I had to be careful this time.
“Avante, time.”
“3:42AM.”
There was around thirty more minutes till the attack and now I knew for sure, they resided deep in the forest. Whoever they were, they were lying in wait for us and a question sprung in my mind. How did they know exactly where we would be? Was there a rat among the royal family? That was a possibility which made this family even more problematic. But thinking about that brought no good to me for now, for it was something I could figure out later.
I had to prepare for the attack first. But the issue was that I couldn’t just go out and tell them that there was an attack coming, or else I would just look suspicious. But I had to somehow alert them indirectly that impending danger was arriving, then maybe we could get through this.
We had two power houses, those being Rumena and Zidane. I piled up all my thoughts together.
“Thirty more minutes, attack, we stop, observe, defend. Okay.”
I thought of a decent plan, but I needed everyone on board. It was simple: In twenty minutes, I would fall out of the carriage and frame an accident and scream to pull Zidane’s attention. The carriage should stop before Rumena is suddenly impaled, due to them having to check what happened with me. And that should cause the carriage to stop, which I then would direct my attention to the woods acting as if I noticed someone was lurking. They would believe that, well Nora would believe that because in my interrogation, I made up a lie that I had inhumane vision where I could zoom in on areas.
And so, the rest would rely on them two to fight off our attackers. I balled my fist. I was going to fucking live. There was no way I was going to be stuck in this loop.
I watched the time in my mind.
I watched Rumena closely with Zidane possibly trying to get to sleep within the carriage.
4:05
4:06
4:10
4:11
In a few minutes, they would leap out to ambush us and now it was the perfect time. Now it was the perfect time to initiate my plan and I had no time to hesitate because that would mark my death. Dropping out of the carriage as I made myself a ball, I screamed from the bottom of my lungs so the whole world could hear. Acting as if I was in pure agony, Zidane suddenly shot out of the carriage, halting the dragon in its tracks. I came to a stop, lying flatly atop the calming grass as I looked over at Zidane’s stern face glaring at me. Rumena jumped off the top and sprinted over to me. Perfect.
The carriage had stopped along with Nora and Sylvia’s one too.
“Are you okay?! What happened?!” She exclaimed, pulling me up from the floor with my arm.
“I just came out to look at the scenery, I literally couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know a ground dragon was so fast and I fell out.”
Looking at the doorway of the carriage, I saw the peering gaze of Laura to which Nora followed and walked out in her extravagant manner. She crossed her brows, “Axure? What happened?”
Any minute now-
No.
Forget my lie about my zooming eyes. They were there again. Like a wolf clothing itself with darkness. I could never forget those eyes. Eyes only a devil would have. I saw those bloodshot, red eyes floating in the darkness of the woods.
“AMBUSH!” I screamed as Zidane swung his sword out, looking toward the trees. Nora, Rumena and Laura suddenly sprung into action when a loud clashing of swords echoed throughout the lands.
“Aylanists!” Zidane roared as he fought the assailant. I had no time to dwell on the shout from him. I jumped up as Rumena swung her axe in a beautiful arch, instantly butchering a cloaked man in half. I watched the gory scene before me, hurling acids around my stomach in disgust. Rumena and Zidane were ready this time, we could fight back. But what about Nora? Sylvia? Laura? Could they even fight? I needed the full force of this battalion to get involved.
I looked around with haste, almost falling dizzy with all my turns as I analysed the battlefield and the number of people present.
The two Dragon riders were useless, in fact, they were already on the floor scared shitless with arms guarding their head in a ball. I looked out front.
My eyes rolled like a ping pong. Seven.
Five of them dressed in full white, hiding their faces with angelic masks with two that only stuck out differently-
“Axure!” Laura exclaimed, pulling me back by my arm. I felt the whiff of air, slice the area beside me. That could have been another death. I had no time to just stand here and think. And before I could even do anything, the entire front of the carriage blew open, rattling my ears with its sound. Was it dynamite? No.
The wheel was untouched and there were no flames.
The answer to that was none other than Sylvia Van Vollaria, walking out in an oddly calm manner. She had blown open the entire front of the carriage with a force I did not know and walked out as if the two Knights weren’t engaged in a serious battle.
I looked behind me once again as Laura pulled on my arm and without a moment of processing, an illuminating green sword pierced through the chest of my assailant. I was so close to the attack that the blood splattered onto my face when I looked back at Sylvia who spoke proudly, “Who dares to invade my sleep?”
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“Axure! You need to get out of here now!” Laura yelled, dragging me to the half destroyed carriage, and so I followed her knowing my best safety point was behind some cover. With it also being the best vantage point to analyse.
Sylvia walked over to Nora who stood with an expressionless face.
Zidane and Rumena leapt backwards in unison, moving away from the attackers as they all lined up on each side. Laura stayed close to me, it was clear to see she wasn’t a combatant.
Zidane spoke, throwing the blood off his sword, “You scum of the world. You Aylanists never learn do you?”
And this was when I could get a far better look at the man who killed me two times. And he was by far, a monster in human form. Tall with pale skin, shrouded in a white robe with dark red lining it. And those eyes I just could never forget. Next to him, stood a man with a half burnt face, with a symbol engraved onto the side of his head, with the other half looking like a perfectly healthy man.
“We don’t need all of you,” the man cloaked in white said with a nasty grin. He was definitely the leader, even without the robe, the aura he emitted said so.
“You all deserve to di-” Nora threw out her arm to the side stopping Zidane from speaking further.
“What is it you want? This cannot be a random attack. You seem to have a motive,” Nora said in a domineering tone.
The man in white took a deep breath with a small smile on his face, as if everything was calm. He seemed to be enjoying this even though one of his men had died.
“You needn’t know.”
“Talking to these cretins won’t get us anywhere,” Sylvia fanned her face as she said so, with a sword floating above her shoulder pointed toward the group. But the bloodshot eyed man did not falter, he remained smiling with a glint burning in his pupil.
“That is it, I have had enough,” Sylvia said when a sudden cloud of smoke erupted in front of us, with the sword flying toward the man. I knew that would not kill him. I just had a gut feeling.
The smoke faded and Zidane had leapt in to catch another attacker off guard with Rumena following behind. It pissed me off how useless I was here, but I had to remain steady for now.
Without any time to react, for a split second, I saw the shine of a blade cut the air as it came toward me. Until a slender hand had caught the spear mid air, ramming it into the floor. Nora looked back to me, slowly coming near me as she looked forward.
“I did not want you to experience this,” she uttered. The sheer cheek of this woman to even jest such a phase to me. I wanted to escape this hellish scene and leave her behind and she had the audacity to tell me, she didn’t mean for me to be here?
I had to act because it seemed I was a target too. Dynamite, dynamite dynamite. I didn’t have many, but they were enough. Whether they could kill them or not, they could maybe create a smoke screen.
And so I had a quick idea. Pulling out a stick from my pouch, I threw it toward Zidane, screaming his name as I did so. Zidane pushed the assailant's blade back and jumped back in an instant. I aimed down the ironsight of my gun. I quickly shot the laying dynamite stick when a sudden explosion lit up the field.
“NOW!” I exclaimed, hoping Zidane understood what I meant and it seemed that the Knights instinct did not require me to do so, when he immediately thrust his sword through the masked member, using the smoke created from the explosion to hide him.
That was two down.
One Sylvia had killed and one Zidane had done.
It was four on five now.
“How did you do that, commoner?” Sylvia said with her usual, arrogant smile as she looked at me from the corner of her eye. To which I wasn’t even thinking of responding because this wasn’t over. With another man down, the leader lunged forward, aiming straight for Nora and as if everything was colour coded in this world, a mystical sword formed out of thin air. Holding it tight, Nora slashed at the man but to no avail.
You have to be joking me.
I couldn’t believe what I had witnessed, but the cloaked man had caught the blade in between his two fingers and with no time to react, attempted to use his other hand to slash at her neck. Almost instinctively, I shot at the man and the bullet ripped through his hand.
So he’s not bullet proof. Fucking good for me.
He stepped back from Nora with Sylvia now sending flying swords, aimed at the numerous men behind with them sprinting across the land as they attempted to dodge. They were like literal missiles.
“Princess!” Zidane bolted toward Nora as he swung his sword out at the man relentlessly, but he continued to parry the blade in exquisite form.
“Sirius! Get rid of the others please,” he said in a slightly louder tone, still as if the situation was calm.
I looked over to Rumena where the burnt man licked his daggers with his long, reptilian tongue. What the fuck is Nora doing? Do something!
I couldn’t just sit in the carriage and hide, because this battle wasn’t going anywhere like this and my life depended on it. These masked men were out here to literally butcher the lot of us. I stepped out of the carriage, leaving Laura inside as I hurried over to Nora. Grabbing her arm, I shook her while exclaiming, “Wake up! Wake up! If you don’t, I fucking die. Wake. UP!”
She looked at me and then looked back out to the battlefield raging on.
“Axure, can you create smoke again?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“Do it again and I shall impale those lowly beings.”
Another dynamite at my disposal. I pulled out a stick without hesitation, and looked toward areas where the masked men could run. Screaming over to Sylvia, I shouted, “Sylvia! Aim outwards and bring them inwards! Bring them to the middle!”
“Address me as such again and I shall cut off your tongue.”
She aimed her swords to the outskirts of the battlefield, continuously firing them as the attackers ran to dodge it. Two on the right side, and one on the left, both running into the middle with the swords chasing their tails. I timed it perfectly, throwing the dynamite to the predicted area they would go and fired at it. A burst of smoke erupted from the ground like a volcano, creating a cloud of dust covering the assailants.
But that was good. That should be good enough.
For the woman, Nora Van Vollaria had waited for this moment.
With her dark sword raised, purple fumes radiated off of her and in lightning speed, she fired like a bullet right through the thick smoke. Three dead. With one impaled on the long blade.
It gave me a shiver. But there was a cheer of victory in my insides.
Only two remained.
The man named Sirius, and the other being the supposed leader, currently fighting Zidane.
“Sirius, we live to fight another day,” the leader claimed while parrying the non-stop slashes from Zidane.
Sirius, in an acrobatic manner, jumped into the air, kicking Rumena’s axe and fell back. The leader followed in a similar form just before looking over at me. “You are not supposed to be here.”
The same words.
The same fucking words I had heard three times over.
“Wait! You foul creatures!” Zidane yelled but the two men didn’t listen. They quite literally, fell back in a few steps, and disappeared into the darkness. Leaving the rest of us, standing in this bloody mess and half destroyed carriage.
They did not even look back, nor did they say anything else. They just left.
I dropped my gun to the floor, feeling my face, rejuvenating in the feeling of survival. I survived. Again. I fucking done it.
Nora stood in between three lifeless bodies, circling around her as she looked up to the sky when she muttered, “These aren’t even worth considering as human. No one who worships that monster can be called so.”