The Duchesses

Chapter 71 : Eirene Festival (3)

Duchess Medea goes into hunting spree mode again, as many teams targetted the Angelos and are unaware of what happened to the Luicasha and Ilemia. She waits for the squads to come after them, like a lioness waiting for its prey to come leisurely without knowing their fate. She started with two badges and now has four proudly displayed on her coat, making Apollo and the others beam with pride.

"Your Grace, would you hunt them down now?" Lord Julian asks, sneaking into the small area around the waterfall, where the flag is located.

Since the waterfalls would prevent anyone from seeing the flag clearly unless they invaded, Medea decided to plant it there. Due to Medea's preference for knocking them out rather than drawing blood, the other sword has not yet been stained.

"Shall I hunt them down?"

"How long has it been now?" Duchess Valimos asks another question.

"It's almost two hours already," Lord Apollo looks up when Duchess Valimos is about to descend from the trees again.

She ties her silky hair, tucking it entirely behind the ears. It sometimes bothers her, and she doesn't like it to be a nuisance, especially when fighting. Then, however, the amethyst eyes catch on something again. Another team from Septimus galloped their horses there. She also spots one of the men, who she assumes is the leader has one badge.

He must be overconfident with his achievement and decided to charge here blindly. Yet, something smells rat about that. He marches alone with one man by his side. As if to turn himself in with the man.

"Either he is foolishly brave, or he had something on his sleeve."

Another idea comes to her mind. However, she also relies on luck in this strategy. This time, she is going to conserve her energy for it.

"There's no one here, my lord," the man asks Lord Aulus in Septimus' language.

"Impossible," Lord Aulus replies, as it is indeed no one here, there's no trace of them here as well. Except for multiple horses and blood pooling at one place.

"Leave," he finally concludes, hitting the horse and taking his leave from there, feeling it is an obvious trap for them.

Something shifts, shaking around the bushes as it continues to move wildly. The sounds of the leaves crackle and crunches behind it pique Lord Aulus' curiosity about who is about to depart. But, the other side did the same, with the bushes starting to dance around, approaching their side. It slowly increases its pace, causing Lord Aulus to determine one thing, and smiles internally.

The sounds of the horses neigh not too far, galloping towards them without hesitation, makes Lord Aulus and his aide depart immediately, trying to lure Medea's team where the other will wait and ambush them. He turns around, finding Lord Apollo and Julian caught over them, with horses behind. He can't get to see it clearly and focus on riding the horse correctly.

"They are slowly coming out from the North's area," Lord Aulus thought when still hearing about horses kicking on the ground behind them.

They almost reach the place they lay on the trap, where the other decided to make them fall out of the horse by spooking it.

"Now!" Aulus shouts quickly as the men try to spook on it.

The men are about to throw off soft yet firm roots under the horses, wriggling them like snakes to spook them. However, something throws them off since the horses galloped without anyone riding them. Where did the two men go? Lord Aulus cannot grasp what happened. The men were there but went missing out of the blue, like a ghost.