The Servant Queen

The Man Who Saved All

POV: Ani

There was no houses nearby and I was starting to fear what will happen to us once we're caught by the two men.

"Just stop. Stop," said one of the servants. "Where are we going to go? We're all just going to end up in the marketplace either way!"

I didn't answer. My eyes did not leave the road ahead and my hands wrapped tighter onto the reigns.

"That crazy noble is looking for a female servant. I'm a man for crying out loud! I shouldn't be in this mess!" said another servant.

"We're going to get slaughtered! Did you see how they murdered the Deliverer unmercifully?"

"Why didn't we just hand over the little girl? Everything would've been okay!"

"We're all going to be taken away by them!"

All the servants were all talking—all fearful of my thoughtless choice. An elderly woman who had the little servant girl clinging to her was sitting directly behind me.

"Don't listen to them, child," the elderly woman said.

I glanced at her. "What should I do? I made a wrong decision didn't I, ma'am?" I said with a lower tone. My voice cracked.

"What exactly is a 'wrong choice?' The word 'wrong' is a relative term. But darling, don't worry. We'll find a country house soon enough and then the owners of the house will call the authorities so we'll be sent correctly to our new households," she said.

"Bu—" I began.

"They're catching up!" said the little servant girl.

Before I could look back, a gunshot sounded. All of the servants hushed. I looked down expecting to have a gun wound, but I didn't. I turned to look at all the servants.

"Is—is anyone hurt?" I said.

The other servants shook their heads "no." I looked back and saw the bearded bandit had a hole in his forehead. His blue eyes were wide open in surprise as the blood trickled down his face. A second later, he fell sideways off of his black horse, but his feet became stuck on the reins. His horse continued running with his corpse tumbling upside down on the dirt ground beside it until it came to a stop.

There was third person trailing all of us who killed the bearded bandit. With two pistol in both hands, a stranger—our savior—with a dark green cloak continued shooting at Walter. Walter was able to avoid the bullets by riding into the corn fields off the road.

I saw the corn stalks part as Walter fled from the cloaked stranger.

The cloaked man slowed his horse and looked toward us so I halted our horses. He had the setting sun behind his back. He reminded me of the hero from a story mother use to tell me. It was secretly told between servants. I'm sure every servant knows about it.

The story was about a gifted peasant man who raised his own army made out of runaway servants. They fought against all of the nobles and their private armies in a war for liberty. Even though he and his servant army were outnumbered, they were strong-willed and trained years for the war. The servant army won the war easily against the nobles. In this story, the servants of Stone Kingdom were freed and able to live their lives like regular people, nothing less.

Mother told me that one day all the servants would be freed just like in this story. After being sold for the first time, I began wishing to join that army of servants, so I ran away from my masters—every single one of them just to find the secret servant army that might not even exist. But in the end, my masters always caught me and sold me off.

I was lucky none of them didn't kill me or punish me in a different way for disobeying them. They were at least humane.

The cloaked man—or boy—hopped off of his horse and started walking toward us. As he came closer, I saw that he wore a wooden mask.

"Is everyone fine?" said the cloaked servant.

This time, I don't plan on being under any masters anymore.

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A/N: Walter's name use to be Azra. But then all the main characters would have A's as their name. It'll be confusing, so I changed it.
Ani
Aki --> Akkey
Azra --> Walter

Yeah, Azra sounds nice and all... but oh well. ;)