Marcus somberly stepped up to the gallows, his hands chaffing thanks to the rope holding them in position behind his back, and allowed the noose to be slipped over his head, feeling its weight as it fell heavily onto his shoulders. He could feel how loosely the wooden trapdoor under his bare feet was held in place, as if it were simply begging him to make a wrong step and force it open. It wanted him to drop. Not that he would get very far.
The executioner stepped toward him and pulled the bag off of his head. For a moment, the daylight blinded him. It had been nighttime when the bag had been tied there, blinding him. He had passed in and out of consciousness since then. Looking at the sun, he could tell it was about an hour passed noon. A thought came to him - a memory, of his mother telling him when he was young that he shouldn't stare at the sun, else he be blinded for the rest of his laugh.
He laughed at that. He could stare at the sun all he wanted now. He wasn't long for this world, and the pain it brought him was nothing compared to what he was about to experience.
The crowd wasn't very big. Nobody wanted to watch him die. Or, rather, no one knew him or cared enough to see him off. A meager collection of people, most of whom simply got off at watching the hangings. He wanted to spit at them, show them his distaste for their pitiful whims that only served to prolong the party. He'd rather it just be over.
"Pretty boy," the executioner called out to him. Marcus turned to look at the man. He remembered hearing stories of large, powerful men who became executioners, swung the axe to sever heads from shoulders in one swift blow. This man, though, was nothing like that. Small in stature, with barely any meat to his bones, clearly struggling just to lift the tiny hatchet used to cut the rope holding the trapdoor in place. He looked as though he had likely been a prisoner as well, for much longer, left to starve and wither away, and take people's lives mercilessly in order to save his own. Marcus wondered how much longer he would last. "You got any last words?"
Marcus looked out over the crowd again. He knew better than to expect the face he was looking for. She would hardly want to see this. "Martha!" he screamed, knowing she would never hear his voice again. "I'm sorry! And... I love you!"
The executioner chuckled, as well as some of the audience. But there was a rustling. One person, who had a robe pulled over their head to hide their face, pushed their way to the front of the crowd. The robe was ripped aside in the process, and suddenly Martha was standing at the edge of the platform, looking up into Marcus' eyes, the tears in her lashes sparkling in the sunlight. "Marcus!" she shouted back. "I love you too!"
"Isn't that sweet?" the executioner taunted. With what little strength he had, he lifted the hatchet into the air above Marcus' last lifeline. "Too bad it's too late."
The hatchet dropped with a thunk, sticking into the wood after slicing the rope effortlessly. The trapdoor fell, and Marcus dropped with a thunk, caught around the throat by his noose. He groaned in pain, but forced back the gasp that wanted to escape his lungs, maintaining eye contact with Martha through the pain. "Never too late," he hissed between his teeth.
The rope didn't have much give, and Marcus didn't have much time. Blood was struggling to rush to his head, and the feeling was quickly draining from his toes and fingers. Rather than thrash, though, he swung his body front to back, and after only a couple swings he was able to plant his feet on the platform bed, just barely holding himself up. The executioner lunged at him, but Marcus threw his legs up around the scrawny man's waist and pulled him back with him. The old rope wasn't built to hold that much weight, and as they swung back over the pit, it snapped, and they fell to the ground.
Martha was there in an instant. It was all happening quickly, and the guards were lagging, not expecting something like this on a nobody like Marcus. She pushed the executioner off Marcus roughly, grabbing the hatchet in the motion. Marcus had landed on his face, and which had forced the little air he had out of his chest, and was suffocating. Martha slashed at the rope cuffs on his hands, freeing them so that he could tear the noose away from his neck.
The guards started coming after them just as Marcus was getting to his feet. Without waiting for him, Martha grabbed him by the arm and started to run. For a moment, she was dragging him, but he caught his feet and started running with her. They weren't weighed down by armor like the guards were, and were thus capable of hitting a full sprint.
They left the dust of the execution behind them, nowhere to go, nothing to lose, but everything to gain.
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