The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

26 - Asher Baker

Asher Baker's Point Of View

A scream echoes in my ears, the scream of my uncle.

Blood splattered from where the sword had cut, coloring the ground... and the bandits... red...

My father pushed us behind him while nervously raising his rolling pin.

My father was a wide man, but he wasn't brave nor strong... I knew that...

We were a small group of people. Two men, five women and four kids... Our family, my mother, father, two siblings as well as my uncle and aunt had been fleeing from the bandits when we ran into a maid from the castle and her girl that was pale with fever...

We were bakers, and my uncle was a shoe maker...

I glance to my uncle again with a cold dread running through my body.

There is so much blood.

He's gasping and choking on air.

"...R...un..." he gasps out before one of the bandits force a sword into his throat.

My breathing goes ragged. It tears at my throat and burns. I can't move...

There's only four of them, but they're all armed and have us surrounded...

"Just kill the guys," one of the bandits orders the others. They nod to each other, and father shakes in front of me like a leaf.

The bandit raises his sword... but as he does a shadow blocks out the sun... at least... so it seems...

The sound of horse hooves make the bandits hesitate and turn to the sound... and so do we...

A horse black as night is heading straight for us, and raised to the sky a blade glistens still dripping with fresh blood... my heart pounded faster...

The headless horseman... was coming for us.

I gasped for breath and stumbled backwards as the glistening blade moved.

The black figure moved past us in an instant.

Cling~! Splurt... thlud...

A scream... not fathers...

The bandit with the sword, his... head and shoulder was... missing... no, it was on the ground.

Another bandit was screaming from having been trampled by the horse.

A burst of color flew past me from the black horse, and the sword glistened again and sang as it cut through the air towards the third bandit.

My ears were ringing, and I realized... the figure in front of me wasn't a headless horseman, but a boy around my age. A roar escaped him as he swung the enormous sword and cut deep into the third unaware bandit's throat, causing blood to gush everywhere. Our eyes met for a second, and my body mysteriously relaxed.

He wasn't afraid.

The fourth bandit raised his sword at the boy who was getting the sword out of the bandit's body, but since my body was finally able to move I grabbed father's rolling pin and moved up behind the bandit. I aimed at his head and hit it with an uncomfortable sounding bok.

He went limp like a piece of dough and fell to the ground.

I stared at the bandit nervously, and then to the boy in front of me. His eye were open wide, staring directly at me. He looked surprised. He was... incredibly slender, with eyes and hair like water, but he looked confident without a single trace of fear to be found in his eyes. Those clothes... that mark... this was lord Celeste's son?!