The gate shut, and the bar was replaced across it with an echoing thump. That was it, they were trapped. Like a conjurer locked into an escaping cabinet, they now had to execute a carefully constructed sequence of actions in order to get out or die in the attempt. As the seconds dragged passed, Paylen felt himself getting smaller and smaller under the relentless gaze of the red army guard. He could feel Ger-Val's discomfort, aware that the troll's breathing had quickened and his body temperature had risen significantly. The smell, not masked by the magic that had changed their appearance, was almost overpowering. It was not nervousness with the green-skin, it was poorly concealed aggression.
Josephine, on the other side of him, shackled at the wrists and gagged with a rough cloth strip, s
