"G.o.dd.a.m.nit!"Crawling from under the horse, Mike cursed at their fate. They were so close to the treeline, yet with a single look behind, the merchant could ascertain that this was as far as they could go.
"Are you okay?"
Hopping down from the horse, Xyenna ran to Mike"s side. Seeing that he was okay, she took a glance at the horse. With its haggard breath, they could see it reached its limit. Unable to even stand, there was no way it could keep running.
"Any ideas now?"
Checking the remaining horse up, Mike felt into a short daze. It was way too tired to keep both of them on it"s back. Only now it became apparent why those horses were so easy to catch. It wasn"t their docileness, but those mounts that had the energy to spare ran away in the first place!
"We won"t be able to escape anymore. There might be three reasons for them to chase us while investing so many resources. If you decide to stay, we can only hope that they are after the gold. But looking at how they disregard the lives of those soldiers just to slow us down, I find this possibility rather unlikely."
Lacking any other options, Mike could only state the facts. With one horse, only one person could try to escape now. While he made a little mess back in Uveno, Mike was overall lying low. While he could stand out a bit thanks to his schemes and intervention at during the duel, only the City Hall could have any interest in abducting him. Xyenna, on the other hand, could prove to be valuable bargaining cheap for n.o.bles if they were to try to lower the tension between the factions.
"I have the last task for you. Take the horse with gold and run it to the treeline. From there, follow the border of the jungle to the east. When the forest will start shifting northwards, turn south. You will reach the Latavia in about three days. Just let someone from Xantia pick you up and ask them to pa.s.s a code forty-two to the Revy. She will know what to do."
There was no other way. They could either catch him or both of them. In this situation, only his old friends could be of any help. Considering how the pursuers cut them off from the road to the east, they probably deduced that he had some ties with Latavia. That would explain why they were so keen on catching him!
"Are you out of your mind?"
Hearing Mike"s proposal, Xyenna calmness broke. Up until now, her employer always managed to come up with a crafty idea even in the worst kinds of trouble, yet he was giving up now? Unable to contain her fury, she pointed out at the pursuers and shouted.
"Do you really think I will leave you on their mercy?"
"There is no other way. We can"t fight them off, we can"t run away. What else can we do? If you manage to reach Xantia, they will probably send some help. Isn"t this better than just staying back to wait for the certain death?"
It wasn"t like Mike didn"t understand Xyenna"s stance. Leaving her employer in the face of danger would considerably drag her reputation and prospects down. With the addition of the friendship they shared, it was no wonder his proposition infuriated her!
"You are right. Staying here means death. Why would they keep you alive then? What will be the use of even the whole army if you are no longer in this world to be saved by it?"
There was no way she didn"t notice this hole in Mike"s reasoning. With all things considered, he just wanted to give her a nice way out of this quagmire!
"Try to think about it for a bit. If they want gold, you can spit them in the face by running away with it. If they for some reason want me, they won"t kill me anyway. But what if they want you?"
Looking back in the direction of the pursuers, Mike started to feel a bit of panic slowly crawling all over his body. While they were still a considerable distance away, the merchant had only about five minutes to convince Xyenna to run. Later on, even if she forced the horse to run for its life, the army chasing them would be able to catch up with her before the line of the trees!
"What do you mean by that? What uses would they have for me? I"m just an adventurer!"
Unable to understand what her employer was implying, the girl just stood in the spot and stared at him with a dumbfounded face.
"Oh, for the f.u.c.k sake, don"t you see how valuable you are for them as the winner of the duel? Be it to provoke the City Hall or to treat you as a bargaining chip during the peace talks, they are bound to value you! Do you want to spend your days as the d.a.m.n exhibition slave?"
Slowly but steadily losing his composture, Mike lashed out at his bodyguard. Not sparing the harsh words, he tried to paint a picture of her possible future. Only by this kind of heavy psychical hit could the merchant force her to abandon him!
"Okay, okay! I get it!"
Unable to refute Mike words, Xyenna had to give up. Grabbing merchant"s arms, she pulled him into her embrace.
"Don"t you dare dying one me now!"
Whispering those few words into his ears, the girl tightened her hold on him before stopping the hug and strolling to her horse. Leaving all her hesitation behind, she kicked the ground and jumped on the saddle. Turning the mount"s head toward the forest, she looked back.
"I hope…"
Before Xyenna managed to finish her sentence, she furrowed her brows and looked back to the treeline. She was sure she heard some clamouring coming from that direction!
Alerted by his bodyguard unusual action, Mike focused his attention at the place where he wanted Xyenna to run away. Only a few seconds later, all the emotions flew away from his face, replaced by pale white colour surfacing on his cheeks.
Somehow, enemies managed to man this area as well!
As more and more people emerged from behind the trees, their situation turned desperate. They couldn"t run west, north or east. While the south was still open for them, there was no way Xyenna"s tired horse could outrun their pursuers! Only by reaching the terrain where one could count only on his feet, would she have any chance of escaping!
"It seems like our previous discussion just lost its point."
Casually point out the facts, the girl jumped down from the horse. Detaching the bag with the red goldens from the saddle, she freed the mount from the pieces of her equipment and slammed its back. With their remaining horse speeding up into the distance, she proclaimed her stance on the matter.
"Well, there is nothing left but to prepare now."
They lost. Even if they were still standing with various weapons lying all around, there was simply no way for them to win. They could try to fight off some enemies, maybe even a dozen of them! But staked against more than a hundred? The only question that could be asked was how many of them could they kill before losing their lives or freedom.
When the pursuers noticed that their prey ceased any sorts of movements, they shouted in cheer and hastened their horses. As their silhouettes were growing with every pa.s.sing moment, the lone duo prepared their bows. Just like before, they had the advantage of staying on the stable ground, where their enemies were riding the horses. If only they had some cover to run behind, this fight might take longer. While the ultimate outcome was already decided, Mike dearly missed the opportunity to incur even more death in their pursuers formation!
With the hors.e.m.e.n charging from both west and east, footmen in the north jumped into a frantic run. Judging from their urge to enter the fight, there was bound to be some reward in it. Be it claiming their lives, securing the gold of apprehending them, everyone was keen to finish the task in the shortest time possible.
What the riders didn"t expect though, was that the moment they entered the Xyenna"s bow range, arrows started whistling everywhere around.
While normal arrow would have a hard time penetrating the chainmail, with the riders galloping towards the shooter, their hauberks didn"t amount to much. As the bodies started to fall off the horses one by one, Xyenna"s eyes turned red as her repet.i.tive movement started to accelerate.
Nock the arrow on the bowstring. Pull the string, while pushing the grip away from the body, while raising it to the desired angle. Correct the aim. Let go of the string. Pull the arrow from the quiver, nock it on the bowstring…
With every shot fired, Xyenna looked like she was sinking deeper and deeper into some strange stance, where nothing else mattered for her despite operating her bow. On her side, Mike was doing his best to keep up with her. While it was impossible for him to match her speed, he could at least try to make accurate shots.
In only a minute, more than eleven soldiers received a solid dose of iron into their body! Unfortunately, not all of them ceased the chase. Even after being hit with the arrow, if Mike or Xyenna didn"t manage to reach a vital spot, the soldier would be able to brace himself and plainly ignore the bolt sticking out of his body. In the end, only about five or so men dropped dead the moment the arrow reached them.
While this was a satisfactory result, it didn"t change the situation at all. As the distance changed from a few kilometres to only a few tens of meters, Mike and his friend dropped the bows. Grabbing the lances formerly belonging to now-deceased soldiers and holding their swords in their main hand, they braced themselves against the ground and waited for the impact.
***********
It took them a good few hours to find the first clue. After galloping down the road all the way from the Latavia to their current location, they could at least report some success. While it sounded like a great thing to happen, there was nothing special to be proud of. Anyone going down the road would notice this broken-down carriage!
After reaching the suspicious wagon, the vanguard didn"t even need to look around to spot several bodies lying around in the gra.s.s. With pools of blood formed by small streams originating from the corpses, it was obvious that some fight happened here recently.
Jumping down from his horse, Gravenut approached the deceased and started inspecting it. By the time he was done, the rest of the mercenaries arrived at the scene. While they were impatient to rush back into the chase, they just stayed silent in wait for the results of wise man judgment.
"They are already cold. Due to their vigour, their bodies only started to tense up around half an hour ago. My guess is that they are dead for at least six hours already."
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Standing up from his previously kneeling position, old man cleaned his hands under the water poured on them by his a.s.sistant.
"Thanks love."
Dismissing Luciel, Gravenut nodded his head in grat.i.tude. As the pet.i.te girl ran back to her horse and stuffed the goatskin back to her sacks, the old man turned to Claudio.
"What are your orders?"
"Is there any trail around? I don"t see any blood on the carriage, so it"s pa.s.sengers either got kidnapped or left by themselves. Any clues?"
Turning back to Suria, the middle-aged man sent her a serious look.
With a face filled with displeasure, an athletic girl jumped down from her horse and kneeled on the ground, inspecting the gra.s.s. It didn"t take long before she raised herself back to the straight position and started moving all around the place. She even whistled at her horse and climbed back on it to have a better view!
"There was some sort of small scale skirmish here. I can"t say anything more specific, but a lot of people went offroad and travelled northeast from here."
After reporting her findings, this diabolic little girl positioned herself back in the saddle, closing her eyes and pretending to be asleep in an instant.
"If the chase moved north, our targets were probably aiming to escape to the Latavia. So if Xantia didn"t intercept them there, we should be able to catch up to them by going directly north."
While it was rare for him to speak up, Apexar didn"t shy away from proving the superiority of his strategic thinking over everyone else in the unit.
"Don"t think you can take a rest now. We need you to look out for any traces leading west. Understood?"
With his gaze directed at their scout, it didn"t take long for Suria to give up. While he was a part of the elder"s group, his status never got confirmed by anyone. While he simply usurped it thanks to his a.n.a.lytical prowess, no one dared to make a commoner an officially commanding figure! Despite that, feeling the murderous gaze on her, pet.i.te spotter gave in to the pressure and nodded her head with reluctance.
"Can you estimate the number of the riders?"
Looking for any other information outside of the general direction of movement, Nix asked Suria.
"It"s hard to tell the exact count, but there were more than sixty of them."
At the single though of facing this kind of crowd with only a few people to her side the girl shrugged slightly. Whoever it was that they were trying to save, he clearly knew how to step on someone"s tail!
"We will go north then. Everyone, prepare for a fight! We are going to rescue those people and earn a comfy place to live from now on! Imagine all those luxuries we might get if we finish the task we were given! Come on! Follow me!"
Giving a short but pa.s.sionate speech, Claudio kicked his heels to his horse"s side. Startled by the sudden pain, poor animal had to other choice but to speed up! In just a moment, the rest of the mercenaries followed suit.