Chapter Fifty-Two - Hard to Ignore

Riding on Throat Ripper was not nearly as neat as I thought it would be. For one thing, he had a really wide back, and while I was able to hook my ankles around some of the spikes behind me, it still left me with my legs stretched out uncomfortably.

Then there was the constant bumping gait that had me almost bouncing off of the bone doggy’s back with every step.

Behind us a group of a little over a dozen cervid skeletons formed up into a rough line, each one hanging onto a spear and shield, their eyes glowing even in the midday sunlight.

“Faster,” I told Throat Ripper. It didn’t matter that it hurt, if I wanted to save Amaryllis I had to get there before they did anything nasty to her. Throat Ripper complied, huge claws digging into the earth to shoot up forwards at a speed that would have had me whooping with joy were the situation any different.

We soon arrived at the bridge and I pointed ahead towards my bag. “That’s where I left my stuff,” I said. “We can take it later, but Amaryllis was taken around here.”

Throat Ripper, being the very smart and good boy that he was, understood and slowed down his mad dash to a trot, then a slow walk that allowed me to sit back down and rest my behind on the saddle built into his armour.

The skeletal doggy crossed the river, then spun around a few times, nose close to the ground. There wasn’t any sniffing, and I wondered how he was managing to make out any smells at all without a nose, but that didn’t seem to matter as he perked up and started moving off the road.

When we stopped a little while later my heart sank. I was afraid that he had lost the scent, but Throat Ripper was the best and, with a growl that made my entire body vibrate, he pounced forwards and hopped from one little marshy island to the next.

Soon I caught signs that the cervid had been around. Hoofprints in the soggy soil, bushes that had been cut apart in unnatural ways and patches of the ground that seemed... lifted.

I guessed that they had stopped caring about stealth after a little ways.

The sun was high overhead when I heard a distant sound. Talking. Too far away for me to understand, but that didn’t matter. Voices meant people and the only people I thought we would be meeting were the villains we were chasing.

“I’m going to scout ahead,” I told Throat Ripper. “Can you and the other skeletons wait here?”

He nodded his big doggy head.

“Alright. Hide. If they spot me they might chase me, and it might be best that they don’t see you.”

The doggy growled. Not one long continuous rumble, but a series of grumbles that were interrupted a few times. The skeletons all darted this way and that. Some splashing into the muddy waters and submerging themselves until only the top of their heads were visible. Others jumped into the skeletal branches of some nearby trees and then stood frozen on the spot, completely immobile. The rest burrowed into bushes and hid in their shadows.

In under a minute the only plainly visible skeleton was Throat Ripper. He padded back a way and sat behind a rock.

“Right,” I said. “I’ll be back in no time at all, but if I don’t return... then save Amaryllis for me?”

The dog looked my way, then let out a whine.

I could only respond with a sad smile.

The area wasn’t as marshy as some of the spots we had passed over the last day or so. There were more rivulets here and fewer large ponds, and the ground was rockier. I could see the mountain range to the east a whole lot clearer, which meant that we were probably on the edge of Deepmarsh’s territory.

That was both good and bad news. It meant that moving was easier. It also meant that the bad guys would be getting further away faster.

I scowled. I couldn’t pin the moment I had decided that the cervid, at least this group of them, were the bad guys. It was probably because they were no-good meanies who kidnapped my friend.

Still, thinking of people as ‘bad guys’ was dehumanizing. Or whatever the word was for dehumanizing something that wasn’t a human. It made it too easy to think of them as non-people, which in turn meant that hurting them was easier to justify.

That was the kind of mindset that started wars and racism and it wasn’t a nice way of thinking.

I was better than that.

So, these cervid, bad as they might be, might have had good reasons to kidnap Amaryllis. Maybe her family was secretly evil. Maybe their loved ones were being held hostage. Maybe... there were lots of maybes.

Did it matter?

I hopped over to the edge of a hill and immediately fell to the ground as I heard talking nearby. They were close. I recognized Amaryllis’ voice.

On hands and knees I snuck up to the edge of the hill and slowly looked over it.

“--And then, once we’re done ruining your economy, pitiful as it is, we’ll ruin that filthy misogynistic culture of yours!” Amaryllis was saying.

I grinned. She was still alive.

Sure, she had ropes wrapped all around her chest and was slung over the shoulder of one of the cervid--The Lancer I had fought--but she was in one piece. Her wounds even looked better, with a strip of cloth wrapped around her leg. Her jacket was long gone, and it looked as if they had frisked her, but she was in good enough shape to complain.

It was as if a stone had been lifted from my shoulders.

“Can we shut her up yet?” One of the cervids asked. The mage that Amaryllis had fought. “We have some cloth laying around.”

The leader shook his head. “No. She might choke herself just to spite us.”

“When we stop,” the Plains Speaker spoke up. “Can I have a bit of fun with her?”

This time the leader took a while to reply. “The client didn’t specify if she needed to be intact or not.”

“Is that a yes?” he asked.

The leader shook his head. “Not until we get confirmation.”

“Stop talking over my head in your barbaric tongue!” Amaryllis shouted.

“Can we at least slap her until she stops screaming?” one of them asked. “She’s going to attract trouble. And she’s giving me a headache besides.”

I loosened my hand. It had been clenched so tight that my nails were digging into my palms hard enough to leave marks. They were going to... to do bad things to her.

“Someone’s watching us,” one of the cervid said.

I looked up in time to see a few sets of eyes looking my way. “Oh, shoot.”

“Two, Four, after her!” the leader said.

I didn’t wait to see which cervid that meant. I just shoved off the hill and jumped away, pushing enough stamina into the motion that I practically flew across the landscape.

I heard hooves thundering after me. They were catching up, even with my head start.

A glance over my shoulder showed a cervid waving a staff in the air, a sort of almost transparent whip flicking up and out above him. Then it shot forwards.

My next jump threw me sideways and around a tree, one that I knew held a skeletal cervid in it.

The whip-crack was like a rifle going off behind me, and the tree’s trunk exploded into a shower of splinters that had me covering my head.

Any doubt I had that they hadn’t been holding back at the bridge fled.

I jumped over the rock where Throat Ripper hid and backed up into it.

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Jumping skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!

Rank B costs two (2) Class Points

“Not now,” I muttered to Mister Menu.

Throat Ripper tilted his head at me.

“Come on out, girl, and we’ll only kill you slowly,” one of them said.

Were they trying to sound like b-rated villains?

Throat Ripper made a noise deep in his bones that shook the air around him. It sunk into me, and soon I found myself having a hard time just breathing.

Then he roared.

You have heard the roar of a fearsome creature! Your soul is shaken.

Throat Ripper grabbed onto the edge of the stone we were hiding behind, claws digging into the rock hard enough that little pieces of it rained down around me. Then he leapt over the edge.

I heard two screams, then one.

The mud to the side exploded apart as a skeleton ran out of it and I heard another dropping from a tree.

Soon there were no more screams.

Congratulations! You have killed Titan, (Wind Runner Level 12 / Wind Tear Level 4 ) and Rex, (Flaming Lancer level 10)! Bonus Exp was granted for killing a person above your level! Due to not being the primary combatant your reward is reduced!

“No,” I whispered.

The prompt, the accusation, disappeared.

Bing Bong! Congratulations, your Cinnamon Bun class has reached level 7!

Stamina +5

Flexibility +10

You have gained: One Class Point

“No,” I said. “Take it back? Please?” I begged to Mister Menu. I didn’t deserve a level, I didn’t deserve to get stronger.

The level up prompt just floated there.

Maybe I did deserve it.

Maybe it was my condemnation. Absolute proof that I had done the worst thing a person could do.

Titan and Rex. Two people that wouldn’t be going home. That wouldn’t be seeing their families. They wouldn’t spend any more time with their friends. Two people that I had killed, that I had taken everything away from.

I was having a bit of difficulty breathing. My heart couldn’t decide if it should be racing or seizing and I felt torn up, as if some huge monster was tugging me every which way.

A nose to the side had me looking up.

Throat Ripper didn’t have eyes, not really, but there was still concern radiating off of him.

“A-Amaryllis,” I said. “We still need to save her.”

Throat Ripper opened his mouth. I looked away. There was too much blood there.

I moved out from around the rock, eyes firmly shut. I didn’t want to see. I should have looked. I should have allowed the scene to sear itself into my mind for the rest of my life.

But in the end I was a coward.

We moved past, Throat Ripper guiding me as I held onto one of the bony spikes on his armour.

“Wh-when we arrive,” I began. “Let me talk. Please? There’s still a chance. We can negotiate, or... or I can apologize. At the very least? To their friends?”

The skeletal dog didn’t seem to understand most of what I had said, but I think he knew that I wanted to go ahead on my own again. We moved a little slower, with me setting the pace and the skeletons moving in a wedge behind us.

We were giving the cervid time to prepare, time to get ready to attack us as soon as we showed up. That was okay. It gave me time to breath too, to... bury what I had caused. Not very deep, but enough that I could function for a little bit.

Mom had always told me not to hide how I felt about the world, that I should always let my tears and my smiles run free.

So, while we walked, I mourned for two men whose names I knew, but whose faces were still unknown to me, and would probably remain that way forever.

And then we were near the hill, and the time for sadness and such was over.