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“Escape” Shin sat in silence, meditating on his current situation, formulating a plan of escape.Ahead of him was the cooking fire that his guard, Riff, was currently pre-occupied with.To his left, about 25 ft. away he could make out the distinctive glimmer of his sword “Tarantula”.It was lying beside the clothes of Julia and Rod who at the moment were out in the lake taking a bath.Shin knew this was the perfect time to make his escape. At that moment Shin shouted,“Spider Rune, lend me your strength”.Suddenly he was bathed in a golden light, and in a single movement, he broke free of his chains and leapt toward his sword.Riff, taken of guard by Shin’s display of power, quickly picked up his spear and ran after him.By this time Julia and Rod, who had been out in the lake were swimming with all their might toward shore.But they were to late, Shin had already retrieved his sword, and now he stood poised for battle waiting for his first opposition.That lot fell on the unfortunate Riff.Charging with all his might, Riff made a beeline for Shin’s mid-section.With a quick spin to the outside Shin avoided this feeble attempt at an attack.In the same motion he brought the blunt hilt of his sword down on the back of Riff’s neck and completely knocked him out.He then bent down and picked up Riff’s spear, then quickly made for a nearby tree. By the time Julia and Rod made it to the shore Shin was nowhere to be seen.They both quickly gathered their clothes and weapons and spread out to make a search for Shin. “If he gets away he’ll turn us in and ruin everything” Rod gruffly stated. “Well then let’s shut him up permanently!” Julia snapped back. “Fine, but how do you suggest we find him, he could be miles away by now” Rod insisted. “Not him, he didn’t leave, he’s here so let’s spread out and find him” Julia said as she moved toward the brush near the lakes, shore, “I’ll look over here, you take that grouping of trees. Shin saw and heard this whole ordeal from his perch high in one of the trees, cleverly masked from the view of his adversaries.He watched and waited until finally Rod had made his way to the small grove of trees.In his right hand Shin held several acorns, he pulled back and threw one into the brush 20 yards ahead of him.Rod jumped at the sound, but he quickly recovered and slowly began to walk toward the source of the sound.Silently Shin snuck down from the tree and began to creep up behind his prey.Meanwhile, Rod, with every muscle in his body tense, could only think about the way Shin had fought during the battle with the bandits.He rubbed the arrow wound on his shoulder, a little reminder of the fight, and wondered how he could every defeat a warrior like Shin.Secretly he hoped that Julia would find him. But he couldn’t be so lucky, because at that point Shin was practically on top of him.Shin knew by this point that he would have to take them all in alive or be accused murder when they didn’t arrive with the convoy.So he reached forward and grabbed Rod by the neck.Rod didn’t have a moment to react because with a flick of Shin’s wrist he was unconscious. Elsewhere, Julia was getting frustrated.“Where are you coward!” she shouted while slashing at the brush with her saber.It was at this time that Shin was emerging from the wagon after tying Rod up with his friend Riff.“One more to go” Shin said to himself.Julia wasn’t hard to find with all her yelling and taunting.So Shin quickly made his way toward her position.Suddenly he shouted in pain, there in his right arm was an arrow.It wasn’t enough to seriously injure him, but it would make fighting with it impossible.As Shin winced in pain he looked back to where the arrow had to come from.“It had to have come from that grove of trees I was just in”, Shin thought, “But who could have shot it?”.But there was no time to think about that now, because Julia had heard his cry and was running toward him, saber drawn.Shin quickly bent down and picked “Tarantula” back up with his left hand; he had dropped it when the arrow had struck him.Turning a full 90 degrees he met his attackers first blow cleanly.However, with an injured right arm this battle was turning into more of a challenge than Shin had bargained for. “I have you now” Julia shouted as she swung, barely missing Shin’s midsection with the slash.“I don’t normally fight women but for you I’ll make an exception” Shin replied angrily.Julia easily met Shin’s counter blow, he just wasn’t fast enough with his left hand.“Oh this is going to be to easy”, Julia gloated as she gashed Shin’s left arm.“Ahh!!” Shin grimaced in pain, he was started to get sick of this.“It’s time to end this Julia” Shin shouted in anger.In one instant Shin picked up his right leg and drove a side kick into Julia’s midsection.Instantly Julia sank to the ground gasping for air.When she looked up Shin’s foot blasting into her face greeted her, then all went black. Shin was treating his wounds when he noticed Julia come to. “Morning sunshine, did you have a nice nap?” Shin asked sweetly. “You!” Julia scream furiously. “Wow, someone has a problem with mornings.” Shin replied coolly. “How did you beat us, we had you outnumbered three to one!” Julia shouted hysterically. “To tell you the truth there could have been ten of you and I still would be sitting here with you all tied up.You were simply outclassed in every category.” Shin responded nonchalantly. “What are you talking about, no one can fight against those odds.Who are you really?” Julia quizzically replied. “I can.Oh, look at the time.As stimulating as this conversation is we really need to get going.You have a date with the local authorities, and it would be rude to keep them waiting.” Shin smugly said. Julia could only look on, her jaw dropped. Next, Shin gathered the wagon reigns and continued his journey toward the waterfalls.As he drove the wagon he fell into deep thought, “Who could have shot that arrow?”.As he examined the arrow’s shaft the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.It was “Him”.
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