TBATE| The Demon of Elshire

Chapter 3 - Liberation

6 Months Later

I snuck around the side of the beautiful, yet quaint hut, my footsteps as silent as a shadow panther. As I rounded the corner, I caught sight of Markus conversing with an admittedly attractive Elven woman.

"I promise you, I'll get out of yer hair if you'd just gimme some directions...I lost my friends in the forest an' I need to get back to em," Markus told her, trying his best to speak coherently.

The elf eyed him wearily as he strung his web of lies in order to keep her attention.

It'd only been just a few days since we'd snuck into Elenoir. It was difficult to get in, to say the least, and Elves weren't exactly friendly to humans, but it was easily worth it.

Elves always had valuables on them, and even just a piece or two of jewelry from this elven noble would have us set for nearly a month!

The two conversed for a little longer and it was obvious the woman was beginning to notice the flaws in Markus's story. Eventually, he lowered his hand and signaled the number 3 to me.

2.

1.

'Now!'

Filling my legs with mana, I dashed out from behind the hut right towards the noble.

Markus reached out his hand, grabbing her around the neck before she could even register what was happening. After clearing most of the distance, In one quick movement, I reached out and snapped the bracelet off of the girl, hardly breaking stride as I did so.

Sprinting off to the agreed-upon meeting place, I snuck a quick glance back at Markus, who had dropped the girl to the ground and followed after me.

The two of us raced off into the woods, and I could feel the wind rushing through my hair as I sprinted as fast as my legs could carry me.

Eventually, the carriage came into sight and I looked back to see if Markus was following after me, but he wasn't. Clearing the small jump, I landed in the carriage deftly, and I briefly caught sight of Markus clinging to the edge just outside.

'How the hell did he beat me here?' I thought as the cracking of the whips signaled our hasty retreat.

Climbing to the edge of the carriage, I heaved both of the doors shut, knowing that no one would be able to catch up to us when we had 4 forest hounds at our disposal.

We'd been saving up a shit ton of money for the past couple of months, so those damn forest hounds better be useful,'  I thought bitterly. Those pieces of shit cost so damn much that we'd been skipping meals regularly and wearing tatters for clothing in order to get them.

With a shake of my head, I leaned back against one of the dirty rugs that Simon had stolen from some human about a month ago. I tugged at my collar instinctively as a deep sigh escaped my lips.

Circulating mana throughout my channels, I focused all of my attention on forming a small blade at the end of my index finger and began slowly scratching away at the nearly broken collar.

I knew that if I just waited until the right moment this time, I'd be able to get away pretty easily.

About 4 months ago, I'd cut right through it, but I'd hardly taken 10 steps before Sesar had chased me down in all the commotion.

I shuddered to think of the beating that I'd gotten after that, but I was at least glad they didn't beat me too often. Really, they only ever punished me when I talked back, or when I failed assignments...but most of the time they just let me be. They'd even stopped bothering to hook me up to the chain when we were on the carriage, but the collar still hurt like hell.