POV Phoenice

"Danger." the voice of her sisters startled her out of her sleep. Someone was approaching her and her instincts told her it was no friend. No sooner had she made a plan to escape than a line of cruelly smiling people surrounded her. 

Phoenice recognized one of the villagers among them; she had asked him at his fruit stand for the location of her destination. Panic-stricken, she clutched the book in front of her chest. Her eyes tried to find a hole in the wall that the men had formed around her. Without success they kept coming towards her threateningly. The circle around them became smaller and smaller.  

"Well, look at her, she's really beautiful." a thick stocky one without hair, sweat shining on his forehead in the moonlight clicked his tongue appreciatively in the direction of his accomplices. 

"Told you, man. The Lord offers a gold piece for each of us if we bring them to him." the gaunt one had hardly any teeth and those he did have were rotten black she had to look away out of disgust and because of his bad breath that rose fetidly to her nostrils.  

"Almost too bad to leave her to that in his castle." the stall owner rubbed his hands lustfully and eyed his victim from top to bottom. 

"Don't forget what he'll do to us if we don't give them to him." warned the biggest and strongest of them. Phoenice shivered looking into his eyes they were as cold as stones. 

"But we could at least have our fun with her first." the fat man tried to reach for her with his misshapen fingers, sticky with sweat, but she avoided him from the tree at his back until it was far too late that she realized that this had been a mistake. 

"I will not risk my head for a woman. We will take her to the count without harm! Who wants to speak against me?" he looked warningly into the round. Waldor knew that no one would dare, so he nodded silently and gave the signal to grab the girl. The men rushed at Phoenice before she had a chance to react, with the trunk at her back she was as good as immobilized. The last thing she heard were the screams of her frightened and terrified sisters before she went black and the world sank into darkness.