“By who?” whispered Joshua. “Palace guards?”
“BackAlly Boys,” replied Lance. “Two are behind us, I’m guessing the other three have already sneaked around in front of us. Make sure your sword is close-by, go after Nick, he’s the worst fighter out of the group and you know who he is since he’s Pearlman’s assistant. The odd looking one is AJ; he’s good, but over-cocky. I’ll take care of the other three. Be on guard though, they’ll attack soon.”
Sure enough as those words left Lance’s mouth an arrow flew by Joshua’s head.
“Get down!” commanded Lance drawing his sword as the crowd scattered. Doing the same to his sword, Joshua tried to remain calm.
Out of the corner of his eye, Joshua saw someone charge at him with a sword drawn. Blocking the attack with ease, Joshua ducked as another sword swiped at his head. Dropping to the ground, Joshua rolled away from his attackers, so that when he stood back up a few feet away he was facing both of them. The one he recognized as Nick, the other he assumed was AJ from his appearance.
“Give it up Joshie,” sneered Nick as he attacked again, lunging at Joshua, but easily was Joshua able to force him to the ground, as AJ joined the attack.
“You’re going down princey,” taunted AJ as they shared blows.
“Not any time soon,” grunted Joshua bringing a heavy blow down knocking AJ’s sword out of his hand, forcing the thug to dive across the ground for it.
Joshua however had no time to rest as Nick rejoined the battle.
“Say hi to your sister,” he sneered, knowing that Joshua didn’t have much left in him.
Those words, however, lit a fire within Joshua. Swiping his sword upwards strongly, it connected powerfully with Nick’s sword causing the other sword to fly up in the air. Simultaneously, Joshua delivered a swift kick to Nick’s mid-section causing the younger man to fall to the ground in pain. This allowed Joshua enough time to catch Nick’s sword as it came back to the ground, and he then quickly placed the tips of both swords up against Nick’s throat before AJ could react.
“Drop it!” commanded Joshua to AJ, indicating to the other man’s sword. “Don’t think I won’t do it!”
“Do it AJ!” yelled Nick as sweat from the battle and from fear poured down his face.
“Wimp,” mumbled AJ to himself tossing the sword to the ground in the direction of Joshua, who in return, slowly removed the blades from Nick’s throat, so that the younger man was able to scamper to the safely of his friend.
“You’ll pay for this!” yelled Nick hiding behind AJ. “Once Howie, Brian and Kevin have taken care of your friend, you’ll have no one to help you any more!”
“Lance!” panicked Joshua remembering he hadn’t see the mercenary since the battle had started, or the other members of the BackAlly Boys. Realizing that the fight must of sent them in opposite directions, Joshua quickly ran off in the direction he thought Lance and the others might have gone in.
*~*~*
“Good move Howie!” called Brian from the sidelines where he and Kevin stood watching the action going on between Howie and Lance. Unlike AJ or Nick, they weren’t overconfident in their abilities and they knew that if they were to beat the mercenary they would have to wear him down, bit by bit, by trading in and out of battle.
Brian had started the fight and now it was Howie’s turn. Nevertheless, Lance was still holding his own, which caused Kevin to fire a couple of arrows at Lance every so often so that the mercenary would have to break concentration and duck out of the way allowing the BackAlly Boy to gain an unfair advantage.
Lance wasn’t too worried about the arrows though since he knew that Kevin was a lousy shot and he also knew that one little arrow wasn’t enough to defeat him. What Lance didn’t know however, was that the arrows were tipped with a poison which gave whoever came in contact with the poison a deadly fever which, if went untreated quickly, would result in death.
“I think you should prepare to go in soon or get better aim with those arrows pretty damn quick,” grumbled Brian as Lance began getting the upper hand again.
“If you think you have such a great aim, why don’t you try and hit the guy?” shot back Kevin, trusting the bow at Brian.
“Fine,” sighed Brian rolling his eyes. Kevin’s main job was keeping an eye on Nick so that the younger man stayed out of trouble, however it seemed that Nick was having more of an influence on Kevin, than Kevin was on Nick.
Taking aim, Brian was almost ready to fire when he was distracted from the shouting of a loud voice and the appearance of Prince Joshua running directly at himself and Kevin with two swords drawn, ready for battle.
“Shit,” mumbled Brian as the arrow went flying somewhat in the direction of Lance. However Brian couldn’t tell if he had hit the man or if it had missed.
“Let’s get out of here,” hissed Kevin, while wondering what had happened to Nick and AJ.
“Right,” replied Brian, keeping his eyes on the approaching prince. “Howie, let’s go! We’ll get them later.” With that the three men, darted off back into the alleys where they belonged.
“Are you okay?” asked Joshua rushing over to Lance who was expecting his shoulder.
“Fine,” replied Lance before his eyes rolled back into his head and he dropped to the ground like dead weight.
“Lance!” cried Joshua dropping down next to him to see if the blond-haired man was still alive, which he was but barely.
‘Help,’ thought Joshua. The local hospital was out of the question and Joshua knew no one in town, except for . . .
“Don’t worry, Lance,” he whispered as he gently lifted the mercenary in his arms and began walking back to the bar where he and Lance had met. The barkeeper had seem so familiar to Joshua while he had been there, only now however did it click to the prince that the barkeeper had been Joey Fatone, his best friend until his father refused Joshua to be allowed out in the town.
*~*~*
“Don’t you guys have people to rob?” sighed Joey to Chris and Justin. It had been hours since the pair first wandered into the bar and they had refused to leave since then. Even after Joey had pointed out to them that customers were leaving over the stunt that Chris pulled with the stranger and the mercenary Lance. No one could get over the fact that Lance had actually talked to a person.
“Joey,” whined Justin. “It’s not like anyone else is in here. You don’t have to worry about us stealing from customers when no one else is around.”
“Maybe if you two left then customers would come around,” grumbled Joey under his breath but there was no way he was going to kick out his two best friends.
“See a customer,” pointed out Chris as they heard the door open behind them, while indicating to Joey to refill his drink.
“Help me,” begged a voice and the three men finally turned around to see the stranger back, this time with Lance in his arms as he quickly walked over to the bar and gently placed the mercenary on the counter.
“Oh no!” declared Chris jumping back from the prone body. “A few hours ago he was ready to rip me a new one, no way am I helping him.”
“Chris is right,” agreed Joey. “Mercenaries are bad for business. Plus being a mercenary is a risky business, this type of thing isn’t uncommon around here stranger.”
“Joey, please,” begged Joshua throwing back the hood of this cloak reveling his face for the first time to the small group.
“Oh my God,” mumbled Joey in shock.
“What?” asked Justin in confusing looking back and forth between Joey and Joshua. “Who are you?”
“JC?” asked Joey, his voice a whisper, using his nickname for the young prince when they had been kids.
“Yeah,” nodded Joshua, begging at Joey with his clear, blue eyes as tears formed in them. “Please help him. We can’t go to the doctors here because father will find out.”
“Shit,” mumbled Joey trying, unsuccessfully, to sort out the thoughts running through his head.
“What’s going on?” asked Chris just as confused as Justin. “Joey? How do you know the stranger?”
“He’s no stranger,” sighed Joey, turning back to his friends. “He’s Prince Joshua Chasez.”
“Prince?!” exclaimed Justin and Chris staring at Joshua.
“Look Joey, I escaped from the castle this morning,” explained Joshua. “I was only supposed to have been gone a few hours to just be normal again like it was when we were kids. But then I saw how bad it was and I want to help, but to do that I need Lance’s help.”
“But your father-“
“My father doesn’t care and he won’t listen to me!” interrupted Joshua. “All he does is what Lou tells him to. Help us Joey, give me chance to make things right.”
“Leave O-Town now,” sighed Joey as Joshua’s words sunk in. “Lance has a horse called FreeLance which should be in the stables. His horse should be able to get both you and him to La quickly, which is a small village about two days from here. Once there, find the inn, the owner is a friend of ours named Britney. Tell Britney that I’ve sent you and that she is supposed to seek help for Lance. Tell her, he has a fever and needs medical attention right away. If you move fast enough, he’ll be fine. Do you know how he was injected with the poison?”
“An arrow but it wasn’t a direct hit.”
“That will hopefully give us more time,” continued Joey. “I’ll be traveling about three days behind you so wait for me in La. From there we follow whatever Lance’s plan is.”
“Joey, you don’t have to come,” replied Joshua however more than anything would he of like to spend some time with his old friend.
“Hey, I live here, I want to see the madness end,” chuckled Joey gently.
“We’ll show you how to sneak out of the town unseen, your highness,” added Justin indicating to himself and Chris, while Chris looked at Justin in shock. He obviously didn’t want to be involved but won’t say anything in front of the prince.
“Call me Josh or JC,” smiled Joshua, grateful for their help. Despite only knowing Lance for a few hours, Joshua could feel the connection they shared. He didn’t know what it was but he knew it was something.