Arabian Knights

"Hold on, I'll come untie you." Alla called back to the voice. She had managed to slip out of her ropes and get over to try and wake the others up. "I'll be right back." She had already gotten a few of the other women in a close circle near Nina. She quickly made her way to the voice and found Kalilah, she didn't know the girl that well but she quickly untied her and led her to the rest of the group. They all sat in a circle as Alla looked around for something to use to possibly defend herself.

"Alla, what are we going to do?" Serra asked, she had woken up. Alla frowned, she didn't know why Serra expected her to deal with it but she sighed.

"I don't know, we'll figure something out." She sat down next to the other women not having found anything.

Jordan was the only one who stayed behind after the battle, his sword upright in the sand, the silver blade almost bloddied to the hilt. He gripped the hilt in both hands, his forehead resting on his fists. One of his arms was bleeding terribly, but he didn't seem to notice. Above him Relda kited, her beak and talons bloodied, shrieking continously, as if calling a name.

An Arabian man came down the street and gave Jordan a strange look. "You okay?" he said.

Jordan looked up and recongized him as Kalilah's father, Amin. "They've taken him," he groaned. "They must've mistaken him as an Arab..."

"Who?"

Jordan grit his teeth and looked away. "Jhadi," he said. "My squire."

Amin sighed and nodded. "They took my daughter," he said, trying to provide some comfort.

The knight said nothing, gazing up at the falcon as she gave out another piercing cry.

Kalilah

"We need to fight," I whispered.

"But how?" A woman who's name I vaguely remembered as Alla began to once more probe the room with her eyes. Serra joined in and soon we were all up, wandering around the room picking up any loose objects.

"What do you have?" One woman asked as we gathered back in the centre. There were five of us in total. Two women I didn't know, Alla, Serra and myself.

"I've got some coils of rope," The other unfamiliar woman sighed holding up the rope that we had been bound with.

"A ragged sheet. Probably an old sail or something," Alla sighed.

"A bucket," Serra added.

"A bit of wood with some nails in," I shrugged holding up the loose floor plank that I'd managed to pry up.

Alla looked around, when she heard something. She followed the noise and found a small boy.

"Oh dear." She quickly untied him, "Are you ok?" She asked,

"I...I don't know." He mumbled. Alla pulled him into a hug,

"You can stick with us." She smiled,

"I'm going to be a Knight, I can save you all." He said getting back his bravery. Alla smiled,

"It would take more then one Knight to get us out of here." She smiled.

Kalilah

"Jhadi!" I exclaimed as Alla brought the squire towards us.

"Miss Kalilah?" Jhadi asked.

"What happened? Hw did you get seperated from Sir Jordan?"

"I don't know. I got hit on the head. We're in a pirate ship? What's the plan for getting out?"

"We don't really have one yet but we found a few items that might be helpful. You don't happen to have your weapons on you?"

Jhadi pursed his lips. "They expected me to have something, miss, so they did a decent search. But..." he bent down and wromed his fingers in between his sole and his shoe, pulling out a thin, unhilted blade.

"I've got another one in my other boot, but that's it. What can we do with two blades?"

Nina stood up and glanced around the dark cell they were holding the women in.

She went to the locked door and tugged, it didn't budge."These pirates are good," she mused to herself, then she went to the window and looked out.

"Allah, please let Richard and my father be safe. Let my father protect my mother, she is too strong headed to know when to keep her mouth shut." She closed her eyes, letting a single tear slip out. "Please, let us be safe."

Alla walked around the room trying to think of something. Her stomach did a flip flop from the rocking of the boat. SHe was never one for the sea. She heard heavy boots coming down the stairs and she got all the girls and the young boy together away from the door.

A huge pirate walked in with several behind him. THe ones behind him had their swords pulled out incase the women tried to attack them or something.

"I see ya got untied." The big pirate smiled, none of the women said anything and the young boy tried to stand infront as if to protect them but Alla kept her hand on his shoulder keeping him close to her.

*sorry, i don't got much.*

Kalilah

The first pirate walked around us and I blushed as he very bluntly inspected us. When he made his way around to me, I forced my eyes forward and observed the three smirking men who had accompanied him into the room. Four. One without a sword drawn but that wasn't much help.

"Oh yes. They'll do," The first pirate remarked, strolling back to the front. Jhadi's fist clenched and inched towards his sword but Alla squeezed his shoulder and the window of opportunity passed as the pirates left the room and locked the door behind them.

"Great, back where we started," Nina sighed.

"Not quite," I replied. "They've done their inspection so they probably wont be back for a while. See this plank of wood? Jhadi can use hisknife to pry the nail out and we might be able to pick the lock," I suggested.

"Pick the lock?" Alla repeated raising an eyebrow.

"I have some experience in that area," I admitted.

Jhadi pursed his lips, thumbing the thin knives from his boots. "I'm not sure they can take it," he said. "They're for quickly sliting a throat for an easy escape."

"Just try."

Jhadi took the plank and buried the point of the knife next to the nail, trying to dig in out. The tip broke off.

Jhadi cursed and gazed down at the elusive nail, thoughtfully twirling the blade in his hand. After a while of thinking, he set one edge of the blade against the wood, placing the other edge against the head of the nail. then, pushing against the other side of the nail, he pried it out of the plank, and tossed it to Kalilah.

"There you go, miss," he siad, slipping the other blade up his sleeve.

Kalilah

"Thanks," I replied and encircled the astonished boy with my arms before kneeling by the door. I inserted the nail into the lock and used my slim, delicate fingers to rattle it around until it slipped past the first guard. Carefully, I applied a little more pressure and, when nothing gave way, I tapped it left a touch and then right until it slipped further into the lock, past another guard.

The third move took a little more time and I was afriad that the piece of metal was too thick but finally it slotted into place. I moved closer to the lock and took the head of the nail between my teeth. When I turned my head to the right, I grimaced at the rusty taste and the sharp point that pressed against my enammel but the lock had rotated a little.

I took my mouth from around the nail and then put it back and once more turned my head to the right. This time the nail scraped against my teeth and I tasted blood but once more the lock revolved a touch and I repeated the action over and over until I heard a soft click.

Alla

Alla smiled when she heard the lock click.

"Now what?" She asked, "We can't take on a whole ship of pirates."

"We could always see if we could sneak more weapons back here." One of the women said.

"We could, but we would have to be really quick and know where we are going." Alla thought, "Maybe, just maybe. If we could sneak to a small boat. We would have to paddle faster then ever and even if we get tired we would have to keep paddling, but, it just might work. I would say send the smallest out, but they'll kill him and probably wont kill one of us."

Kalilah

"Then the next smallest," Nina suggested logically.

"That would be me," One of the girls I didn't know smiled weakly as she held up her hand and then let it fall to herself.

"But Talia, what if you get hurt? What if she gets hurt? She can't go alone." The other girl, who I suddenly recognised as Mischa, was just a year or two older and shared the same chestnut hair and small build. Perhaps nineteen.

"Then come with me," Talia pleaded, gaining confidence. We can search for the knights together."

"That sounds like a good idea," Alla agreed.

"Okay. Let's try to create a distraction. You two sneak out and hide somewhere near by and one of us will pretend to be ill to attract them to this room," I suggested.

"But what about the door. They'll find out it's unlocked and count how many of us there are," Nina protested.

"Not if we have everyone spread out and a few keep moving around." Alla replied,

"That should work," Kalilah replied,

"Whose a good actor?" Alla asked looking around, the boy raised his hand just a little. Alla smiled, "that would be perfect, cause then all we have to do is bustle around and act like we're trying to find stuff to help him."

*srry it is short*

No problem.

Kalilah

We waited another hour or so for the cover of dark and then we edged the door open as quietly as possible and the two younger girls crept out. The door opened onto a corridoor close to some stairs. The stairs provided perfect cover for our volunteers and there they were hiding when Jhadi began to scream.

At first, I thought the pirates would ignore us so I urged the other ladies to shout and scream too which certainly attracted their attention.

"What's going on in here?" One pirate demanded, charging through the door. Now was the moment of truth. This was the man we had to work on. If he remembered that the door had been unlocked when he entered, we were in trouble but if we could make him forget...

"The boy, the boy is sick!" I cried out. "You have to do something. How dare you put a sick child in here. I'll have you know that this boy is an arab nobleman's son and his constitution is very fragile!"

"Whatever shall we do? There must be a blanket here somewhere," Alla declared, bustling back and forth.

"Oh yes, we simply must find him a blanket," Nina agreed.

"A...a nobleman's son you say?" The lone pirate asked, chewing his lip in an aprehensive way.

"I have a sheet!" All declared, dragging the old sail cloth forward and brandishing it about.

"A nobleman's son...Hey! Hey, hey! Get down here everybody. We have a crisis down here!" The pirate exclaimed.