Chapter 17: Sneaking Out
Lewis returned quickly only to be surprised by Bailey who had several red marks across his face and bruises on his back, steering his gaze clear of Bella who had a satisfied expression on her face he threw Bailey a bundle of clothes.
Currently, he was wearing a white gown, the type you'd find patients in clinic wards to be wearing during treatment.
"Could you both step outside?" He said sheepishly as he looked at the bundle in his arms.
Both of them nodded although Bella's face went red slightly when she realised he was practically naked beneath the thin fabric.
…
Several minutes later he stepped out of the tent in the new set of clothes, they were far more comfortable than what he'd been wearing previously.
Lewis nodded seeing his appearance and gave him a small thumbs up.
Bella simply nodded and turned away, no one noticing the slight blush on her face as she tried to tell herself to calm down.
"Both of you wear these," Lewis said handing them another bundle each – they were two black cloaks to go over their clothing, perfect for blending in with the current darkness of the night.
Both of them nodded silently and put them on, Lewis also put on his own cloak and signalled for them to follow him.
"From now on we need to keep talking to a minimal and if possible not at all, we'll be sneaking through the gate and although not heavily fortified it still has people on watch for deserters, we'll need to knock them out silently, I've arranged for three horses to be saddled just a small distance away." He said before speeding up his pace, the trio continued in silence as they passed several tents.
The soft sound of snoring from within and the soft sounds of insects in the night were the only sounds besides their own feet and breathing which they tried to make as quiet as possible.
Several times they had to stop and hide for a few seconds to avoid a patrolling guard who walked through the groups of tents holding a lantern.
They'd almost been caught only for the guard to brush off their movement as a hallucination and blaming it on a lack of sleep.
Lewis looked on silently but they could both tell he was both relieved and frustrated with the alertness of the patrol units.
If they really were an enemy wouldn't this guard be the death of people because of his negligence?
Of course, there was nothing he could do about it at the moment and he could only keep the thought at the back of his mind and do his best to remember the guards face in the future so patrol tasks weren't handed to him.
It didn't take them long before they finally came in view of the camps gates.
It was the same gate that the troops had left through during the beast wave, it was directly facing the Forest of Beasts and it was a simple straight journey from there.
As they approached the gate the number of patrols increased drastically, they found themselves stopping and hiding on more than one occasion.
Despite this, they remained patient as they slowly moved forward.
It was tedious but the trio finally found themselves beside the gate, no one noticed that the light from the lantern seemed to avoid a certain corner.
This was Lewis controlling Dark Elementa to keep themselves hidden as they waited, Bella was about to speak but Lewis quickly put his finger over her mouth and motioned for them to follow him.
Bella was annoyed by this but knew better than to ruin their hard work in coming this far by a little outburst.
Instead, she made a note mentally to get him back in some way, it seemed she really didn't care whether he was the Prince or not.
Bailey saw this and could only shrug it off with a sigh – he knew Bella's personality and it wasn't easy to change her mind when she set it on something.
Especially when she decided to beat someone up evident by his own bruises, despite being healed by his Light Elementa he could still feel the phantom pains of where she'd hit him.
At the side of the gate, there was a small set of stairs up to the guard tower, Lewis motioned for them to stay still as he quickly yet quietly climbed the set of stairs.
Moments later a dull thud could be heard before Lewis reappeared from the set of stairs and gave them a thumbs up
Quietly they made their way over to the second guard tower on the other side, to avoid detection they had to circle around the group of tents once more to get to the other side – Lewis simply couldn't shroud themselves indirect light and they'd run the risk of getting themselves caught.
All of this was done much quicker as they were already used to moving in silence, it didn't take them long to arrive next to the second guard post and Lewis quickly ascended the steps.
He repeated his actions in the first guard tower nit this time instead of coming back down Lewis lingered on the guard post as he used a rope to quietly pull open the gate slightly – the gate was opened just enough to allow for all of them to sneak out unnoticed.
But as Lewis was returning down the steps sound voices came from the distance, Lewis seemingly recognised the voice and quickly motioned for them to hide.
He positioned them behind a set of tents, "Stay low." He whispered as he looked into the darkness.
Before long the source of the voice came into a view, it was a man on horseback holding a lantern as he stared at the gate with a grim expression.
Bailey recognised him as one of the bodyguards assigned to Lewis.
Presumably, they'd already noticed his disappearance and had spread themselves out among the gates to find him; that was the only explanation for the appearance of only one of them here.
Luckily it didn't seem that they knew in what direction he'd gone or else all of them would've appeared.
A grim expression on his face the guard used Fire Elementa to shoot a flare into the sky before running through the gate, the opening being barely big enough for him and his horse to fit through.
"Quick!" Lewis said frantically as he dashed towards the gates opening, Bailey and Bella looked at each other.
A confused look in both of their eyes but they didn't question him as they chased after him, they were wondering why they didn't just wait for the rest of his bodyguards to disappear through the gate before escaping but they quickly got their answer.
Unbeknownst they'd made their way into the group of tents belonging to the veteran troops.
The sound and flash of the Fire Elementa quickly roused them as sounds could be heard from within the tents as they stood up in a hurry.
Hearing these noises they picked up their speed and quickly made their escape out of the camp.
"Come on!" Lewis said frantically after they'd escaped, the worry on his face still not disappearing despite already having left the camp.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Immortal_Pain
Immortal_Pain Hi! This is the only chapter for today as I have exams for the next two weeks, I'll try and keep up with a pace of one per day for this time period.
Thanks for reading! :)
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