“Don’t start fighting yet” Evelyn ordered him as the thugs walked with swag, closer and closer to them.
“I don’t have anything valuable in my back” Oliver told the brutal looking men.
“Just give us the lady” A tattooed thug said and then took a swig of a drink.
“Why?” Oliver asked.
“She’s drop dead gorgeous” One of the thugs said and whistled.
“Oh” Oliver muttered.
“I’m not coming with you pigs” she hissed.
“You don’t have a choice” the tattooed thug snapped. He took out a knife and a couple other thugs wielded their glass bottles.
“One time Evelyn, can you be a regular women and act like a damsel?” he asked.
“Fine” she whispered. Oliver threw a stone at a thug to make them angry and they came charging at him.
He side stepped a bottle swing and grabbed the thug’s hand and threw him into the thug behind him. Then he used both of his fists to pummel a thug and send him flying into a group of trash cans.
Then a hard metal pipe came out of nowhere and hit him in the back of the head. He flew several feet and skidded along the ground. Two thugs grabbed him and slammed his head into a nearby building. Pain flared threw his face and blood dripped from his nose and lip.
“Ollie!” Evelyn shrieked and dashed past the thugs. One of them tried to grab her but she punched him in the gut.
“I’m okay” Oliver lied. Evelyn got a familiar look of rage on her face and charged at the thugs. She dogged a couple of forward punches and kicked him in the face before doing a front flip and smashing him. Then she did a flexible duck and grabbed the attacker’s leg. She kicked him in the chest and then the chin. Then she did a backward flip kick and hit the opponent behind her.
Oliver pulled himself back up to fight beside her. He grabbed a fallen pipe and beat the thugs senseless with it. He thwacked at the legs and then Evelyn did some fantastic combo to take them down.
After they were finished they let one thug run away unscathed.
“That was fun” Oliver said and the whipped blood from his lip. Evelyn pulled out a puffy white cloth and dabbed the blood away from his face. She pulled out a water bottle and then washed the blood away.
“If you have blood on your face then you’ll look like someone who causes trouble” Evelyn explained.
“Do I have a black eye?” he asked. Evelyn took another glance at his face.
“Just a black and blue mark on your forehead but we can cover that up easily with a story” she replied.
“What if the thug that got away tells the soldiers about us?” Oliver asked. Evelyn continued cleaning his face ad chin.
“We won’t be here that much longer” She answered. She finished cleaning him up and helped him to his feet, which he didn’t need.
“I think we should find someone and ask where we are. Then we can find a map to figure out where to go next” Evelyn suggested.
“Sounds good to me, although we should probably eat soon” he added. The best friends at containers of different energy foods that Kitsune gave them like nuts. Then they dashed out of the alleyway and walked alongside the sand colored buildings and homes. Oliver eyed a pair of sunglasses we LOVED didn’t have any money and knew it wasn’t a good time to work up his crazy stealing act.
The pair found a welcome center and knew that was the best place to go. They walked along the gravel road and almost got run over by a few knights streaming ahead on their horses. Then they opened the door to the shop and quickly found their maps. Oliver looked threw the maps while Evelyn talked to one of the staff.
He found a map that said “map of Evergreen towns”. He flipped it opened and laughed at how the towns were arranged. They were in a circle around King Luther’s castle. He was always the center of Evergreen. The only unfortunate thing was that the map didn’t say where he was.
“Did you find a good map?” Evelyn asked. He showed her the map.
“Do you know where we are?” he asked.
“Rethul. It was supposed to be Luther backwards but he decided to switch the t and the h to supposedly fool people” she explained. They exited the store and found a couple of benches so they could study the map and figure out where to go next. Oliver found big town and counted the number of towns between where they were and their destination. Then he did the same for their other path. The left path had four towns separating them but they were pretty big and the other path had over ten tiny towns.
“We should go the route with the ten towns. We shouldn’t stay in one town over three days” Evelyn suggested. Oliver agreed with her and they circled their route with a purple pen from Evelyn’s pack.
They set off to the next town on their map.
