The last few hours had felt like a dream.

Horace had imagined his escape from the camp more than a hundred times. While he lied on his back for the night and found a comfortable place to set his shackled wrists, he would stare upward and imagine the warden arriving to inform him he had been pardoned. Or perhaps a great earthquake would crack the walls and allow him to escape. Sometimes it turned out that the Archtemplar was not dead after all, he’d merely gotten stuck in the privy and was too ashamed to admit it.

Last night, he’d ended his day as he’d ended every other: dispirited and in pain. One of the guards—the female one who’d be fetching if she could stop scowling for a half minute—had pulled him aside to hand him his usual string of questioning. By now, Horace had given up telling them that he knew nothing. He just made untoward comments and gave bitter welcome to his new round of bruises.

Gods, he might have been able to stand it if he could remember [i]something[/i]! DID he kill that bleeding bastard? He didn’t feel [i]capable[/i] of murder, but perhaps that was hidden in his fogged memory as well.

But now, suddenly, none of that mattered. Instead of being executed, he found himself in tow behind a mysterious stranger. A man with the power to almost single handedly (or was it all him?) disable the slave camp and help him and the others escape. Horace should have been relieved, elated, but he found he was only numb. He would be grateful, perhaps, when he understood what was happening.

The amnesia was still gripping him, and just as before, he had no control over his situation. None. What fate was he walking to now? What would happen if he fled? Not that he had the energy for it. Not yet, anyway.

When the man spoke for the first time in a long quiet span, Horace lifted his head warily. All he could smell was the flowering plantlife, a scent that would from this day forward remind him of his freedom. If he wasn’t killed horrifically by tomorrow.

Horace’s attention gradually sharpened into alarm as the situation began to slide apparently out of the stranger’s control. He gritted his teeth when he noticed the armored knight, and not for the first time he felt Death’s icy presence looming behind him, readying her scythe. Horace nearly choked on his own breath when the woman appeared as well, armed for combat. She was easy on the eyes, but probably not on the torso, by the look of that spear.

A hundred and seventy pounds of uselessness, he clenched his hands into fists and waited for direction from the stranger. What else could he do?

“What—?!” Horace looked off into the crags, hesitating. Why was the stranger making it sound as if he’d have to find his answers alone? He could handle himself in a fight, couldn’t he? Would he catch up with them later? He had to. Either way, Horace couldn’t stand here in indecision. “Well… you neither, mate! I expect to see you again!”

With a glance to the other prisoners escaped from the camp, he began to jog offward. He wouldn’t run until he was sure the others would be coming with him.

“C’mon, do as ‘e says,” he beckoned. Whether they would choose to be his allies or not, Horace didn’t want to flee alone. “I assume the man knows what he’s doin’!”