Free Aela by Rosalind Hyson

tried to make a run for it, but he was soon again surrounded by the guards. He yelled in despair, ‘this is a trick and it is not true. Juno gave me a free pardon that I could leave immediately.’
    The guards were equally amazed at this sudden change of orders. They stopped and turned towards the person who had claimed the reversal of the orders from Juno. The Head Guard exclaimed, ‘On what authority do you have to order us to bring Rom back to Juno.’
    â€˜I have a written order signed by Juno himself.’ As he spoke he thrust the piece of paper into the hands of the Head Guard.
    â€˜That is not any good for me as I cannot read.’
    â€˜Well that is not my fault,’ retorted the messenger.
    There was a heavy silence between the two protagonists as they glared at each other. The Head Guard began to mutter to himself, ‘Okay! Okay!, come on men let us return with our prisoner and hand him over to Juno. As far as I am concerned Juno can do whatever he likes with Rom.’
    So with a heavy heart Rom was ordered to turn around and the party retraced their steps back to the Temple of the Sun. Rom was seething with rage at the sudden change of events and vowed he would seek revenge. Everyone was silent in the group as they retraced their steps back to Juno’s palace.
    It was sunrise when the unhappy party reached their destination and Rom was once more thrown in prison. This was Rom’s darkest moment in his life, as he now had plenty of time to think about his hopeless situation, whilst lying spreadeagled on the floor of his prison cell. He had hoped to be a free man again, so he could continue on his quest for the possession of the Sacred Sword and be able to rescue Aela as well.
    But, here he was a prisoner once more and he was sure that Juno would this time have him killed. In his mind he could visualise he was running through the forest trees, putting as much distance as possible from the guards. He started to imagine in his thoughts what it would be like to be a free man again and he allowed himself to slip into a trance.
    He remained in this trance like state, to which to him appeared to be an eternity in time. He relished this feeling, cocooned in the ever encompassing emotion of love and feeling completely physically secure. He was very reluctant to bring himself out of this trance. But this peaceful feeling was slowly fading so he allowed himself to release himself from the trance coming back to this real gritty world. Gradually he woke up to the reality that he was Juno’s prisoner once more, lying on the floor, in a dank prison cell.
    Then an absolute incredible situation occurred, when once more the guards returned and hauled Rom up from the floor and propelled him out of the prison door. This time no one spoke a word, as the guards marched Rom down the dark alley, through the main gates and into the forest. Rom did not utter a sound, as he was totally convinced he would be murdered and his body left in the black depth of the forest, for the wolves to devour.
    After what seemed an agonising, never-ending time of walking, the guards suddenly stopped in the complete blackness of the sombre forest. Then without speaking, the guards melted away completely into the trees, leaving Rom standing alone, expecting at any second to receive a deadly blow on the head by one of the them, but nothing happened. So Rom fell slowly on his knees and gradually collapsed onto the ground, loudly moaning all the time. Once again total exhaustion took over and Rom lapsed into an exhausted sleep.
    Slowly, the sun moved higher on the horizon, Rom gradually opened his eyes as he lay sprawled on the ground. By moving his head from side to side to side he was able to clearly view all around him so that he could now see any animal or human if they tried to sneak up on him.
    He heard running water nearby, so he got himself to his feet and wearily made his way towards the sound. Soon he was looking into