword into the belly of a dragon and the chest sprang open. She looked inside and found a small bag that seemed filled with coins. She reached in opened it and saw a number of gold and silver coins inside. Maybe she could bribe her way out of this she thought, the guards and officials were commonly known to be corrupt. She quickly shook the thought out of her head a few strands of her dark black hair falling across her face.

Razim scrambled out from under the chairs and dusted himself off. He looked over at Luna who had attached the bag of coins to her belt and was glaring at him. He shrugged apologetically as his dark blue eyes said sorry. Luna looked over at the pile of chairs and behind where they were stacked was a small door. She motioned to the door as they heard a loud thump on the trap door. Razim and Luna both pulled on the door to open it and quickly slipped inside. The passage was long and dark and Razim took the lead, feeling along the wall as he went. The passage ended at a ladder the went up into the darkness. Luna stood close to Razim, her head was swimming, she had always been afraid of the dark and it was all she could to not to scream.

“Luna,” Luna was silent, “Luna! Snap out of it, there is a ladder here and it probably goes to the street somewhere.” Luna stood paralyzed finally realizing how dark it really was. Razim made a frustrated face as he grabbed Luna’s hand. He put it on the ladder and moved her closer to it.

“Luna,” he muttered, “light is at the top of the ladder, the quicker you climb the sooner we’ll be out of the dark.” He words trailed off at ‘out’ as Luna started to disappear into the darkness above him before he could finish talking. He smiled to himself and hurried to catch up to her.