Chapter 6x: Ambushing the Assassins
Day breaks once more over the lands of Lycia. With the legion fully energized after a good night's rest, they swiftly move on to pursue the pursuers of their newfound comrades, Nils and Ninian. What lies before them will be another experience in these perilous times.
The legion halts at what seems to be another fortress that sets itself as another base of operations for the assassins that were pursuing the eerie siblings. As they step in and huddle at the first gateway–as there are two gateways to enter–Lucas tells everyone to huddle up as he is about to discuss the battle plan.
"Alright, as you all know, we are here to take Ninian's ring. But we can take a few loot along the way right?"
Lucas looks to Matthew with an evil smile on his face.
"Our priority is to take that ring but if we can collect a few things on the way then I believe that it won't hurt to do some shopping."
"Hey brother, Matthew and I checked the other path ahead and spotted a separate room. We um, plan to check that room once we are in position for battle. You alright with that?" Ren suggests.
"Go." Lucas says with absolutely no hesitation as well as noting the area and the amount of this place before turning around and turning to the group. "Alright we split into 2 teams, Me, Kent, Sain, Dorcas and Lyn are vanguard with Serra and Nils acting as rear while Erk and Wil follow Matthew and Ren and act as their support." Lucas commands as both Erk and Wil leave to support Ren and Matthew. "Lucius, could you protect Ninian?"
"Sure." Lucius then leaves to guard the maiden.
Lucas turns around and walks ahead before turning to the group and smiling in the most evil and manic way as possible. "Now come, we have a ring to take back." Making some of the legion members who were with him wonder if he had held a grudge from the last battle.
"W-what about me? M-may I join with you too?" Florida asks fidgetly.
"Florina, have you forgotten what Ren just warned? They are more ruthless than ordinary bandits and will show no mercy to any of us. I don't believe that you are prepared for this. Not just yet, " Lucas sternly explained. "I fear that there may be Archers afoot."
"B-but–"
"Sorry Florina, but stay here with Rath and the others to protect our position, and Ninian. We'll be fine, " Lyn assures before whispering into her ear: "He won't die that easily, why don't you trust him more?"
"Haaaawaah, wagh!" Florina yelped before she dashed out of the fortress.
"The lovebirds deserve it " Lucas answered plainly as he flares his cloak with his lance in hand and a javelin as his backup weapon. "Now, let's give 'em pain!"
Soon the enemies notice their presence, and charge in to eliminate the intruders. Kent and Sain charge in from the sides as the tactician charges forward, spear in hand, with both swordswoman and warrior charging in from the side.
Meanwhile, on Ren's side, they are currently in a slight crossfire…
"Matthew duck!" Ren yells as he lunges and kicks the brigand to the wall before he could hack Matthew with his big axe.
"Heads up!" Wil warns as he fires arrows towards the archer and kills him swiftly on the head before he could re-arm himself. He then tries to shoot at the burglar affiliated with the assassins, but misses by an inch to his cheek.
"Drats, " he curses before Erk moves him aside and summons a fireball to roast the thief into a life-threatening state.
"Haaagh!" Ren cries as he dashes towards the immobilized thief with his bloodied sword, stained by the dead brigand, and impales his heart to the wall, making the burglar choke on his own blood and breath his last on the stone floor.
"Whew, that took way longer than I thought, thank heavens Florina wasn't here. Saved us some time, " Ren comments, making Florina sneeze from an uneasy feeling.
"Brother, don't say that. It could've been much worse, right guys?" Wil replies before turning to see a disappointed Erk agitated from a sneaky Matthew cracking the chest lock.
"Got it!" Matthew then opens the chest, revealing a huge, heavy, steel mallet to the small party.
"A hammer! Dorcas could probably find this useful dealing with armoured foes, " Wil points out.
"I'll carry this, besides, I'm not going to waste too much energy fighting since there are the two of you, " Erk replies as he takes the hammer while mentioning the two offensive members Ren and Wil.
"Thanks man, " Ren smirks in gratitude.
"Whatever, let's just get this over with. Why don't we check on Lucas and the rest? I think they are doing much better than us, " Erk predicts as they move out of the room.
"The situation is getting dire!" Kent reports as he and Sain lock blades and lances with several cavalry men.
"I can't keep using this staff any much longer! The mana stone is losing its glow!" Serra anxiously reported while trying to heal both Kent and Sain against waves of enemy cavalry.
"At least you got it easy!" Lucas sarcastically answers while stuck in a pincer attack with a swordsman and a nimble thunder mage. "Hold the line! They should be done right about now."
"Whoa! Waaaah!" Nils cries while dodging a spearman's attempt of impaling him to the wall.
"Hold fast Nils! Wait for me!" Lyn replies as she finishes off the other swordsman with a critical slash to his throat, making him bleed and paint the floor with his blood. She then runs towards the spearman chasing Nils and locks blades with him while Lucas finishes off the mage with a flying javelin and the swordsman with a good thrust to his beating heart.
The tough spearman tries to fight hard with the nimble swordswoman. However, meets his end carelessly from a small flying axe decapitating his head clean off and falls down lifeless.
"Got ya, " Dorcas comments as he catches the boomeranging axe into his hand.
"I may have completely underestimated the enemy and their ranks. Never thought they'd have this many varieties of mercenaries and assassins. Should've taken Ren more seriously, " Lucas rants as he pulls out his lance from a dead spearman.
"You think?!" Serra screamed out in protest while gripping her dim-lit staff tight anxiously.
"We should have asked Lucius to assist, he is a wielder of Light magic, is he not?" Kent suggests as he and Sain sheathe their blades after finishing off the last of the enemy cavalry.
"No point grumbling now that the deed is done, right?" Lyn comments.
"Sheesh, I hope. Don't wanna deal with that kind of ordeal again, " Sain whimpered from the stress.
"Well, you guys seem done now, " Ren deadpans from the other side of the corridor near the leader's quarters with Wil, Matthew, and Erk who is barely keeping his stamina while dragging the huge steel hammer.
"I believe someone else is more capable of using this?" he grunts while dragging the hammer to the wall then props himself and pants from exhaustion.
Dorcas goes and holds the hammer then attempts to pound the wall, dealing a blow so strong that the wall fractured and cracked.
"Pretty heavy, my kind of specialty, " he commented with a thumbs up while holding the hammer over his shoulder.
"Don't mention it, " Erk replies while regaining his strength.
However, Erk was pushed back hard to a nearby pillar by dark bullets, shocking the legion into high alert.
"A shaman! Get out of range!" Ren warns the rest of the legion as he faces off with the shaman and rushes towards him with a flurry of swift sword slashes, dismembering him into a pile of minced flesh.
"Mmmm *glass shatters* gyah! Oh dear, I'm done with this staff now, " Serra reports with her shattered staff after healing Erk's bruises from the shaman's dark bullets.
"Hey now, no need to worry, there are a bunch of unused vulneraries these goons are keeping, just search them carefully, " Matthew points out after revealing an unused vulnerary that was in possession of the dead archer.
"Thanks for the heads up, but that can be your job. In the meantime, let's meet this silly bastard trying to mess with little children, " Lucas rallies with his lance in hand.
"Onward!" Lyn rallies with the Mani Katti.
The two leaders and a few selected members of the legion's current team make their way to the assassins' inner chambers and meet a bearded blond man with a steel longsword along with a mage as his last companion.
"I must not fail her ladyship, not here! This is as far as you go!" the blond swordsman roars with his sword ready for battle and the mage at his side summoning waves of fire.
"Erk, I need you to take the mage down for me! Keep him occupied!" Lucas orders while engaging in combat with Beyard. The tactician thrusted his spear on the mercenary's chest, making him scream in pain. The mercenary then swings his sword at Lucas, striking him in the chest, making Lucas jump back a couple feet.
"Lucas!" Lyn screams seeing this and was about to rush into defend him but before she could Lucas rushed in with javelin in hand.
He threw the spear at the man's sword arm, making him drop his sword and he was trying to move away but it was sort of hard to do so with a spear in his chest. While trying to regain his weapon, Ren dashes and kicks him hard with a good strike to his abdomen, making him fall backwards and hard with Ren's weight on top of him. As his eyes widen from his strength, he kicks Ren off with his greater strength. Lucas took the chance as he rushed in, pulled the lance out of his wounded arm and continually twirled the lance before stabbing his chest and impaling him to the floor, making him scream in agonising pain.
"You took the property of a maiden, then you almost took my life." Lucas says as he took the spear back, making him scream a bit more in pain. "Do not fret, Death awaits for you."
"Luc, slow down! He will–"
"Tch. In failure...only death awaits, " the blond swordsman grunts before biting his molar and spew foam out of his mouth with his last breath, shocking Ren, Lucas and the rest of the legion with them from the morbid result.
Lucas sighs a little before falling to one knee, clearly exhausted from the battle. "Nothing we can do now...Alright, Matthew, Did we loot everything in the location?" He says breathing hard, making Matthew show everything that he looted while Serra immediately moved to heal the tactician's open wound before he fell unconscious.
Lyn looks on with worry for the tactician and at the same time, thinking of a way to scold him for his recklessness before going to check on Ren. She finds him looking at the said corpse and moves closer in an attempt to comfort him
"This, this is just wrong...this never happened, " Ren mutters with his fists and teeth clenched before the poisoned corpse. "What just happened all these years when I…, " he mutters before feeling a light tap on his shoulder.
"Ren, let's go, " Lyn replies as she leaves the room, the rest of the legion has left with Dorcas carrying the unconscious tactician.
Ren stood there alone dumbfounded, pondering on the events that had happened lately and kept them to himself before checking the dead swordsman's body and found a silver ring with a few gemstones on it and a collapsible spyglass.
"This must be the ring, " Ren mutters with a depressing voice before leaving the room quietly and meeting up with the rest of the legion.
The two siblings were the first that Ren saw as they were having a small conversation with Lyn until Ren interrupts to reveal the silver ring he found from the dead swordsman.
"I believe this is yours, milady, " Ren courteously asks with the ring in his hand.
"Yes, thank you for doing this for me, " Ninian thanked him as she received her ring again. She looked on and saw Serra trying to heal up the tactician while complaining again on how much he tries to attack any and every enemy.
"Good grief, Lucas. How many times are you going to really kill yourself out there? I can't always heal you know! Wait, are you perhaps trying to monopolise my attention to you?! Surely you jest!?" Serra shrieks embarrassingly and excitedly from the indirect thought of Lucas trying to make a move on her that she applied the last drops of vulnerary harshly with a hit on his bruise and scars, making him scream in pain from her rough hand, waking him up from his serene sleep before cursing at the woman.
Lyn giggles from the mere thought of Lucas having to deal with such a woman everyday, but turns away from him to hide her embarrassment from the unsuspecting swordsman and siblings.
After a half an hour has passed by before everyone once again departs to the nearest village and decides to rent a couple of rooms at an inn to stay for the night.
Later, as everyone quickly settled in, the swordsman and the tactician had another small talk at the end of the inn's corridor, with both drinking a couple of cups of wine to ease what had happened that day.
"Ren, are you still hesitant to come clean to me?" Lucas interrogated with his arms crossed. Ren answers back with a moment of silence.
"I can take your silence as a yes. Eventually, you are gonna talk to me about such things." Lucas says taking another sip of wine while Ren looks away, sipping his wine while trying to sort his thoughts.
"But enough about you, Let's have a more interesting talk: wanna hear from Florina?" Lucas teases making Ren spit out everything that he drank so far.
"Mmm, what do you mean by that brother?" Ren interrogates while wiping his wet mouth.
"You heard me. Florina was adamant to joining us in our subjugation mission while you were off to your battle position. Surprisingly, Lyn mentioned something to Florina which made her explode in embarrassment. Gee, wonder what did she really mention hmmm?" Lucas teases, noticing the slightly drunk Ren grasp his wooden cup of wine upon hearing the last statement.
"Could it be something? Or someone perhaps?" Lucas adds, hearing a loud crack from Ren before noticing the dismantled cup in shambles; dripping with wine over his hands.
"...You seem to be close to her, do you know whats going on with her?" Lucas asks with both a gentle tone and a smug look. "Don't you want to talk to her more often?" Lucas asks, malicious intent dripping from his voice.
"I did notice, but...haagh. I highly doubt she will understand someone like me. Heck maybe she's just being unbelievably kind to me as Lyn was, " Ren laughs off.
"What makes you think any girl would literally get embarrassed by you? Except the part about your talent for speech, " Lucas points out.
"What about that moment with Serra? I overheard from Lyn at how flabbergasted and blushed Serra was from how often you requested medical attention from her, " Ren jokingly points out while holding his laughter from the way Lyn relayed the scene to him.
Lucas, flushed red because of this comeback, didn't notice the swordswoman looking at him as he was busy being assaulted by the pink haired healer. Cursing at himself, he replied. "Well, not my fault that she complained about me. And it is not my fault that the enemy hit me back and made a wound on my chest. And not my fault that she misread the situation and reacted in such a way." As he made more and more excuses, his face turned more and more red due to the embarassment, making Ren explode with laughter. "Gods kill me now…" Lucas mutters under his breath.
"Whew, well, look on the bright side: Lyn didn't take that matter very seriously with the way she explained that situation to me, so I trust that you guys are still fine, " Ren explains with his usual jolly smile.
"Okay, now that part did kind of scare me for a moment. Thankfully, she is much more understanding compared to that girl. I think Florina would think the same as well, " Lucas answers back, before looking serious for a moment.
"Alright Ren, I have a plan, but I need your advice."
Chapter END