Resilience Run

Chapter 22

"I'm surprised rendering everyone in the village out cold was that easy." Rhys said, "You'd think at least one of them would give us some trouble."

"When we're sleeping, we're all vulnerable." said Daniel, "Though if I'm being honest, most of them probably weren't going to put up much resistance, since they weren't being forced to fight back at the moment."

"Now can we save them?" Jagos asked. He had been asking about me and Baugh the entire time, and every time, Rhys and Daniel had to tell him to be patient, that they would come for us when they were sure they could do it safely.

"We should go now." Rhys said, "Everyone's down, right?"

"As good as it's gonna get," said Daniel, "Let's head to the..."

"Hold on," Rhys said, "Listen."

Daniel and Jagos listened closely, and heard what Rhys heard: the clanging of swords, coming from the center of town.

"Let's see what's going on." said Daniel.

The fight was not going my way, though I was still managing to hold my own against the man. My attacks, which had initially been on the offensive, had turned to defense as I was just trying to keep the man from slicing me up, and judging by the growing smile on his face, he knew it.

Baugh had fallen back to his knees when the fight started, the pain of the attacks the man gave him taking their toll. He had tried to get back to his feet several times, but the pain was keeping him down.

The head guard was going at me harder, trying to land a hit on me. I kept parrying and dodging as much as I could, but he still managed to land a couple of surface hits on me, since Felice wasn't guiding my movements.

The man went in for another attack, and I went to block. This time, however, he faked me out and slammed the hilt of the sword into my mid-section, knocking the wind out of me. The man then swiped the sword up, just barely missing my eye, and kicked me, knocking me on my back.

As I struggled to move, the man dropped his sword, pulled a dagger out, and straddled me. I managed to catch his arms before he could bring the knife down on my chest, but I was only barely managing to hold it back.

"I thought... you needed me alive?!" I said through gritted teeth as the tip of the man's knife started to pierce my chest.

"The emperor will simply have to deal with your corpse." the man grunted as he pushed the knife further, electing a scream of pain from me. I tried to push back as much as I could, but the man was just stronger than me, I was barely holding him back. As my arms started to give out and the knife dug a little deeper, maybe a couple of inches away from my heart, the man was suddenly off me, taking the knife out and allowing me to sit up.

The man had stood up, then spun around, making me realize why he had let me go out of nowhere - an arrow was sticking out of his back, courtesy of Daniel and his crossbow from across the square. As Daniel started to load another arrow, Rhys and Jagos came running, Rhys to me and Jagos towards his brother.

The head guard had recovered from being shot at this point, and managed to parry off the blow Rhys intended to land on his head, then kicked her, knocking her down. Adrenaline started running through my body, I jumped to my feet, grabbed the arrow still sticking out of his back, and tore it out. Before the man could get his bearings, I stabbed it back in twice more, causing the man to scream in pain, then fall to the ground. One last stab in the back of the neck, and he stopped moving.

"Riley!" Rhys said. I looked up just in time to brace myself for the bone-crushing hug she proceeded to deliver on me. That, followed by a quick peck, and I was up and back on my feet.